COMEDY AS CURE FOR TRAGEDY - ACT-UP AND THE RHETORIC OF AIDS

The rhetorical strategies of the direct action AIDS organization, ACT UP, are analyzed using Kenneth Burke's concept of the comic frame. Com mentators have criticized ACT UP for its rude, angry, irreverent, and indecorous demonstrations. The group's actions reflect the immediate d anger of AIDS-related sickness and death that many ACT UP protesters f ace; they also reflect the group's reliance on the comic frame as a wa y of contending with the onus of being named the scapegoats for introd ucing AIDS to the United states. In contrast to the prevailing tragic frame, comic rhetoric is hopeful and humane because it invites reconci liation and affirms the importance of rationality and community. ACT U P's challenge to the prevailing tragic frame of guilt-victimage-redemp tion-purification was designed to reposition its members as part of th e community and reframe the AIDS crisis in realistic, humane, and prag matic terms. The study suggests conditions under which other despised and oppressed groups may respond after having been scapegoated by soci ety.