Dallas Buyers Club- Maria Cristina

Essay: Dallas Buyers Club

Dallas Buyers Club is a film based on a real story about a homophobic and drug addict cowboy from Dallas, who lives a disorganized life full of excess. At the beginning of the movie the scenes were so crude, primarily the way that the sexual acts and drug abuse are shown. Even for a moment you want to stop watching it and you ask yourself “what kind of movie am I watching?” However, when the doctors tell Ron Woodroof, he's tested HIV-positive his reaction was natural, because it is the normal way that people react in these situations. In the first moment, people negate the truth, and specially taking into account that HIV is a terminal disease. This scene is close to reality, and touch the audience, since it is something that can happen to everybody.

On the other hand, the film shows the human cruelty when Ron’s friend judged him because of the changes of his social and sexual behaviors. In my opinion, this scene is one of the most depressing in the movie, and I don´t like the way that his friends make fun of him. 

A key element in the movie is the moment when Ron discovered the use of AZT drug as an option to survive, and he did everything to get it. Instead, he did not about the high toxicity of this drug in combination with alcohol and drugs. After that, he couldn’t find more AZT, so he had to travel to Mexico, where he realized that there were other options not available in the USA for FDA regulations. My considerations about this part of the story are in two senses. The first, it is that people have the right to survive, and search for solutions even if they do not work or put in risk their life. The second is the state agencies are obligated to regulate the new drugs and probe the real benefits and side-effects, but always thinking about the patient’s health and not the pharmaceutical companies’ profits.

Furthermore, during his travel to Mexico, Ron met a controversial doctor, who taught how to deal with AIDS, and give him medicaments, which he introduced to the USA in an illegal way, selling to other patients, even people on medical treatment. When he come back to Dallas he created an organization named “Dallas Buyers Club” and use it to distribute illegal drugs, giving advices about complementary treatment such as eating healthy food, avoiding drugs and alcohol, and eliminating the use of AZT. At the beginning the idea was earn money, but he starts to know more about other patients, and he decide to help them, even losing his own money. 

Finally, I really like the Ron’s attitude change during the movie, because in the first part he was homophobic and in some moments he demonstrated that he thought he was the number one, but when he realized that gays are an important part of the sociality. Also, because of his better understanding of AIDS disease, Ron’s attitude was different; for example, he found a form to help that people, and at the end he recognized that humans are equal in any way at all, independently of their sexual orientation gender identity, or expression of these, since everybody has the same interests, feelings and necessities. In the future, this movie can be a tool to eradicated homophobia.    

Maria Cristina Henao Ruíz