Stanley Crouch: "For Blacks, Complacency Is A Killer"

Asserts the moderate-conservative commentator, about HIV/AIDS: "A very good anthology called 'Not in My Family: AIDS in the African-American Community,' edited by Gil Robertson 4th, will bring the interested reader up to snuff on the matter. But for those in a rush to get the human feeling that can often come through strongest in cinematic narrative, I recommend HBO's 'Life Support' starring Queen Latifah and premiering Saturday. 'Life Support,' as they say in the business, puts 'a human face' on a terrible plague and makes us feel the sort of compassion that underlies all civilized behavior. The characters are neither angels nor devils, neither b____s nor whores. They are stubborn, they are difficult and they can be exasperating. Yet they are never less than human - always a reason for celebration when black women are depicted with full hearts, minds and difficult memories. Director Nelson George co-wrote the script and makes the story about a woman who contracted the virus while she was living the wild dope life. While she was doing that, her mother had to rear her oldest daughter, who is now about to leave high school and feels as bitter toward her mother as her grandmother does. Latifah's performance as the woman with HIV is both abrasive and tender, which is matched by Anna Deavere Smith's as her mother. The mutual bitterness they feel toward each other is not only palpable but understandable. One is trying her best to do better, but the other continually pins her to a disrespectful wall of irresponsibility and drug-induced indifference. The frustrated love that puddles in the basement of each woman's personality makes their confrontations even more moving once they are understood. Rachel Nicks is startlingly fresh as Latifah's oldest daughter, skittish and extremely intelligent, raised by her grandmother and is afraid to get too close to her mother, who has become an AIDS activist. In all, the complex psychological states of the characters reflect what a plague can do to a family or a community and what a community can never fail to do, which is face the facts and change whatever behavior made it vulnerable to disease."