Diana, Princess of Wales and red ribbons

Bigoted responses to people with HIV and AIDS have persisted throughout the epidemic, fanned by the tabloid press. Raising public awareness by using celebrities and members of the royal family began around the time that public education began to stress the risk to the heterosexual population. Until this time celebrities had been reluctant to publicly associate themselves with AIDS for fear that it would be taken as a public admission of homosexuality.

In 1987 the TV AIDS Awareness Week used celebrities such as singer Ian Dury to deliver messages about safer sex to young people; it was felt that celebrity endorsement of condom use would be more credible than the advice of doctors.

Celebrities were also used in other ways: to raise money and to project a message of compassion towards people with AIDS. In 1987 Princess Diana opened the Broderip Ward at London's Middlesex Hospital, the first of many supportive public appearances designed to show the Princess's concern for people with AIDS. Of particular note to the press was her decision not to wear protective clothing or gloves, presumed by many to be a prerequisite for contact with the infected. It was to be the first of many gestures which did a great deal to change public attitudes, and the Princess was to show an impressive commitment to AIDS whilst facing severe public criticism for her association with AIDS 'victims'; `Does she really want to go down in history as the patron saint of sodomy?' asked John Junor in The Sunday Express. Princess Diana's commitment also served to make the issue respectable; when celebrities and the wealthy saw the Princess prepared to commit her time and public profile to such a controversial issue, it is likely many others felt it safe to do so as well.

The death of pop star Freddie Mercury was another transforming moment. Mercury's death of AIDS at the end of 1991 was the occasion for equal outpourings of grief and homophobic venom, and the single `Bohemian Rhapsody' was re-released to raise money for the Terrence Higgins Trust. Subsequent royalties from a string of Mercury posthumous releases were given to the Mercury Phoenix Trust, and in May 1992 a major concert pulling together many of the world's major rock stars was held at Wembley. Its aims were AIDS awareness and fundraising, and it was the event which launched the red ribbon into the national consciousness.

The red ribbon had been adopted as a symbol of AIDS awareness in the United States during the 1991 Gulf War as an activist protest against the amount of money being poured into the war at a time when the Bush administration was cutting AIDS funding in real terms. Activists chose the red ribbon symbol as a contrast to yellow ribbons being worn to remember US service personnel in the Gulf. The ribbon outlived the Gulf war however, and began to achieve an international currency as a symbol of concern about AIDS. The ribbons were publicised as a symbol through a series of `product placements' which linked them with celebrities and with one of the communities most affected by AIDS, the entertainment industry. The red ribbon appeared at the US Emmys in 1991, the Oscars, the Freddie Mercury AIDS awareness concert in 1992, World AIDS Day in 1992 and President Clinton's inauguration in 1993.