Politics, Tragedy, and ‘Six Feet Under’: Camp Aesthetics and Mourning in Post-AIDS America

This essay argues that the HBO television series Six Feet Under is so powerful because it draws on a rich and sophisticated tradition of mourning developed in the gay community in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis. It links the series to Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Jonathan Larson’s Rent, Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, as well as international responses to the epidemic, such as Rosa von Praunheim’s A Virus Knows No Morals and John Grayon’s Zero Patience.

“Politics, Tragedy, and ‘Six Feet Under’: Camp Aesthetics and Mourning in Post-AIDS America,” in Reading “Six Feet Under”: Television to Die For, ed. Kim Akass and Janet McCabe (New York: Palgrave, 2005) 87-95.