October 21, 2015
Watch: 'Let's Finish What We Started,' Says GLAAD and Liz Taylor AIDS PSA
Winnie McCroy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Celebrities have come together to make history in the fight against AIDS. In a new PSA released today by GLAAD and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, they have dedicated themselves to eradicating HIV, in her memory.
JoeMyGod reported on the project, which kicked off with a public service announcement. The PSA begins with Elizabeth Taylor's historic and impassioned speech at the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert as a framework to introduce a new generation to the modern realities of HIV and AIDS, as well as the tools we have to overcome them.
It includes participation from Meredith Vieira, Whoopi Goldberg, Jonathan Groff, Michael Emerson, Tituss Burgess, and Bebe Neuwirth and will air nationally in a thirty-second format with generous support from Comcast-NBCUniversal. An extended version of the PSA will run online.
The ongoing partnership between GLAAD and ETAF urges Hollywood to develop more characters and stories that reflect the nation's HIV/AIDS population and assists journalists in their coverage of HIV/AIDS in this new age of prevention and treatment.
"More than 1 million people in the United States are living with HIV, yet they're nearly invisible in the media," GLAAD CEO & President Sarah Kate Ellis told MSNBC exclusively.�"We cannot allow HIV and AIDS to continually be left out of conversations if we hope to raise awareness and�eradicate�the disease once and for all."�
Stigma, which bars the open and honest conversations necessary to eradicate the disease, remains the greatest barrier in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, and GLAAD and ETAF hope their new PSA will provide the framework for a new generation of Americans to start a dialogue about the modern realities of the epidemic, and they can be the generation to overcome it.
Elizabeth Taylor was one of the first major movie stars -- a real celebrity -- to use her voice to draw the worlds'�attention to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Now current A-list talent like Whoopi Goldberg, Bebe Neuwirth, and Meredith Vieira�are following in her lead.
"The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation is thrilled to be partnering with GLAAD. Their organization was created to respond to misinformation in the media about HIV and AIDS at a time when conversation in the zeitgeist about the epidemic was very high, but understanding of the virus was very low," said Joel Goldman, Managing Director of The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. "Today, it's the opposite. Conversation about HIV and AIDS is barely discussed in individual circles and has comparatively fallen out of the news cycle. This is despite the fact that the U.S. has not seen a decrease in new infection rates in nearly two decades."
Winnie McCroy is the Women on the EDGE Editor, HIV/Health Editor, and Assistant Entertainment Editor for EDGE Media Network, handling all women's news, HIV health stories and theater reviews throughout the U.S. She has contributed to other publications, including The Village Voice, Gay City News, Chelsea Now and The Advocate, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.