"Milk"



Things were a little dicey at the Tower Theatre last night. Despite the advertised movie time of 10:20 p.m., the Tower staff had planned to close early on Tuesday night. It turned out no one had come to see the movie at all the previous two nights (largely because "Milk" was just released on DVD). Nevertheless, three-strong, we were joined by two others on this St. Patrick's night, and the staff allowed us to see the film.

"Milk" follows the life of Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn), a natural politician who started from humble circumstances and who bootstrapped his way into gay activism and San Francisco politics.

From imdb:

Upon moving to San Francisco from New York City in 1972, forty year old Harvey Milk gains focus in his life as a gay activist in the city's Castro district. Gay rights activism turns to political activism as Milk decides he can be a more effective voice for the gay community as a politician, elected or not. Through several elections and losses both for a city seat and a state assembly seat, Milk becomes the first openly gay man in the United States to be elected to political office when he wins a San Francisco supervisor seat in 1977. His many political battlefronts include one with the national anti-gay Save the Children crusade, led and fronted by singer Anita Bryant. Closer to home, Milk has a continuing struggle with his fellow supervisor, Dan White, a staunch social conservative.

The most-valuable part of the movie was illustrating the origins of the gay rights movement and the conversion of the Castro District into the gay capital of San Francisco (and gay capital of much of the world as well). That history is unfamiliar to most people, and a lack of understanding it probably the single most formidable barrier to acceptance of gays in general. Lack of historical grounding, in my view, is far more important than opposition by organized religion, and "Milk" does that historical exposition in a very effective and salutary way. Do you want the 53%-47% electoral margin in favor of Proposition 8 to change? Start with history, first! If you could clean this movie up a bit, it would work well in schools.

The movie has two crucial scenes. In one scene, Milk has dinner with, and seeks an endorsement from, an older queen, a fellow who makes contributions to, and forms alliances with, liberal politicians who might be gay-friendly, but is averse to Milk's more-direct confrontational style. They disagree on methods, and part ways. There are times to compromise, and times not to, and Milk chooses correctly here, in favor of a confrontational approach that does not yield immediate results - several lost elections result, but with a strength gain every time - and finally yields enduring strength in 1978.

The other scene shows a strategy session where Milk and allies fight back against California Proposition 6 with an approach to make the employment-bias law less abstract and more personal - a 'every one of you knows at least one of us' approach. Something like that might even work today, with gay marriage the topic du jour, rather than the more abstract theme of equality that was featured in last year's anti-proposition 8 campaign. People don't care about equality; they care about friends.

The main weakness of the movie is not showing the really hard work of politics - the phone banks, posting fliers, shaking hands, etc. That's a more-generic problem with all movies, though: day-to-day politics makes for dreadfully-dull watching.

I don't think the movie quite captures the mystery of co-SF Supervisor Dan White (played by Josh Brolin), although it takes a stab in the right direction, by showing Milk attending the christening of White's son. White spoke on behalf of a large, existing, mostly Catholic and staunchly conservative community of long-time San Francisco residents. In the movie, White is often portrayed alone, or nearly so. In reality, he was anything but. White apparently felt humiliated and snubbed by Milk - with reason - and it would have been useful to explore that angle further.

The movie captures the feel of the 1970's quite well. It was just like I remembered! I had to laugh when they brought in disco-singer Sylvester, my favorite (played by Mark Martinez).

And Anita Bryant - whatever became of her?:

The fallout from her political activism had a negative effect on her business and entertainment career. Her contract with the Florida Citrus Commission was allowed to lapse in 1979 because of the controversy and the negative publicity generated by her political campaigns and the resulting boycott of Florida orange juice.

Her marriage to Bob Green failed at that time, and in 1980 she divorced him, although he reportedly has said that his fundamentalist religious beliefs do not recognize civil divorce and that she is still his wife in God's eyes.

...Some Christian audiences and venues shunned her after her divorce. No longer invited to appear at their events, she lost another major source of income. With her four children, she moved from Miami to Selma, Alabama, and later to Atlanta, Georgia. In a 1980 Ladies Home Journal article she said, "The church needs to wake up and find some way to cope with divorce and women's problems."

In the same article, she said that she felt sorry for all of the anti-gay things she had said and done during her campaigns. She said that she had adopted a more "live and let live" attitude.

She married her second husband, Charlie Hobson Dry, in 1990, and they tried to reestablish her music career in a series of small venues, including Branson, Missouri, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Their plans failed, however, and Bryant and Dry left behind them a series of unpaid employees and creditors. Her career decline is detailed in her book, A New Day (1992). They filed for bankruptcy in Arkansas (1997) and in Tennessee (2001).

Bryant returned to Barnsdall, Oklahoma, in 2005 for the town's 100th anniversary celebration and to have a street renamed in her honor. She returned to her high school in Tulsa on April 21, 2007, to perform in the school's annual musical revue. She now lives in Edmond, Oklahoma, and says she does charity work for various youth organizations while heading Anita Bryant Ministries International.