Unearthed and unheeded
Fiasco Season 5 reminds us that history is never really history.
I went into the fifth season of the journalism podcast Fiasco excited to learn about the AIDS crisis, another little-known-to-me corner of American history. What I wasn’t expecting was how familiar it would turn out be. That shock of recognition, the “everything old is new again” realization makes Fiasco one of the pieces of media I’ve most appreciated in 2022 – and presents a solid case for the value of paying creators for the work you enjoy.
For those unfamiliar, Fiasco is the brainchild of journalist Leon Neyfakh, who rose to prominence as the creator and host of the first two seasons of Slate’s Slow Burn podcast. The show focuses on colossal systemic breakdowns in American history, like the 2000 Florida recount or the Boston school desegregation crisis. This year, Neyfakh and his team at Prologue Projects moved the show to Audible and explored the first cases of AIDS in the 1980s, how treatment and recognition of the disease were stalled by prejudice against the people groups most affected, and how disagreements about the best way to combat the virus led to loggerheads among those with the most passion and means to take action.
Right off the bat, Neyfakh acknowledges the uncanny nature of what you’re about to hear: He became interested in researching the AIDS crisis because he wanted to see what happened the last time the US was gripped by a pandemic. He found the response to be eerily similar to the way the world (and America in particular) is handling the coronavirus now. In that way, the earliest episodes of the season’s eight-part hit the hardest; I was especially struck by episode 3, “The Baths,” which focuses on the debate over whether to close San Francisco's gay bathhouses – early super-spreader locations for the immunodeficiency disease. The parallels between those battle lines and the ones we draw now are unavoidable: selfishness, the illusion of invulnerability and worries about curtailed liberty creating a toxic brew that led to hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths.
At times, the circumstances are so similar that they seem crafted as some sort of reverse allegory sent forward through time, but facts they remain. Simply replace the word “mask” with “condom,” and you’ll have an idea of how one segment of gay men responded to the public health threat of their era. Even some of the players are the same. Neyfakh interviews Anthony Fauci, then and current director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about his office’s response to the virus. An early, key piece of government documentation on how to respond to the virus was written by John Roberts, now the chief justice of the Supreme Court (and a man who, coincidentally, is currently embroiled in another controversy about a public health opinion that will affect others’ lives far more than it will his own).
One of the most thought-provoking elements of this season is how it digs, intentionally or not, into the inherent biases of the well-meaning progressives who are likely the show’s primary audience. I have some sympathy for many of the people who were against the bathhouse closures. In a world that had persecuted their lifestyles for centuries, gay people were understandably wary of losing one of their hard-fought gains. On the other hand, a lot of these people made some really fucking destructive choices that led to their deaths or the deaths of others – a tragic reminder that the capacity to ignore simple, vital public health recommendations is one of the few things left that conservatives and liberals can both get behind.
For me personally, it served as a gentle reminder to not let someone’s politics obscure their humanity, or at least their mortality. In episode 7, “Lazarus,” an activist points out that people make dumb decisions all the time – careless talk, bad driving, unsafe sex, and more. That doesn’t mean they deserve a death sentence. In the last two years, I’ve often found myself very angry at the people who continue to perpetuate COVID through their words and deeds; in my darker moods, I’ve browsed with some interest through a Herman Cain award or three or six or 10 (if you don’t know what that is, it’s probably better for your mental health if you continue not to). That these vaccine truthers and horse paste ingesters are stupid, I have no doubt – or at least, I have no doubt that in this area of their lives, they are making very stupid choices. But human beings are stupid creatures, and if the stupidity of my word or deed was enough to end my life, I’d likely already be dead. Fortunately, I have lived to learn, slowly but surely, and that is what we should desire for everyone.
Of course, with AIDS as with coronavirus, the primary driver of the virus’s continued existence is institutional rather than personal. In the eighth final episode, “No Harm,” Neyfakh compares AIDS awareness to saving the whales – a cause du jour whose time has passed. Nobody checks in on how the whales are doing now, just as the energy behind caring about AIDS dissipated as the well-to-do got access to care and the conservatives continued to hold the pursestrings (and neoliberal chickenshits like Bill Clinton refused to stand up to them, as recounted in infuriating detail in episode 8). What took years to happen to AIDS is already happening to COVID, as our government’s current response to the disease is little more than a shrug and an admonishment to get back to work. Once a disease is no longer a problem for the people in power – or once the acknowledgement of said disease is deemed to be bad for business – anyone still concerned about it is a distraction at best, a counterproductive crank at worst. In the end, that is the most reassuring, and frustrating, lesson of Fiasco: we are all alike; our institutions are alike; and change can be exacted only incrementally, if at all.
Fiasco is only one of the podcasts I pay to listen to. I’d estimate that I probably spend about $20 to $30 on podcasts each month, including pay-to-listen subscriptions like Fiasco and Blowback, Patreon bonus feeds like that of Chapo Trap House and Blank Check, or voluntary support contributions to the shows on Maximum Fun. When Neyfakh started Fiasco, a lot of the fans of the free-to-listen Slow Burn scoffed, but an unwillingness to support the art we want to see in the world leads to a flatter, less introspective place. I’ve quoted him before, but comedian Tim Batt likes to say that every dollar we spend is a vote for the kind of world we’d like to live in, and I want to live in a world where more insightful journalism like Fiasco exists*.
If Fiasco sounds like something you’d be interested in, check out the first season for free and then pay to hear the other three on Luminary and Audible. More broadly, however, consider how you can make choices to better benefit those who make the things you love. We’re so quick to take for granted the inherent cost of living in a world of streaming services and consolidation; Spotify is so much more convenient and cheap than actually buying your favorite artists’ new material. In that exchange, however, we’re often shorting the folks who did the work and primarily benefiting those who profit from that labor – or, in the case of Fiasco, letting what is cheap be the enemy of what is good.
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What else is good on the internet?
I found this to be a very refreshing take on electoral politics and how much midterm elections are actually affected by current issues/events.
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From the vault
Here’s my review of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
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Follow me on Twitter @RTHowitzer, read my Letterboxd reviews @mrchumbles, listen to my Star Trek podcast at outofcontreks.podbean.com, or email me at outofcontreks@gmail.com.
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* I also want to live in a world where I’m not paying Jeff Bezos money by subscribing to Audible, but Fiasco is worth it! Truly, the loom of capitalism spins a tangled web.