Belize is what America needs

Angels in America is a HBO miniserie from 2003 based on the play of the same name

written by Tony Kushner and won numerous awards. The story occurs in 1985, during the

AIDS outbreak. It tells the story of 7 characters affected directly or indirectly by AIDS, and

these characters reflect different beliefs, sometimes totally opposed one from each other.

Louis Iroson is the boyfriend of ​Prior Walker​, but leaves him when he tells him

that he has AIDS. Meanwhile, ​Joe Pitt​, a young mormon republican begins working with

Roy Cohn, a powerfull New york attorney and conservative, who during the play finds out he

has AIDS (he had over the years many homosexual relationships in secret), but he hates

homosexuals and liberals, so he claims to has liver cancer. ​Roy Cohn offers Joe Pitt a job in

Washington D.C, but his wife ​Harper does not want to. Harper has hallucinations about her

imaginary friend, and these hallucinations are caused by his addiction to pills which she

developed due to the lack of love and sexual intercourse in her marriage. Later on the story,

she left her husband when she found out that he is gay, even when he tried to denied it to her

and himself (the first in telling her that was Prior when their hallucinations got mixed). Then,

Joe and Louis start a romance, the first homosexual relationship to Joe. One night Pitt called

his mom to tell her that he is gay, so ​Hannah Pitt​ travels to New York.

One afternoon Prior follows the new lover of his ex, and has an encounter with

Hannah,in that moment he decompensates and she helps him, and from that moment they

start a friendship. In the hospital he sees his friend ​Belize​, who is a nurse and an ex drag

queen, and also, he is in charge of taking care of Roy Cohn (Belize notices that he does not

have liver cancer, but AIDS), he helps him despite all the mistreatment from Cohn. He even

gave him advice to use his political connections to obtain as much AZT—a drug that can treat
AIDS—as possible. Cohn takes Belize’s advice and obtains hundreds of bottles of AZT,

more than he could ever take in a lifetime (Belize stole the ones that were left when Roy died

in order to help Prior, his best friend).

The story goes around the relationships among the characters and how society and

their lives get affected by AIDS, and goes around their hallucination and the angels that

appear on them. However, this essay will be centered on Belize​’s personality and his relation

with ​3 ​other characters.

Firstly, Belize is introduced as Prior's best friend and the series shows a lot of their

relationship. Belize is the main support to his friend throughout his illness and heartbreak

when his boyfriend abandoned him because of AIDS. He supported Walker even to the point

of stealing for his health, when Roy Cohn died he called Louis to ask him for help to take out

the AZT bottles left in Cohn’s room before anyone noticed. This reflects how ​loyal he was, a

characteristic that in human relationships is always tested in the darkest times, considering

that he could have just left Prior alone as Louis did, so he would have one less burden instead

of understanding Walker moods changes and his process of accepting his illness (unknown

and judged at that time).

Secontly, Belize has a hate/love relationship with his best friend​’s ex, Louis Ironson.

He did not think that Louis' decision of leaving Prior was adequate, in fact, he thought it was

cowardly. In two scenes where they have a private conversation that ended in confrontation,

it was obvious that he did not take Ironson seriously because he was too immature and did

not have his ideas clear. In a particular scene of the series, they were having a discussion

under the rain and he claimed that Belize was in love with Prior, but Belize responded saying

that he had a partner since a long time ago, and to Prior's surprise, Belize makes clear that he

never bothered to ask about it The lack of interest of Louis in the persons that surround him
only shows how shallow and egocentric he is, the opposite of Belize. Their personalities are

opposite to each other and the ex drag queen constantly points that out, such as when he told

that Louis loves big ideas and is full of them and that loves america, yet he says that he

doesn’t need to love america because they (louis and the white people) sang freedom so high

that is impossible to reach it, he claims that on the contrary of louis, he does not need to love

america because he lives in it and he hate it.

Finally, the last relationship to consider is the one that Belize had with Roy

Colton. In my opinion is the most interesting because of how professional he was attending

a man like Cohn who mistreated him, and beauase it is a reflection of everything he has had

to endure during his lifetime for being an openly gay man, ex drag queen and black person.

Roy Cohn always treated badly his nurse for all the previous characteristic mentioned, but in

his worst times, that gay man that he despited was his only company apart from his

hallucinaions, he even begged him to stay to fullfill his lonelinnes and fears during his time in

the hospital. Even though his actions are very contradictory to what he thinks and to what he

does, the most curious part is what he represents to Belize. During a discussion between

Louis and Belize, the health worker tells to Louis ​“You come with me to room 13 over the

​ hen he said that he was

hospital, Louis, I’ll show you america, terminal, crazy and mean”, w

referring to Roy, an old man dying who was conservative, corrupt, homophibic, racist and

chauvinist​. To Belize, this old man was everything that he despite all that people

discriminated against him and cut his freedom, for him all those were the qualities of

America, the country that he hated. However, he always treated Roy Cohn well , as if he were

used to being disrespected by that kind of person.

To conclude, this play and series demonstrate how a health condition affects the

person infected and his/her closest loved ones. Also, it presents us with a character that is the
one that tells us how the situacions and things actually happen, as Belize did. Belize was by

far my favorite character due to its qualities as a friend and for his strengths to support a

friend, to teach Louis how America really is and for stand up and tolerate a man as Roy

Cohn, who reunites the worst qualities of a society, the qualities that increases in times of

social crisis like the AIDS outbreak.