Return to trevor

Milk

Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, James Franco, Josh Brolin

"If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door." – Harvey Milk

Historians and social commentators love to find a leader or a huge public event on which to center their commentary of a social movement around. In turn, the civil rights movement often becomes simply the Martin Luther King, Jr. story. Decades from now when trying to spin a narrative about how homosexuals claimed their place at the community table, many of the big events will be touched on, Stonewall, the gay celebrities who emerged from the closet, AIDS, Brokeback Mountain, Massachusetts legalizing gay marriage, and the death of Matthew Shepherd, but it will be a much more difficult story to tell because the real moments of heroism, the moments that really changed America’s heart did not occur on grand public stages. They were not slapped across the front pages of major newspapers. Instead they occurred millions of separate times in the privacy of living rooms and high school hallways across this nation. I cannot imagine the courage it takes, the willingness to risk everything, to inform your parents and friends of your true self. The guts it takes to openly walk past the lockers of dudes you know might try to kick your backside if they get you alone at some point. I personally witnessed one of these moments of grace a few years back when I was in the lounge of a mainline denominational church (no my skin did not start burning). In the next room, a group of pastors were interviewing seminary students. A frail young woman in her final year of theology school, having spent thousands of dollars to get that education, decided to be honest with the men and women congregated there. She could not preach the liberating presence of Jesus Christ unless she liberated herself, let her church know who she really was. Hiding behind a bunch of rules found in a dusty book of bylaws, they rejected her, figuratively spit in her face. It broke my heart. Just one of a billion stories no one ever hears about.

Although it will probably be decades until Harvey Milk gets the space in high school history textbooks he deserves, he was a trailblazer. Mention of his name in most rooms is greeted with blank stares and maybe, just maybe, someone remembering the Twinkie defense. Yet, Rush Limbaugh would not be able to bellow against “San Francisco values” if it was not for Milk, who united a community and helped bring gays out of the shadows and from behind the dark glass of their bars. He was born and raised in Woodmere, New York. Harvey was the son of a successful department store owner, in an era when homosexuality was still considered a mental disease. As a teenager Harvey was open about his sexuality, even venturing into the gay section of Central Park and promptly getting arrested for removing his shirt. After college, he joined the navy, served in the Korean War, and was honorably discharged after one of the service’s many purges on gays. After a short stay in Dallas, Texas, he returned to New York to work on Wall Street. Yet, the homosexual culture of Greenwich Village beckoned him and by 1972, Milk decided to move out to San Francisco and settle down with his partner Scott Smith (James Franco). They opened a camera store together in Castro Valley, a gay section of the city. Harvey quickly emerged as a community and business leader earning the nickname the “Mayor of Castro Street.” Even though he lost in his first three bids for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, for Milk the fourth time was a charm.

In 1977, a year in which the Supreme Court let stand a judgment that it was acceptable to fire a teacher for simply being gay and men and women were doing prison sentences for having consensual homosexual relations, Milk was the first openly gay elected politician in any large city and only the third openly gay official in the history of the country. While others might have tried to maintain a low profile in his position, he basked in it even telling a boyfriend, "Never take an elevator in city hall. The marble staircase afforded a grander entrance.” Yet, Harvey’s grand style had a purpose. He knew that he was a symbol to other gays and lesbians; that in order for gays and lesbians to claim their inalienable rights they could no longer remain invisible hiding behind fake wedding rings and beards. "You gotta’ give them hope," he often stated. And he did. Eleven months into his term, he sponsored a bill barring anti-gay discrimination in the city and then fought hard to see that Proposition 6, a bill that would allow homosexual school teachers to be fired due to their sexuality in California, was defeated. He also held Oliver Sipple, the man who saved President Gerald Ford’s life during an assassination attempt, out as a gay hero, a man who "will help break the stereotype of homosexuals." (Sadly, Sipple’s mother disowned her son when she learned that he was gay.) Milk also began to reach out to the other ethnic populations of the city and tightened ties between his supporters and labor unions. He took every opportunity to show the media that San Francisco was more than just "Sodom by the Sea."

In 1978, a conservative Supervisor named Dan White (Josh Brolin) decided to resign, which allowed Mayor George Moscone (Victor Garber) to appoint whoever he wanted to the post. Given that the Mayor would naturally name someone with a similar political outlook as himself to White’s seat, the balance of power on the Board of Supervisors would change to a more liberal outlook. Friends and political supporters urged White to change his mind and to request Moscone to re-appoint him to his former seat. At first, Moscone seemed willing to do such but changed his mind after talking with Milk and other liberal leaders in the city. On November 27^th, White went to City Hall to make one last plea to the Mayor. In his pocket, a gun and ten rounds of ammunition. In order to avoid the metal detectors found at every entrance, the former elected official clawed through an open window. When Moscone told him no, White took out the gun and killed him. He then walked down the hallway to Milk’s office and shot Harvey in the head twice, killing him. Harvey Milk had foreseen the possibility of his own murder and made several audio tapes in case such an event happened. That evening, as thousands gathered in a candle light vigil, the tapes that he had made were played.

In the trial that followed, even though Dan White admitted to the crime a few hours after the slaying, and had shown premeditation, his defense attorneys urged that the former Supervisor’s depression had led him to perform that crime and that junk food had exacerbated a chemical imbalance. Any potential jury member who showed even the remotest acceptance of homosexuality was removed from the pool. Onlookers and supporters were shocked when the jury came back and bought into the diminished capacity defense, convicting White of only voluntary manslaughter. The judge, a conservative, agreed with the jury and sentenced White to only seven years and eight months. He got out in about five years with good behavior. Riots, in what became known as the White Night Riots, broke out when many in the gay community gathered around the Civic Center in protest. Enraged crowds set cars ablaze, smashed windows, and grappled with police. The police arrested as many as they could but, after everything was said and done, more than 160 people were in the hospital. Thirty years later, a statue of Harvey Milk was erected in downtown San Francisco and several alternative schools across the nation have been named after him.

Although the documentary film The Times of Harvey Milk won the Academy Award in 1984, a biopic on the slain San Francisco Supervisor has been whispered about in Hollywood circles for more than a decade-and-a-half now. Superstar directors like Oliver Stone (JFK, Nixon, Platoon), Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, Elephant), Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious, xXx), Bryan Singer (X-Men, Superman Returns) and Brian Gibson (What's Love Got to Do with It, Poltergeist II) have lobbied openly to do a film about the gay icon. Dustin Hoffman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Kevin Kline, and Richard Gere have talked publicly about wanting to play Milk. Yet, even with the success of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, Hollywood executives were more than a little nervous about releasing such a project. It took the muscle of the greatest actor of his generation, Sean Penn, to get the film made and he deserves another Academy Award nomination for it. Finally, getting a chance to tell Milk’s story is openly gay director Van Sant.

Quality actors and a quality director should allow this film to garner several Oscar nods, but more importantly, this film will introduce Harvey to a whole generation of young people who never knew who he was and a lot of Americans who have forgotten.

Verdict: an Oscar worthy film