The 1993 film Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, opened up Late Late host James Corden, and the rest of the world, to the tragedies of the often-ignored HIV and AIDS crisis.
Troubled by the news that six people quit Donald Trump’s Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and Aids, Corden shared the movie with the president… 297 times.
The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) is a presidentially nominated group that advises the Secretary of Health and Human Services on how to give the best treatment for HIV and how to prevent the disease spreading to more people. Six members of the team recently resigned over Trump’s health care policies, which they said will harm people with HIV and reverse crucial advancements in fighting the disease.
“They resigned because as they put it, they said Donald Trump simply does not care about HIV and AIDS,” Corden said.
So, in order to see the importance of continuing to help people with HIV and AIDS, Corden believes that it’s important for President Trump to watch Philadelphia.
“Most of what I know or when I started to learn or first hear about HIV and AIDS, I learned from the movie Philadelphia,” Corden said. “It was the first I had seen anything about this disease on television, and as I learned more, I started to care about it… I was thinking maybe that’s the problem here. Maybe Donald Trump doesn’t care because he’s never seen Philadelphia. In fact, I’m almost certain that’s probably what it is.”
Unfortunately, the attempts to send the film to the White House failed, so Corden’s crew decided to mail them to the next best place: Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s National Golf Club and frequent getaway spot.
“The reason we sent 297 copies is that is the most we could buy,” Corden continued. “On the internet, we got 21 from Amazon, we got 210 from Barnes & Noble, we got 50 from another Barnes & Noble- oh sorry, 16 from another Barnes & Noble. And where we could, we even spent the extra 14 cents per copy so the president could enjoy it on Blu-ray.”
The talk show host encouraged his viewers to send copies of the film to Mar-A-Lago, providing viewers with the address of the estate. He also shared informative statistics, including “more than 1.1 million people in the U.S. live with HIV/AIDS, and of those nearly 60% are unable to access lifesaving medications, and that’s not to mention the 36.7 million people worldwide who live with HIV, of who nearly 2 million are children under the age of 15.”
Corden ended the segment saying, “We hope that if Trump watches Philadelphia, he’ll understand two things: One, Tom Hanks definitely deserved that Oscar, and number two, we hope that he’ll realize HIV and AIDS is something that you or any president of the United States, or any world leader for that matter, can never afford to ignore.”
This is why we love you, James Corden. Let’s hope Donald Trump does a little bit of binge-watching.
