I ask because I don’t understand the appeal of this movie-I mean, unless you live in SF, how would you know who Harvey Milk was? Did he write any books?
The only reason I remember him was that he was murdered by a guy (Dan White), who used as his defense, the claim that eating Twinkies raised his blood sugar to the point that he had to murder somebody.
Harvey Milk was basically the first openly gay elected official in the United States. He’s pretty much the iconic martyr of the gay rights movement.
And it wasn’t so much the “Twinkie Defense” that was outrageous, though it was just plain silly and should have been laughed out of the courtroom. It was that Dan White was convicted of manslaughter (after having smuggled a gun into San Francisco City Hall and murdering not just one, but TWO city officials) and only served five years (of a mere seven year sentence) that was outrageous.
At the same time, I do feel for White. He was a very ill man. On many issues, he had more in common with Harvey Milk than he had differences, but his social connections (he was an ex-cop, and the SF police hated Milk (in general)) and his mental illness drove him to do things that were just horrible. He committed suicide less than two years after his release from prison.
The history resonates with queer folk, definitely, and there’s a deep streak of emotion surrounding Harvey Milk, both his life and political career and his death. He was the beacon that showed us where we could go, and his light was snuffed out far too early.
That wasn’t what the “Twinkie Defense” was. The argument put forward by his lawyer was that Dan White had been a health nut all his life. Shortly before the murders, he began taking a lot of actions that were inconsistent with his personality up to that point in time, and that these actions were the signs of severe depression and mental instability. One of those actions was that he started eating a lot of junk food - in particular, Twinkies.
It’s a pretty good movie. It’s really interesting to see how things used to be during the transition phase from when police raided gay clubs to someone getting elected.
It is unfortunately a hagiography so it doesn’t cover some of his less-than-good acts such as trying to block investigations of Jim Jones (Peoples Temple).
It also blurbs at the end about the Twinkie defense when looking at Wikipedia would have cleared that up.
More discussion here and here.
What I thought:
Bottom line is, I didn’t realize how bad it really was until I saw Milk. And with AIDS it only got worse.
My strongest take away from it was how much more meaningful it was to be a gay activist and politician at that time. Homophobia was much worse, and anti-gay political rhetoric went further than it does now. I had forgotten what a psycho bitch Anita Bryant was – she wasn’t just anti-gay-rights, she publicly averred that homosexuality should be a crime in and of itself – that people should be arrested for being gay.
Prop 6 in California not only would have made it legal to fire people for being gay, but to fire them even for supporting gay rights.
The movie also shows the anti-gay violence that was prevalent even in San Francisco (it shows how gay people wore whistles in the streets so they could summon help when they got assaulted) alng with the undisguised antipathy of the police even when people were stabbed to death in the streets.
To me the strongest lines in the movie are those which take from the real Harvey Milk’s refrain that “you’ve gotta give them hope,” said in refernce to all the closeted kids all over the country who had no support systems and had to live with fear and self-loathing. Just shoing them one example of an openly gay man getting elected to something, not apologizing for being gay, and continuing to fight for gay rights really provided a beacon, an arrow, a possibility that hadn’t existed before. He knew he stood a good chance of being assassinated, but he did it anyway – not for himself, but for that suicidal kid in the wheelchair who called him from Minnesota, and for all the others like him.
Something else Harvey Millk said (which I don’t think was in the movie) was “if a bullet enters my brain, may it shatter evey closet door in America.”
It didn’t come close to shattering all of them, but his example did shatter a lot of them. This was a story that needed to be told, and that I don’t think was that well known to people under 30 outside the gay community. The movie tells it well, Sean Penn does a good job of projecting who Milk was as a pesron, and Gus Van Zandt obvioulsy feels the material.
The movie isn’t perfect – one performance, in particular, almost derails the movie in every scene the actor is in – but it’s pretty damn good and well worth seeing.
Isn’t that kinda the point of biographical films and books, to try and reach people who didn’t know much about someone interesting/important? Harvey Milk was a very interesting and important character on the local stage. Had he lived, he probably would have become a national figure. People outside the gay sphere should know about him, his struggles, the state of gay rights at that time, and what happened to him.
And yes, the movie is excellent as well as informative. I think it’s the best film of the year (so far anyway, I still have a few more to see). One of the many great things about it is that it’s not all serious and sad. Harvey was in general a cheerful and funny man, and most of the movie is very entertaining. He was a serious person, but had a great sense of humor. That really comes across in the film.
Nice post olivesmarch4th. jayjay too. I agree that Dan White comes across (in reality and the movie) as a sad and pathetic man, not hatefully evil.
It’s too bad George Moscone got somewhat short shrift, though it’s understandable in a movie called Milk. He was a fascinating man too, and way ahead of his time in regards to gay rights.
ETA I like your post too Dio. In your last line you must be talking about Diego Luna, right?
Regarding Dan White, Harvey Milk, both in real life and in the movie, thought that White was “one of us,” but I like that Van Zandt does not try to take that theme and run with it, does not fabricate any non-existent evidence for it, or try to play White up as being motivated by closeted self-loathing. I think the normal Hollywood tendency would be to try to go in that direction (the lack of real evidence, notwithstanding). It gives us Milk’s (historically accurate) opinion on the matter, but doesn’t try to push things any further. I liked Van Zandt’s restraint in that regard.
Yes, he’s over the top and annoying. I know that the real Jack Lira was like that too, but it’s still the weakest part of the movie.
Would you specify which, please? Certainly some were stronger than others, but I didn’t notice any derailments.
IMHO, this was one of the best movies of the year. Sean Penn was perfect–if he doesn’t get a “best actor” for this…well it’s happened before but I’d be surprised. I began to wonder if he really is gay. The use of different film qualities in each scene gave it a wonderful “real life” feel. The “you gotta give 'em hope” theme easily generalizes to any disenfranchised/denigrated group. The supporting cast was excellent.
Disclaimers: I’m not gay, but I lived through it. I grew up in CA and remember Prop. 6 + the fight over it. I have gay and lesbian friends whom I support is every way I can.
I would urge people, even those who have no interest in seeing the movie, to please watch this:
It’s only 2 minutes long, and it really hits home what Harvey Milk was about. The music is a bit loud, but his short speech is worth hearing.
As I said above, I was referring to Diego Luna as Jack (Milk’s last boyfriend). The real Jack Lira was an alcoholic drama queen too, but I don’t think the movie really gives us a side of him that would let us know what Harvey saw in him or why he kept him around.
Agreed on Sean penn, by the way. I wondered how he would handle playing the love scenes (Penn usually plays fairly macho roles), but he dove right in and played Harvey as affectionate and randy without showing any squeamishness about it.