Julio and Marisol
Julio and Marisol were the protagonists in a bilingual public-service advertising campaign 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
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.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 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.
Day 1
Episodes 1–6 take place in a single evening. The story opens with the couple getting ready to have sex for the first time. Marisol insists that Julio use a condom, pleading "I love you, but not enough to die for you". Julio is offended by the suggestion and storms out.After leaving Marisol, Julio goes to see his friends Marco and Miguel. Julio brushes off Marisol's concerns and then discovers that both of his friends use them. Miguel laments that his cousin Anita has recently died of AIDS and her partner Raul is very sick, speculating that condom use might have saved them both. In parallel, Marisol calls her friend Iris, who tells her about Anita and Raul. Marisol visits Raul at the hospital, where he urges her to protect against infection.
Julio leaves Marco and Miguel and encounters his younger brother, Luisito, with some of his friends. They are going to meet some women. Julio lectures them about condom use, to which Luisito replies that they learned about AIDS and condoms in school. Julio is then seen alone, thinking how smart his kid brother is, and realizing he needs to talk with Marisol.
Back at Raul's hospital room Julio shows up and apologizes to Marisol. They profess their love for each other and leave. Rosa enters and tells Raul that she is HIV positive. Raul has just asked Rosa if she has told Julio when Julio and Marisol return. Rosa is introduced to Marisol as an old friend of Raul's. Julio again leaves with Marisol, and tells her that Rosa is just somebody he knew from the old neighborhood. Meanwhile, back in the hospital room, Raul urges Rosa to let Julio know she is HIV positive.
Day 2
Episodes 7 and 8 take place another day when Julio and Marisol are apparently reunited.In the morning, Julio leaves for work, and Marisol telephones Iris again. In this conversation, Marisol discovers that Rosa was not just a casual acquaintance of Julio's, but actually a past lover . She confronts Julio about his lying. Julio protests that it was a long time ago, and Marisol says she wants to go see Rosa. Meanwhile, Rosa has seen a counselor and is ready to talk to Julio about being HIV positive. Julio and Marisol go to Rosa's apartment, where Rosa tells them both that she is HIV positive. Marisol wonders if Julio is also positive.
The story continues
A ninth episode takes place after Raul's death. Due to production issues, it never ran on the subway, leading The New York Times to call it "The Lost Episode". The thoughts of friends and family at the funeral are shown. A man wonders if he should get tested for HIV. Another man is determined this will never happen to him. A woman laments that Raul's womanizing and drug use finally caught up with him. A priest remembers Raul as an altar boy. The funeral director observes that he never had so many funerals for young people before the AIDS epidemic.The documented history of the campaign is incomplete after episode 9. In April 1999, an untitled episode 12 on the NYC Health blog shows Julio having a conversation with an HIV counselor after having had an HIV test which showed him to be negative. The conversation covers what Julio needs to do to remain negative, and touches on the fact that Julio's brother is gay. Julio calls Marisol to tell her that he tested negative. Episode 13 was announced in August 1999.
In episode 15, Marisol's HIV-positive sister Dolores is pregnant. A doctor gives her a prescription saying it will protect her and her unborn child. Marisol and Dolores discuss options for informing the father, Manny. When Dolores visits Manny to tell him, he offers her drugs, which she refuses. The episode was posted in 2024 on the New York City Transit Museum's Instagram.
Suggestions from readers
Proposals for new episodes were welcomed from readers. Episode 2 included a request for ideas which resulted in over 100 people sending in suggestions ranging from the romantic to the off-beat. One reader wanted to see Marisol have a failed relationship with a South American dictator only to reunite on the rebound with Julio, who by then would be working in a pet salon where Marisol brought her poodle for grooming. Another had Julio contracting HIV from a prostitute and confessing his indiscretion to Marisol, who then ends both their lives in a murder–suicide. Most of the suggestions, however, wanted to see the couple apologize and get back together.Production history
The campaign ran in the New York City Subwayand also on Metropolitan Transportation Authority busesfrom 1989 to 2001. Initially funded by a $60,000 grant from the CDC, it has since appeared in both print and radio versions and been printed on T-shirts. Episodes 19 were republished as a bound comic book with the original graphical content rearranged to fit the book format.The campaign was best known for the print ads that ran in as many as 6,000 subway cars. Ads ran above the car windows and doors, in a horizontal format known as an "interior car card". There were two cards per car with a three month run. Each card contained a single episode consisting of about six frames of the story plus one which contained an information block with a phone number to call for more information.
Work began in spring of 1989 with Stephanie Siefken, a native of Colombia and the Health Department's cross-cultural affairs director, assigned to the project. With the help of focus groups, the Health Department determined that a photo-novella would be the best format for the target audience. This hybrid of a comic strip and a telenovela had been shown to be effective in health education.
The first episode was contracted to Conill, a Latino marketing agency. Subsequent episodes were managed internally by the Health Department using freelance artists. Publication spanned the mayoralties of David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani, with Margaret Hamburg serving as Commissioner of Health under both administrations and assistant health commissioner Ann Sternberg managing the series. Jeffrey Escoffier worked on the project as the Health Department's deputy director of the Office of Gay and Lesbian Health.
In 1994, shortly after the release of episodes 6 and 7, Health Department spokesperson Steve Matthews said that the series was originally intended to run only in Spanish but that English versions were provided in response to popular demand. He also noted that the department gauged the popularity of the series based on feedback from the advertising agency about the large number that were stolen. According to Matthews, there was a three or fourmonth lead time from when an idea for an episode was adopted to when the ads could be placed and the series would continue for as long as they saw interest.