7. John Greyson, interview with author, Toronto, September 2, 2008, recording C1491/
41, tape 1, side A, BLSA.
8. Michael J. Trebilcock and Lisa Austin, “The Limits of the Full Court Press: Of
Blood and Mergers,” University of Toronto Law Journal 48, no. 1 (Winter 1998): 29– 30.
9. Brier, Infectious Ideas, 4.
10. Jackson, recording C1491/48, tape 1, side B; Tim McCaskell, “A Brief History of
AIDS activism in Canada,” Socialist Worker, November 24, 2012, http:// www .socialist .ca/
node/ 1453.
250
chapter 5
the offi ces of the collective that produced the Body Politic newspaper
in 1977 and later as part of a massive series of arrests in the city’s bath-
houses in early 1981— formed a historic backdrop that galvanized large
sections of the city’s gay population, the largest in the country, to re-
sist authorities seen as overstepping their jurisdiction. Susan Knabe and
Wendy Gay Pearson, the authors of a book- length critical analysis which
situates Zero Patience and Greyson’s activism within a wider political
context, suggest that the 1981 police raids on the bathhouses in that city
helped focus the community’s activism around explicit sexuality and the
right to share sexual spaces. Thus, in their words, “AIDS emerged into
a politicized community that had a particular ideological investment in
the defence of sexual practice and was sensitized to the various ways sex-
uality was being policed.”11 This high sensitivity, together with skepti-
cism toward mainstream media reporting on sexuality and relatively
easy travel links to such infl uential US cities as New York and Washing-
ton, DC, also help account for the emergence of a vibrant platform of
left- leaning protest which underpinned the two revisionist approaches to
the idea of “Patient Zero” from Toronto in the 1990s.12
In their analysis of the fi lm, Knabe and Pearson drily note that “Zero
Patience is a diffi cult fi lm to summarize.”13 Heeding their counsel, and
given the extensive analysis the fi lm has received elsewhere, particularly
in Knabe and Pearson’s excellent book, this chapter’s concern is with the
fi lm’s production, distribution and reception, with only a brief outline of
its contents. The Krever inquiry, on the other hand, has received much
less historical attention. Thus, more space will be allotted to describing
the inquiry’s genesis, internal workings, and proceedings, before the fi nal
section of the chapter evaluates the relative effi cacy of these two Toronto-
based interventions in refuting the dominant “Patient Zero” story.
AIDS Theatricality and Transnationalism
John Greyson’s fi lm has received a signifi cant amount of attention
from other authors who have critiqued Randy Shilts’s vision of “Patient
11. Susan Knabe and Wendy Gay Pearson, Zero Patience: A Queer Film Classic (Van-
couver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2011), 144.
12. Ibid. See also Silversides, AIDS Activist, 12– 14.
13. Knabe and Pearson, Zero Patience, 27.
Ghosts and Blood 251
Zero.”14 Writers have praised its wit, its creativity, and its energetic ex-
pression of the spirit of protest generated through the treatment activism
of groups including the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP)
and AIDS Action Now! Little argument is required, on the one hand,
to demonstrate that a fi lm— and particularly one which appropriates the
most self- consciously aware of cinematic genres: the musical— is theatri-
cal, a term which can suggest the knowing adoption of roles, following a
predetermined “script,” and illuminating particular moral messages. On
the other hand, a commission of inquiry could benefi t from a few words
of explanation to tease out the ways in which it could be viewed as a the-
atrical performance.
Like many other offi cial commissions before it, the Krever inquiry
was set up by government to investigate a matter of concern to the state.
These offi cial processes have been described by some commentators as
“symbolic rituals within modern States” and, more boldly, “theatres of
power.” Their work can be usefully divided into three stages: the inves-
tigative, the persuasive, and the archival.15 It is during the investigative
phase, when witnesses are called to deliver testimony, that an inquiry
is at its most evidently theatrical. In many ways similar to a traditional
courtroom, the commissioner sits at the head of the hearing room, fac-
ing a room full of interested parties, their representatives (typically law-
yers), members of the press, and the general public. The Krever inquiry
was similar to others in that its proceedings were televised, with key ex-
changes frequently excerpted for the evening news. With an eye to the
evidentiary power of the second two phases of the inquiry, lawyers act-
ing as counsel and representing interveners assembled panels of wit-
nesses to give testimony and submit documents. This evidence would,
they hoped, infl uence the writing of the commissioner’s report (which
many would also hope to be persuasive) and inhabit the offi cial inquiry’s
archive and thus serve as the articulation of an offi cial historical truth.
Frequent interviews by counsel to journalists covering the inquiry also
served as parallel attempts to shape the emergent historical truth.
Both the Krever inquiry and Zero Patience were, in different ways,
14. For critical responses to the fi lm, see Crimp, “Miserable Failure,” 124– 28; Treichler,
Theory in an Epidemic, 312– 14; Wald, Contagious, 254– 56; and most recently Tiemeyer,
Plane Queer, 191– 93.
