But, then again, it is rather controversial, once you see it from a certain angle.
Milk (2008)
Harvey Milk. A man with courage. With strength. With hope. He was so brave in standing up for what he believed in, even though the 1970's were times of turmoil back in San Francisco, USA.
Harvey Milk, an activist and politician; and the first openly gay man to be elected into public office in The United States of America. In 1977, he was voted into the city supervisor's board of San Francisco.
For many of his public speeches, he would always open with the line, "Hello, I'm Harvey Milk, and I'm here to recruit you." It was his most famous saying back then, becoming something of his signature, way back when the whole activist scene had just opened new doors for his campaign.
The movie is more or less a non-documentary feature on the true story of Harvey Milk, and heavily researched into every single one of the roles, right down to the last shoeshiner.
Sean Penn plays Harvey Milk, and James Franco is cast as his lover, Scott Smith, whereas some other roles, his friends and colleagues and supporters, all a wonderfully portrayed cast, working together really well throughout the entire movie.
The movie starts off with Harvey in New York, where he meets Scott, coming back from work. There's some interaction, and it's just light and flirty with a right bit of amusement. This was the start of that love that would last until his dying breath.
Then, the movie switches over to San Francisco, where Harvey and Scott have moved to, searching for a change in their lives. They found the Castro Camera, in the once Irish-Catholic but now predominantly gay neighbourhood called The Castro. The Castro is the birthplace of Harvey Milk's campaigning and everything began in that small shop called Castro Camera.
Harvey utilizes his background as a businessman to become a gay activist, eventually becoming a mentor for Cleve Jones. Early on, Scott serves as Harvey's campaign manager, but his frustration grows with Harvey's devotion to politics, and he leaves him. Harvey later meets Jack Lira, a sweet-natured but unbalanced young man. As with Scott, Jack cannot tolerate Harvey's devotion to political activism, and eventually hangs himself.
After two somewhat unsucessful attempts to become a city supervisor in San Francisco, he finally wins a seat on the third try in 1977. Then began one of the most enthusiastic and enthralling campaigns for gay rights in the history of America. There were marches, and there were speeches. There were cheers and there was support.
But, there were riots. There were arrests, and fights. There was blood. Oh, there was blood.
Those were some of the reasons Harvey Milk ran for city supervisor in District 5. He wanted to give gay people the same rights as those who were heterosexual. I agree, actually. Taking away somebody's rights just because they're different is inhumane.
And these two main challengers of his campaign were Anita Bryant and John Briggs actually dared to use Christianity as a basis for their hate against Harvey and his people. How dare they actually tell the public that sacking or firing teachers for being gay would protect their children? What kind of stupid idea is that? Gay people don't teach homosexuality to kids, they TEACH. They teach the same as any other straight teacher, so what's the use in discriminating them? What is the actual point of making them lose thier jobs? To crush their dreams? To discontinue from supporting their own families financially?
Wow, I'm really going off on a limb here. Hehe. This is a touchy subject for me, so I might take a while more to let it all out.
You know what's the worst part of the movie?
When the conservative city supervisor Dan White develops a resentment for Harvey, and eventually murders Harvey and the city mayor, George Moscone.
He put a gun to a man's head and fired it, with the fatal bullet delivered execution style.
After Harvey Milk's assasination, the gay rights ordinance was rejected, and that became the start of the White Night Riots in 1978.
This is a true story, people.
I honestly wonder, what would have happened if Harvey Milk hadn't been shot. Would the United States be different from today? Would the world be different from today?
Nobody really knew.
I really applaud Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones. He was every bit the young, gay, activist teenager Cleve Jones was in the 70's, and that came out really well amongst the other, possibly twenty-thirtysomethings alongside Harvey Milk's campaign. His work as a rallier and an avid supporter made clear that anybody could be a part of something big. His glasses were really cool, too. Seriously, he had the coolest glasses ever. I wanna get a pair like his, ahah.
And one other person that surprised me was Lucas Grabeel, you know, that guy from High School Musical playing Ryan Evans? Yeah. He was cast as Danny Nicoletta, the photographer boy who worked at Harvey and Scott's camera store, and he was at every single campaign and march and took pictures for them. Danny Nicoletta was, of course, gay as well, and after Harvey's death, Danny became a professional photographer for the LGBT community and his photos were featured in The Times Of Harvey Milk, an Academy Award winning documentary.
There's also a small part in the movie of a gay teenager who cannot walk, and his parents want to send him to an institution to "cure" him of his homosexuality. The teen calls Harvey during one of his marches, and says that he wants to kill himself, and why.
Harvey tells him, "You are not sick. You do not have to die now. Run, go to Los Angeles, just get out of there. You are not a disease. You are not sick."
That was what triggered it. And a year later, that very same teenager called to say that he'd made it to Los Angeles through the help of a friend, and wanted to thank him for making him see that his life was still worth something more.
Harvey Milk set off the chain wave for more and more gay people to come out. He set it so high, nobody might ever come near to what he did for his people.
And the saddest part?
He never made it to 50.
Nat.
No comments:
Post a Comment