ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the social construction of ideologically charged places of the urban and rural varieties as contained in the following four representative Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) movies of that era: Chocolate Babies, An Early Frost, In the Gloaming, and Jeffrey. AIDS appeared in the American consciousness in 1981 and as a primary subject of American movies four years later. In dramatic contrast to the social construction of urban places as an AIDS dystopia, the social construction of rural places in American movies about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/AIDS is one that is much more innocent and pure: a moral utopia. In doing so, it demonstrates how urban areas in such movies are socially constructed as the places of AIDS dystopia, in dramatic contrast to rural areas, which have historically been socially constructed as the places of moral utopia in United States society.
