Liz Patrick | HIV Commerical / 2023 [TV (SNL) episode]

a bad dancer and a homophobe enter a gay bar…

by Douglas Messerli

Alison Gates, Streeter Seidell, Kent Sublette and others (writers), Liz Patrick (director) HIV Commercial / 2023 [4 minutes] [TV (SNL) episode]

 

If you’re thinking that my title might be the first line of a hilarious joke, maybe you should immediately stop reading and take up another book. I definitely suggest that you don’t visit a gay bar. And surely you won’t be satisfied by the Saturday Night Live episode of January 21, 2023.

      If the 1985 HIV skit on Saturday Night Live was not carefully thought out, at least it had a presumed target of satire. I don’t quite know to whom or what the 2023 HIV Commercial sketch was even directed. Perhaps the pharmaceutical company that responsible for the production of Dovato (a drug produced and sold by ViiV Healthcare), whose advertisements focus on supposed HIV-positive individuals who find that they have been helped with no harsh reactions from the drug.

     If drug companies were the intended target, however, the episode quickly lost its focus as the script shifted to basically to two characters, a dancer named Tommy, and an actor named Jamal (Devon Walker), who, rather homophobic, does not want to be identified as gay, even though he is participating in an advertisement that argues precisely that. He eventually gets fired along with the incompetent dancer, Tommy (Mikey Day). So, is their acting skills or their refusals to properly get into their roles that is being satirized? There seems to have been a series of such sketches in which individuals keep adlibbing their lines to the distress of both the director and the other actors involved. But why include such a sensitive topic in such a trivial series of one-liners?

   In this sketch, in which Aubrey Plaza is directing the HIV commercial, there appears to be no real subject, which perhaps accounts for the reason that I found it without any humor whatsoever.

Aubrey, “threw her breakfast,” so she’d like to finish up before lunch since she’s hungry, she declares.

    The shoot begins with Tommy dancing (a full room of real dancers behind him) as he speaks the line: “Living with HIV, I learned I could stay undetectable with fewer medicines.”  Mario (Marcello Hernandez), sitting at the bar with a friend (Michael Longfellow) pours his himself and his friend a drink while saying: “Most HIV pills have so many medicines, but Dovato has less and it’s just as effective.”

     Jamal follows with the closing line: “That’s why I switched to Dovato HIV treatment.” But he also adlibs at the end: “I’m ain’t gay though.”

    Audrey is not impressed with Tommy’s dancing, but she is far more disturbed by Jamal’s adlib, addressing him down for something he denies before they try another shoot.

    This time Tommy dances just as badly, if not worse, and Jamal goes even wilder: “That’s why I switched to the bottle HIV treatment. Fact you can get HIV from a girl. That’s how I did it.”

     Audrey finally asks if he has a problem with the script, and Jamal admits: “I just feel like it’s not clear that my character’s a straight, respectfully.” Aubrey and answers, “Okay, well, he’s not. This scene takes place at a gay club.”

     But this time Jamal goes even further: “Facts. There’d be mad straight girls at the gay club and they’d be ready and that’s where I come in.”

     Mario intercedes: “Dude, it’s just acting bro. I’m not actually gay either.”

     When Audrey finally yells cut again, a conversation ensues:

 

 “Aubrey: Jamal, if you’re uncomfortable, we can just give your lines to Mario.

   Jamal: Okay, do I still get paid the same?

   Aubrey: No, you don’t get paid. You just go home.

   Jamal: But I really need this job.

   Aubrey: Okay, then say the lines.

   Jamal: Okay, what if my guy got HIV from basketball like Magic Johnson?

   Aubrey: No. Look, I appreciate you coming down but clearly you’re not mature enough to handle this role.”

   And soon after she fires both Tommy and Jamal.  

   Commentator Ted Kerr hints at some of my numerous questions:

 

“Of the 3 male performers, only Jamal is bothered that he is being asked to be gay. Mario states he is straight. This ends with a laugh. With Tommy, the only issue is his bad dancing. So, even though the sketch is rooted in AIDS, in the logic of this scene living with HIV is not an issue. The issue is around the performance of sexual identity. The laughs are at the expense of how they fail: Tommy can't dance, Mario´s straightness is a joke, and Jamal doesn 't want to be seen as gay.

    So, why include HIV? In his attempts to rewrite the script, Jamal suggests his character got HIV like Magic did, from basketball (impossible); or from a woman (rare in terms of what we may consider typical vaginal sex). So that leaves me wondering what is so funny about transmission? Is Jamal´s problem being seen as a bottom? Is the rectum a punchline?”

 

    What is the point, accordingly, of this humorless sketch. Jamal is clearly a homophobe. But then even Mario, Aubrey’s most beloved actor, admits that he’s straight. Couldn’t the casting director find gay men to play these roles? Moreover, Tommy’s being fired for his not being able to dance seems to be placed on the same level as Jamal’s obvious homophobia.”

     It’s apparent that the writers, in this case, don’t even care a fig about those who truly are HIV-positive, who still must face the fact that they may die if they don’t take drugs such as Dovato. Nor do they apparently care about gay men and women. The joke is supposedly that the actors are not ready to play the roles to which they have been assigned. Not a very funny premise, particularly when it’s tossed up in a stew of a very serious issue such as AIDS, which has killed more people that almost any other pandemic.

     I hope in the future SNL, which generally has become in the past few years less and less fun and funny, cuts AIDS off of its list of possible subjects to exploit. It’s no joking matter.

 

Los Angeles, July 12, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2025).