The Relevance of Rose McGowan’s Ruth in 2017

Trevor Church
Jul 25, 2017 · 3 min read
Screenshot of the visually stunning short film, Ruth.

Last month Newsweek published the article “Trump Doesn’t Care About HIV. We’re Outta Here” written by (former) HIV Advisory Panel member Scott Schoettes. Soon after, amidst PRIDE, media outlets across the board ran the article on six of Donald Trump’s advisors for HIV walking out. Of the incident, Schoettes wrote

“Five of my colleagues and I resigned this week from the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA).

As advocates for people living with HIV, we have dedicated our lives to combating this disease and no longer feel we can do so effectively within the confines of an advisory body to a president who simply does not care.”

This news came as a blow to the LGBT community after continually leaping hurdles — along with every marginalized group in America — since Trump has taken office. The United States has a Vice President who believes in conversion therapy. The White House has removed LGBT individuals from the federal census for 2020; an act that scarily resembles Chechen leader Kadyov’s claims that he wouldn’t be able to torture gay people because they don’t exist. A comment the White House has also chosen to ignore.


Enter feminist director Rose McGowan’s second film Ruth. The short film is based on the great impact HIV/AIDS activist Ruth Coker Burks had on the community. A woman who saw the people and not the disease when no one else did. Unfortunately, the story of Ruth has never really received the recognition it deserves — until now.

At 8 minutes long, Rose McGowan accomplishes what few other directors can accomplish on the subject with 90 minutes. She takes us back to the Reagan era and the AIDS epidemic (before they even had a name for the disease). She puts us in the hospital room, and shows us the travesty. She shows us the American genocide of gay men in the 1980's through the eyes of Coker Burks. The despair, confusion, desolation, fear and hate faced by close to half a million people during that time are brought to life and put in our hearts through the lens of McGowan’s camera.


Last December at a RESIST meeting in Minneapolis I had an older man hug me and cry. “I can’t go through that again. I can’t watch all of my friends just disintegrate. I won’t do it. I can’t.” he said. He was referring to the 80's crisis. He had lost his partner and most of his friends. President Reagan remained silent. This man’s concern was and is still valid. Yes HIV prophylactic exists now. Yes HIV is manageable now. We have decades of healthcare and insurance improvements that have made that possible. However, the Trump administration wants to cut $168 million in funding for HIV programs. A cut this large would send the community back into the days of Ruth Coker Burks having to bury hundreds of men in her own section of a cemetery. The cost of commonly used HIV meds Isentress and Truvada is more than $1500 a month, each, without insurance coverage.


Screenshot of McGowan’s film Ruth

The film evokes emotion not just through it’s script and subject matter but through the use of perfectly calculated melancholic color schemes set against drab backgrounds, dimly lit, with our attention focalized on profound objects of symbolism — like the red dress in the shot above. The film uses every tool at hand while remaining minimalist, and produces a profound effect.

Do we, in the era of trump, risk going back to the days of Reagan? Rose McGowan’s film really pushes us to confront that reality but it doesn’t leave us without hope. The closing monologue stresses the importance of solidarity in these times. Not just within the LGBT community but within all marginalized communities. Our hope can stem from the awareness we now have that wasn’t around then; the changing mentality of the American majority; and artists and activists, like McGowan, who have and will continue to be vocal on behalf of those who can’t.

Thank you Rose McGowan and thank you Ruth Coker Burks. You can view McGowan’s film here.

Trevor Church

Written by

Author of Out of the Woods: The Lynch Mob & Hillary Clinton

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