How does HIV bestow 'double meaning' to Blood Diamond?
In response to a fan theory that Danny Archer (portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio) in the 2006 movie Blood Diamond had HIV, this Reddit comment quips
Nice double meaning to the movie's title as well.
I don't understand how HIV would yield this double meaning? I know that HIV can be transmitted by blood, but how does HIV relate to diamonds? The HIV virus doesn't look like diamonds?
Best Answer
If true (because I haven't seen the movie), I think perhaps it's more that the double meaning is in the context of the word "blood" more than diamond, with diamond being a filler word on "value".
Interview with Director Ed Zwick:
What’s Valuable in Life
To me, this movie is about what is valuable, says director-producer Edward Zwick. To one person, it might be a stone; to someone else, a story in a magazine; to another, it is a child. The juxtaposition of one man obsessed with finding a valuable diamond with another man risking his life to find his son is the beating heart of this film.
Meaning of Diamonds
In the African country of Sierra Leone, where many of the worlds diamonds are mined, they have taken on a much darker connotation. Zwick explains, Conflict diamonds are stones that have been smuggled out of countries at war. They then go to pay for more arms, increasing the death toll and furthering the destruction of the region. They may be a small percentage of the worlds sales, but, nonetheless, in an industry worth billions of dollars, even a small percentage is worth many millions and can buy innumerable small arms.
So the character whose motivated or fighting for certain kinds of diamonds, that primarily exist in "war zones", is also internally fighting against HIV, which destroys the white blood cells that are used to fight off infections, which can then lead to death.
It's the idea that being obsessed with 'blood diamonds' parallels the notion of a virus destroying the body, as the blood diamonds help to destroy people living in the world. A character whose dying is only contributing to more death and therefor doesn't value "life".
So in this case for this character the double meaning is on what we truly value and dark ironies of the use of "blood" here.
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What does TIA mean in Blood Diamond?
''T.I.A.," say only three characters in only two scenes in Blood Diamond, but the phrase echoes throughout the entire film. It stands for "This Is Africa," and it conveys a strange brand of fatalism \u2014 adoring and exhausted, like a cuckold who just keeps heading back for more.Is Blood Diamond accurate?
Though Blood Diamond revolves around fictional characters, the events are based on real experiences of individuals in Sierra Leone during the civil war. The film depicts village attacks by rebel groups, the enslavement of Sierra Leoneans, the use of child soldiers, and illicit markets that are often ignored.What happens to DIA in Blood Diamond?
Separated from his family, Solomon is enslaved to work in the diamond fields under the command of Captain Poison (David Harewood) while his son Dia is conscripted into the rebel forces, the brainwashing eventually turning him into a hardened killer.More answers regarding how does HIV bestow 'double meaning' to Blood Diamond?
Answer 2
I think Darth's answer is on the right track, but takes a roundabout way to get there.
Blood diamonds are associated with misery and death. If you've ever known anyone with HIV or seen documentaries on it, it's a miserable disease that leads to death. I can definitely see the parallel between the two.
Or, as M.A.R. said in their comment, it might just be a smartass reddit comment and we're looking too hard to squeeze a square peg into a round hole.
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Images: Lennart Wittstock, Puwadon Sang-ngern, Vidal Balielo Jr., cottonbro