15. Adam Ashforth, “Reckoning Schemes of Legitimation: On Commissions of In-
quiry as Power/Knowledge Forms,” Journal of Historical Sociology 3, no. 1 (1990): 1– 22.
252
chapter 5
concerned with HIV/AIDS as a transnational phenomenon. Both were
in dialogue with developments in other countries, such as public health
measures and activist responses, and were attentive to the ways in which
fl ows of bodies, ideas, and products, ranging from expertise to artistic
works to blood products, crossed into and out of Canada. The Krever in-
quiry had as its task to investigate the ways in which the Canadian blood
system had caused the infections of thousands of Canadians with HIV
and hepatitis during the 1980s. This complex industry was at its heart a
transnational one, with a dizzying overlap of players, regulators, donors,
and recipients, dispelling any notion of clearly articulated and carefully
monitored national borders and health systems. The inquiry invited ex-
perts from the United States to give testimony, and a substantial section
of its report examined the response to HIV/AIDS in other resource- rich
countries based on an extensive review of the international literature.
Greyson’s fi lm drew on more than a decade of his experiences of gay
activism and experimental art and video work in Canada, the United
States, and Europe, work which would anchor him within the networks
of activists who were involved in the tr
eatment activism of the late 1980s
and early 1990s. This activism, though drawing its initial impetus from
New York, spread widely and vigorously to cities in both the United
States and Canada, as well as overseas.16 It dealt with a disease that did
not recognize borders, in the context of states increasingly attempting
to do so, particularly in terms of erecting travel restrictions on people
living with HIV.17 The fi lm’s chances of success were from the outset
based on the prospect of reaching international audiences at fi lm festi-
vals, and its funding would involve backers in Canada and the United
Kingdom.18 It is to the genesis of this project that we now turn.
16. See Brier, Infectious Ideas, 156– 200; Mandisa Mbali, South African AIDS Activ-
ism and Global Health Politics (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), particularly
107– 35.
17. Crimp, “Miserable Failure,” 118.
18. Anna Stratton, John Greyson, and Louise Garfi eld, “Release & Marketing Pro-
posal,” draft, January 18, 1992, 1, fi le: Zero Patience— Marketing, Acc. 2003– 007– 05.486,
John Greyson Collection, Film Reference Library, Toronto (hereafter cited as Grey-
son Collection). Canadian fi nanciers included Telefi lm Canada, the Ontario Film Devel-
opment Corporation, the Canadian Film Centre, the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts
Council, and Cineplex Odeon Films; Channel 4 Television U.K. also provided funding;
Zero Tabloid [tabloid- style promotional material] (Toronto: Cineplex- Odeon Films, 1993),
5, folder 240, box 9, Michael Callen Papers, LGBT Community Center National History
Archive, New York City (hereafter cited as Callen Papers).
Ghosts and Blood 253
Zero Patience for Accusations
Between 1986 and 1990, John Greyson divided his time between Toronto
and Los Angeles, where he spent half of the year teaching at a local arts
college. In October 1987, a friend showed him the “Patient Zero” arti-
cle featured on the cover of that month’s edition of California magazine.
“Wait a sec, I thought. By 1987, they’d already identifi ed North Ameri-
can cases of AIDS dating back to the late sixties, so this story was clearly
suspect. Yet in the weeks and months that followed, Patient Zero was
taken up by the mainstream media to such a degree that today it’s ac-
cepted by many as a proven ‘fact.’ I decided to do a fi lm about the pol-
itics of such dubious ‘facts,’ and Zero Patience is the result.”19 Greyson
had not met Dugas while the fl ight attendant was still alive, despite their
perigrinations bringing them to Toronto and New York concurrently
during the early 1980s. He was, however, only one step removed, since
two of his friends had had sex with him.20 Greyson explained, “In our
fi lm, we never deny that Patient Zero was promiscuous. . . . We don’t re-
ally think it’s that important. Lots of people, gay and straight, are pro-
miscuous. We’re much more interested in why society needs a Patient
Zero, a scapegoat that they can distance themselves from. The fi lm re-
fuses to treat Patient Zero as a pariah— it tries to reclaim him, warts and
all, as one of us.”21
In 1990, John Greyson took up a directing residency at the Can-
ada Film Centre in Toronto. As part of his program application, he had
developed an outline for an AIDS musical, and in 1991 he wrote the
script’s fi rst draft, researching information about the fl ight attendant’s
life, international AIDS activist issues, and current theories and con-
troversies regarding the disease’s “causes, cures and treatment.”22 A de-
19. “The Whole Truth: Patient Zero Myth Debunked,” in Zero Tabloid, 3 Callen Pa-
pers; emphasis in original. See Christine Gorman, “Strange Trip Back to the Future: The
Case of Robert R. Spurs New Questions About AIDS.” Time, November 9, 1987, 75.
20. Greyson mentions a friend named Michael; Greyson, recording C1491/41, tape 1,
side A. The director was also friends with Ed Jackson, whose sexual contact with the fl ight
attendant was discussed in the previous chapter.
