Sometimes you have to remind the gurls that we are “Black f&gg0ts with a political agenda.”
More than 20 states are currently reducing or considering cuts to programs that help people access HIV medications, as federal funding fails to keep pace with rising costs. At the same time, the Trump administration has proposed cutting $600 million in federal HIV grant funding affecting California and three other states, according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times.
In September, over 100 HIV/AIDS activists protested near the White House, demanding the Trump–Vance administration fully fund PEPFAR, one of the most important global HIV programs ever created.
These headlines feel very early 1990s. The new generation needs to be reminded how the last generation ACTed UP. The alphabets and their allies took it to the streets with radical theatrics, direct action, and demonstrations. But the fight wasn’t only happening in the streets they also took it to film, art, and storytelling.
During the early years of the AIDS epidemic, much of the mainstream activism and cultural discourse often failed to confront the deeper racial, gender, and class politics shaping the crisis. On screen, many audiences know Rent. Some know Angels in America. But far fewer know “Chocolate Babies.” In 1996, filmmaker Stephen Winter exploded onto the scene with his incendiary debut feature Chocolate Babies, imagining the exploits of a gay street gang who proudly call themselves: “Black f*gg0ts with a political agenda.”
The film is a campy in tone but blunt in message critique of the government’s response to the AIDS epidemic and an audacious portrait of queer life for Black and unhoused people.
Like many bold works reflecting Black queer life, Chocolate Babies was largely forgotten perhaps a casualty of respectability politics and the policing of what queer stories were allowed to look like. Today, however, it is finding new life in the social media era with the new generation resonating unforgettable lines and discourse that still hit now.
“The AIDS acquisition files… You’ve heard of them? Uh-huh. So you want the government knowing who you are, where you are, who you’re fucking and when you’re fucking? And what your HIV status is even before you do? Hell nah! To the death! To the death!”
— Max Mo-Freak
And perhaps the most devastating monologue in the film:
“I got AIDS damn it, and I got it by sucking dick and fucking sticking needles in my arms, and the government doesn’t give a shit! I am not innocent; I was never innocent. But I am strong! Just picture it. If I was a weak woman, I’d be out killing motherfuckers!”
— Lady Marmalade
In 2015, Winter returned with his second feature Jason and Shirley, a radical re-staging of the creation of Shirley Clarke’s 1967 film Portrait of Jason, a landmark work of queer cinema that TENz quotes and references endlessly.
In April 2025, we had the chance to see Jason and Shirley on the big screen at The Paris Theatre, with Jack Waters, who portrays Jason in the film, appearing as a guest speaker after the screening. Now, with both Chocolate Babies, Jason and Shirley and Portrait of Jason available on the Criterion Channel, a new generation can rediscover the urgency, humor, and radical imagination of Stephen Winter’s work. And maybe take a lesson from it.
