I skipped my usual Wednesday night Lost so that I could watch the MTV biopic, Pedro, about Cuban HIV educator and activist Pedro Zamora, turned MTV reality star via the Real World.

I had already seen a few clips and was less than impressed with the acting on display pero I have to admit that Pedro was kind of engaging. You have to understand that I am not the audience. 30 somethings who remember the Real World San Francisco and who have grown up with a greater awareness of HIV and AIDS not to mention the struggle for gay equality may feel like the film Pedro is a little scattered, which is probably good for younger audiences who are used to their info in small pieces.
The film after all isn’t meant to be just a tribute pero also a message to young people to talk about their sexual health including using condoms and getting tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

Spoilers ahead:
No one is going to get an Emmy for their acting in the film. The scenes showing life on the San Francisco Real World set were especially painful to watch pero how do you film the filming of a reality show. The film does a better job at showing us what wasn’t seen on the Real World. Pedro’s family history, how he came from Cuba on the Mariel boatlift with his parents and some of his siblings for example. Some of the actual cultural details about Afro-Cuban religion were not done very well though.

The lines between Orishas and Santos were crossed, as they often are in real life, pero to someone not educated the whole scene of Pedro seeing a Santero on a beach with dancers could seem a little too no se, superstitious and confusing, as was Pedro’s mothers explanation of la Caridad del Cobre, her santo and patrona de Cuba, when really it seemed like she was talking about Oshun.

I did enjoy seeing how the film dealt with the struggles of a young man coming out to his family and later confronting his family and others with not just his illness pero also his choices on how he wanted to live as an HIV positive gay man. Something that struck me as I watched the film, something I had always taken for granted before, was how the wedding between Pedro and Sean back in 1994 must have been shocking or por lo menos cutting edge to some and yet seen through the lens of the current same sex marriage struggle, so sweet and innocent.

I would like to rewatch Pedro with my older daughter to see the kind of message it speaks to her porque I am clearly not the MTV generation anymore. The message the film, and numerous public service ads throughout the film, was trying to make was that anyone can get HIV if they don’t take care of themselves, meaning if they don’t use condoms and get tested. Pedro tried to paint Pedro Zamora less as an activist and more as someone who could be you or your friend and no one likes to think of themselves or their friend dying.