21. “Culture of Certainty? We Don’t Buy It!” in Zero Tabloid, 8, Callen Papers.
22. “zero patience— Development Summary,” 23 October 1991, fi le: Zero Patience—
Current, acc. 2003– 007– 05.0481, Greyson Collection. Among the critiques of the “Patient
Zero” story that infl uenced Greyson was an extended book review of And the Band Played
254
chapter 5
velopment outline for the fi lm hinted strongly at the direction it would
take (and anticipated a point of resonance with the blood recipients who
would later testify in the Krever inquiry): “Scientists, the media and gov-
ernments all seemed more concerned with identifying and isolating the
‘cause’ of the plague than they were with fi nding and treating the mil-
lions who are now infected.”23 Over the course of writing four subse-
quent drafts, Greyson’s fi lm project received funding support from sev-
eral Canadian arts councils, attracted colleagues from the fi lm center’s
producing program as coproducers, and gathered interest from domestic
and foreign distributors.24
Drawing its inspiration from the efforts of groups such as ACT UP
and video artists including Stuart Marshall, Greyson’s fi lm set out to
challenge the orthodoxies of science and the media’s claims to represent
truth. Embodying its aim of critiquing simplistic narratives spun by the
media, the fi lm’s complicated story line and songs brim with witty refer-
ences to AIDS activism of the 1980s and deliberately blend cinematic re-
alist and surrealist touches. As cultural critics have noted, Greyson de-
liberately calls attention to the constructedness of the story he tells, in
contrast with Shilts, whose journalistic history attempts to erase such
scaffolding.25 In the fi lm, Sir Richard Burton— the eminent Victorian ex-
plorer famous for searching for the source of the Nile and for his fascina-
tion with cross- cultural sexualities— is still alive, following “an unfortu-
nate encounter with the Fountain of Youth.” He works as a taxidermist
and curator at Toronto’s Natural History Museum, his character repre-
senting an overconfi dent culture of scientifi c certainty. Responsible for
developing a new exhibit for the museum’s Hall of Contagion, Burton
decides to focus his work on “Patient Zero,” the French Canadian fl ight
attendant blamed for bringing AIDS to North America. Meanwhile,
Zero, the ghost of this otherwise unnamed fl ight attendant, is trapped in
On by Duncan Campbell which accompanied the book’s British release: “An End to the
Silence,” New Statesman, March 4, 1988, 22– 23. A clipping of this review accompanies
other press materials in a funding application submitted by the producers in July 1992; fi le:
Zero Patience Funding Application, acc. 2003– 007– 05.0485, Greyson Collection.
23. John Greyson, “Zero Patience: Outline for a Musical,” 1, fi le: Zero Patience—
Current, Acc. 2003– 007– 05.0481, Greyson Collection.
24. The Producers [John Greyson, Louise Garfi eld, Anna Stratton], “Details of Pro-
du
ction,” 2 July 1992, fi le: Zero Patience Funding Application, Acc. 2003– 007– 05.0485,
Greyson Collection.
25. Crimp, “Miserable Failure,” 127– 28.
Ghosts and Blood 255
a watery, limbo- like existence. Zero wishes for his story to be told and
his life to be saved; mysteriously, his wish is partly granted. His ghost re-
turns to the present day, arising in the middle of a gay bathhouse hot tub.
To his sadness, however, Zero is invisible to everyone he encounters—
the men in the bathhouse, his former lover, and his mother— to everyone,
that is, except for Burton.
The fi lm’s labyrinthine plot moves between several sites which would
hold symbolic signifi cance for many North American people living with
AIDS and their family members: a doctor’s offi ce, where Zero observes
his former lover receiving treatment for an AIDS- related infection that
threatens his eyesight; a gay bathhouse; and an ACT UP meeting at a
community center, where Burton attempts to gather video evidence for
his research. Much of the action also unfolds at the Natural History Mu-
seum, where multiple struggles over the meanings and causes of AIDS
take place. Burton interviews a doctor involved in the 1982 cluster study,
and Zero’s mother as well. Initially convinced of Zero’s guilt, Burton ed-
its his video footage into a montage that wrenches witness statements
out of context and frames Zero as a deliberate disease disseminator.
Burton even manages to manipulate Zero’s mother’s recorded testimony
to make her appear to exclaim that “Zero was the Devil.”
Zero confronts Burton on his duplicity and decides eventually to
collaborate with him, determined to become visible and have his voice
heard. As the two draw closer and eventually begin a romantic re-
lationship, Burton gradually comes to doubt the certainties of his sci-
ence and the story he is telling. He becomes particularly swayed when
he and Zero come face- to- face— through a microscope view of a slide
of Zero’s blood— with Miss HIV, a microscopic drag queen virus fl oat-
ing in a bloodstream swimming pool, played by longtime AIDS activist
Michael Callen. Miss HIV clarifi es what the 1982 cluster study had set
out to establish and that Zero had not been identifi ed as the fi rst AIDS
Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic Page 41
