Julio and Marisol

Julio and Marisol were the protagonists in a bilingual public-service advertising campaign (officially titled Decision in English or La Decisión in Spanish but commonly known by the characters' names) that ran from 1989 to 2001 in the New York City Subway. The focus of the campaign was promoting condom use to prevent AIDS. The well-known catchphrase was a line from the first installment, in which Marisol sobs, "I love you, but not enough to die for you". The storyline, told in comic format in a style similar to a telenovela, follows a young Hispanic couple as they explore human sexuality and the effects of the AIDS epidemic on their relationship. The campaign was designed to appeal to a Hispanic audience, who were considered particularly at risk due to cultural attitudes that discouraged condom use. With action covering just a few days, the story was told at a rate of about one episode per year. The campaign has been described as "one part steamy soap opera, one part language instruction, and two parts AIDS education service". The ads were praised by public health officials for presenting the educational material through situations that people could relate to their own lives, and by AIDS activists for breaking down the social stigma associated with the disease. They drew criticism, however, from family-values advocates who objected to the promotion of condoms and the tacit acceptance of homosexuality. Others objected to the stereotyping of Hispanics and the absence of gay or black characters. The artistic style of the drawings met with mixed reviews.

Background

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) was identified in 1981 when clusters of rare diseases such as Kaposi's sarcoma and Pneumocystis pneumonia were reported in gay men in New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles. The outbreaks eventually grew into a pandemic. Over the next decade, New York became the major locus of infection in the United States, with epidemiologists estimating that half of the gay men and three-fifths of the injection drug users in the city were infected. A 2018 New York Times retrospective said that the 105 diagnosed cases and 34 deaths by the end of June 1981 were one of the "events that transformed the city". As early as 1987, using condoms and limiting sexual intercourse to uninfected partners were found to be effective ways to limit the spread of the disease. In 1988, the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) distributed 126 million copies of an educational pamphlet Understanding AIDS, including one for every household in the country. The pamphlet noted that "Condoms are the best preventive measure against AIDS besides not having sex and practicing safe behavior." Certain cultural norms, however, inhibited condom use in the Hispanic population. Annette Ramirez, executive director of the Hispanic AIDS Forum, said "Gender relations take a different tone and tenor with Hispanics ... Machismo is prevalent and women are not taught to talk about sex, and also are not socialized to being confrontational to ask their partner to wear a condom." Hispanics often grew up in the Catholic Church, where a doctrine of monogamy, abstinence from premarital relations, and prohibition of artificial birth control made discussion about condom use taboo. Additional factors included limited English language proficiency and poverty among recent immigrants, both of which reduced their access to healthcare and information about the disease. The cultural issues led to an advertising campaign specifically designed to reach the Hispanic audience in New York City with the series published simultaneously in Spanish and English. Officially titled Decision in English and La Decisión in Spanish, it was more popularly known as Julio and Marisol, after the two main characters. The action played out in slow motion, with nine episodes posted in subway cars at a rate of approximately one per year. This leisurely pace became a defining feature: In his 1997 novel The Shift, George Foy describes his protagonist riding the subway, reading an episode of Julio and Marisol, and thinking that he had been watching one of the characters dying of AIDS for longer than the lifespan of some inner-city children. For World AIDS Day 2023, the New York Transit Museum posted a retrospective noting that "The campaign's long run meant that riders became invested in the story; interpersonal tension between characters lasted years in the minds of New Yorkers". Paul Baumann, writing for the liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal, called it an "interminable AIDS soap opera".

Storyline

The story follows two young lovers while they confront the dangers of unprotected sex during the AIDS epidemic. Vivian Toy of The New York Times called it "a tale of passion and betrayal in the age of AIDS." The protagonists are an unmarried Hispanic couple in their 20s, living in New York City. David Hinckley of the New York Daily News described Marisol as "a pretty girl" and her boyfriend Julio as "a nice-looking boy", both with healthy sexual desires. Heterosexual HIV transmission, homosexuality, serial transmission through multiple sexual partners, intravenous drug use, and condom use were all explored through frank discussions between the protagonists and their circle of friends and relatives.

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