When I saw “The Times of Harvey Milk” in a college journalism class, it was as if a social awareness switch was flipped on for me. I’d call it a mixed blessing that I made it all the way to age 22 without being presented with the plight of a truly marginalized community. I grew up in the suburbs, I went to a leafy private school and was, tacitly or otherwise, steered away from the less advantaged because, let’s face it, they aren’t in a position to hand out good grades, good internships or good jobs. Not much different from most middle-class upbringings, but it still amazes me how I never even considered feminism – how my own gender fit into the world – until seeing that documentary.
“The Times of Harvey Milk” made me a feminist. Milk’s efforts for gay rights advanced the cause of other disenfranchised groups in a “rising tide lifts all boats” sort of way. The story of his role in the history of the gay rights movement could be the story of any civil rights activist. Harvey Milk was a gay Jew from New York, but he was everyone, anyone, even me. That documentary made me see that until everyone has full civil rights, no one is safe from discrimination. The fight for gay rights isn’t a movement separate from the fight for civil rights for African-Americans, or women, or the disabled. It was Harvey Milk’s way of explaining the treatment of homosexuals in the ’70s as a problem we should all be angry about that made him so embraceable.
I made up for lost feminist time. I was pretty insufferable for a while there. Years later, I’m a little pissed at the some of the lies we were fed, but as developmental stage, it was necessary. Feminism simultaneously taught me that it’s OK to go after what I want but also the ability to put myself in the shoes of others.
Granted, I saw the documentary at a particularly tender time in my life, but film about the assassinated San Francisco supervisor ranks among the most powerful documentaries of anyone who has seen it. Meaning the bar is high for anyone retelling the Harvey Milk story.
Given how sympathetic Harvey Milk continues to be, Gus Van Sant’s biopic would have been as successful even if it weren’t released weeks after Proposition 8 passed in California. But it’s impossible not to view the movie through the lens of this most recent battle and the ugliness exhibited in its aftermath.
It’s refreshing to see the gay-rights movement at more pure and innocent time – if parades full of naked gay men, trannies and leather fetishists can be called pure and innocent.
Van Sant’s “Milk” misfires in a few subtle ways. It doesn’t give us a sense of how truly wacky Milk’s campaigns were, the pranks he’d pull to get attention. Harvey Milk was a master at mobilizing people and forming unlikely alliances. The real Milk had more of a sense of humor and less of a sense of his own power. Because this is a Hollywood product, he’s portrayed as a saint.
I was previously unaware of just how politically powerful Anita Bryant was at this time. I thought she was just a beauty queen who ran her mouth. (Bit of trivia: Kathie Lee Gifford once worked as Bryant’s assistant.)
The trailblazing Milk was the first openly gay elected official, but Van Sant doesn’t mention that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors got its first black woman, first single mother and first Asian-American supervisors the year Milk was elected, too.
In an amazing bit of history preceeding itself, the climax of Milk’s political career centered around a referendum, Proposition 6, that would allow homosexual teachers to be fired without cause. It was defeated statewide and also in every supervisor district in San Francisco except one, that of Dan White.
White was a former firefighter campaigning on a “normal, decent people” platform who resigned after Prop 6 passed, fearing he wouldn’t be re-elected anyway. (According to the movie, that is. Other accounts say White resigned because the city supervisor pay wasn’t enough to support a family.) Days later he asked for his job back but was ultimately refused by the mayor. White crawled in a basement window of City Hall and shot Mayor George Moscone and Milk to death.
Reportedly, Milk lobbied against White’s reinstatement, a fact Van Sant underplays.
Which means, Milk wasn’t killed because he was gay. He was shot by a probably mentally ill man (or maybe it was just his lawyers who were insane) who resented Harvey’s easy way with people, his ability to lead, to reach out to those who thought they hated homosexuals. Milk was natural, personable, a showman, a political savant. Dan White was none of these things. Jealousy, not homophobia, were in play here. Milk’s murder wasn’t a hate crime.
To say that doesn’t detract from Milk’s legacy, nor Sean Penn’s incredible Oscar-winning performance. It’s just that Harvey Milk’s life didn’t need to be Hollywoodized.
The movie does serve as a poignant reminder about the AIDS pandemic – easy to forget given the success of anti-HIV drugs. A former lover of Milk’s was an early AIDS causualty, and another aide, Cleve Jones (played by Emile Hirsch) began the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
It’s hard to believe all this happened only 30 years ago. Is that even possible?
* I’m aware that fag is one of those words (like the N-word in the black community) that one must identify with in order to use. But I’m hoping the boys see it in the spirit in which it was meant and let it slide. Thanks, fellas.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
abdpbt 03.11.09 at 7:04 pm
I have this on my netflix queue, I can’t wait. I think Emile Hirsch is a good actor–it will be interesting to see how he develops in the years to come.
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Ben 03.11.09 at 9:59 pm
This was one of my first movies in my first film class in college. I, too, had a feeling that I was learning something I never knew I didn’t know. (That makes odd sense to me now, though I guess that’s what education is about, isn’t it? Who knew?) I knew fellow homosexuals, like myself, had gone through difficult times. I knew, some two years predating my own coming out, that I would be, at some point, stepping into some worn-out shoes––being in a minority was hard.
I should have known this, being a fat Jewish boy. But as I had never been teased for my dense curly hair or the Friday night lights of a shabbat candle (just a few teases throughout the years for my midsection’s girthy girth), I did not understand what TRUE discrimination was, how it cuts through your gut and your soul at the same time; not until Harvey Milk’s story was told to me.
Like you, Barr (I mean Elizabeth…I mean Tink’s Mom), I am thankful I learned it. It may still be the most pertinent lesson I ever learned in school.
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TheHolls 03.12.09 at 10:25 am
I got all sweaty and panicked during the chatter about Prop 6 in the movie because I felt like, in some ways, so very little has changed — was it not just a few years ago that Jim DeMint was making the same sorts of comments about gays (and single mothers) being unfit public school teachers? I mean, he said those things during his campaign for the Senate, and he WON. Shudders.
Liz A. 03.12.09 at 1:40 pm
“That documentary made me see that until everyone has full civil rights, no one is safe from discrimination.” Amen!
I haven’t experienced much discrimination in my life, unless you consider the sexual harassment endured while working in a restaurant. I do find it odd so little has seemed to change for homosexuals when Jim Crowe seems like a 100 years ago. I guess that was so literally black and white that it could not be avoided/ignored. What kills me is how we are still legislating things obviously against the Constitution.
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