AIDS, Homosexuality, and Stigma in Democratic Spain: From Historical Discourse to Symbolic Representation in Mejor no hables (1994)

Abstract

This study analyses the social construction of AIDS in Spain, focusing on its historical association with homosexuality and the processes of stigmatization that extended beyond the medical sphere into the cultural imaginary. It develops a historical-cultural analysis based on press, bibliographic, and audiovisual sources concerning the AIDS crisis during the 1980s and 1990s, specifically centred on the short film Mejor no hables (Pedro Paz, 1994), examined from a discursive and symbolic perspective. The research shows that AIDS was represented in the media as a disease linked to marginalized groups, particularly the LGTBIQ+ community and people who use drugs (such as heroin), reinforcing dynamics of moral exclusion within the context of Spain’s democratic Transition. The short film employs the vampire metaphor to challenge these discourses, shifting the figure of the “monster” from the infected subject to social stigma itself, thereby re-signifying the fear of contagion and rendering visible loneliness, vulnerability, and a critique of moral blame. The conclusion reached is that Mejor no hables constitutes a cultural response to the symbolic construction of AIDS as the “plague of the twentieth century,” highlighting the role of cinema as a space of resistance against hegemonic discourses surrounding the disease.