One of the great myths surrounding the AIDS epidemic is that of patient zero, this Quebec flight attendant who introduced the virus to America and was single-handedly responsible for the greatest health disaster of the 20th century. But what is the source of this story, who invented it and for what reason? The answer is revealed to us in a surprising comic strip!
In 1981, Randy Shilts joined the San Francisco Chronicles as the first openly gay reporter for a mainstream newspaper and prided himself on an unwavering professional ethic. Barely taking office, he is contacted by a man who reveals to him that a cancer seems to be spreading in the homosexual community and that he himself suffers from Kaposi syndrome (which the journalist initially confuses with a nasty Superman). The journalist goes to his bedside, but the young man is already dead and is confronted by doctors who are doing everything to cover up the affair.
One thing led to another and he learned that the victims had contracted the disease during a sexual relationship, but all his attempts to alert public opinion met with a categorical refusal, both from the generic press, which did not I’m not interested in a story about “queers”, only on the part of the gay media who only see it as yet another lie aimed at stigmatizing the LGBT community and its meeting places.
During his research, he meets a scientist who shares the results of his research with him. He then misunderstands the meaning of “patient o” believing he reads a zero when it is the letter “o” for “out of California”. The expression simply designated the source of a grouping of cases, namely the lovers of the same man.
The scientists had a stroke of luck when they came across a Quebec flight attendant, Gaétan Dugas, who carefully wrote down each of her fucks in a small notebook, which allowed them to establish the sexual nature of the disease. Meeting only indifference, Randy realizes that America is above all fascinated by villains and serial killers and decides to create a fake news story to catch the public eye.
This is how the myth is born of a flight attendant who fucks left and right, well aware that he is carrying a fatal disease that he contracted during a stopover in Haiti: patient zero . As Haiti was then associated with communism, the perfect villain is thus created since it combines three scapegoats of choice for the American readership: blacks, homosexuals and communists.
The journalist’s intention was to alert public opinion and the result exceeded his expectations since AIDS quickly established itself in popular consciousness. The perverse effect is that it has, however, transformed an innocent flight attendant into a killer with perverse intentions, in addition to demonizing AIDS in the collective imagination by associating it with debauchery, malevolence and inhumanity.
The comic strip by Clément Xavier and Héloïse Chochoix eloquently depicts an era agitated by the struggles of LGBTQ communities, sometimes within its own ranks, in order to emerge from the shadows and stigma. She also includes some side stories that add historical context, including why San Francisco is home to such a large gay community (surprise, the military is responsible) and how modern saunas came to be. She also skillfully combines elements that do not always go well together: journalistic investigation, historical context and personal story. A very tangible sensitivity emerges from many pages and we finish reading it with our throat tight with emotion.
INFO | Randy Shilts and the fake news of patient zero / Clément Xavier and Chochoix. Paris: Glénat, 2024, 160 p.
