Milk Does A Body Good

It’s difficult to explain the feeling that comes over me when I am sitting in a movie theater and see two men kiss on screen.  To get the obvious out of the way, it’s as far removed from a sexual feeling as possible.  The first word that comes to mind: comfort. A voice whispering, “it’s okay.” All of my life I have been an avid movie-goer, hooked since I saw Ariel fall for Prince Eric, and yet in my twenty-two years I can remember only a handful of on-screen same-sex kisses; the number of those that weren’t overtly sexual, aggressive, or a punch line is even fewer. 

Within the first five minutes of Gus Van Sant’s newest film, the biopic Milk, two of the largest male stars in the world, Sean Penn and James Franco, not only kiss on a subway platform moments after the opening credits have faded from view, but lay in bed together, playfully wiping cake on each other’s faces as Harvey Milk rings in his fortieth birthday.   “Forty years old, and I’ve yet to do something I’m proud of,” he says to his new companion.  The film, while not perfect, has much to be proud of; first and foremost its balance of portraying gay rights with the weight it deserves in today’s society, while also portraying the love between two men as something not to be gawked at.  

It is this shading that makes Milk so important.  It is a reminder of how far we have come since the days of gay men being murdered in the streets of San Francisco.  And it is a reminder of how much further we have to go.  

This movie has an enormous amount of weight on its shoulders, especially coming in the shadow of the devastating outcome of California’s Prop 8.   Iconic images of protests abound scene after scene, bringing to mind these recent struggles of the gay community. And while a thought running through my mind while watching the events unfold was how much I wish the bigots of the world would be forced to sit down and watch the film, I know it would be as pointless as getting me to sit down and watch football.  (Some things just won’t happen.)   What it does accomplish, however, in the process of preaching to the choir, is it gives the young gay community, a somewhat ignorant bunch in which I place myself, an education about our history. 

The life of a gay people in my generation includes a fair amount of strident optimism, bucking the norm and declaring the lack of mainstream acceptance as superfluous to our existence. We have our own magazines. We have our own bars. We get by fine without the support, right?    Some people do everything they can to distance themselves from conformity, defining themselves by their sexuality and donning sky-high wigs above piles of make-up.  To me, while mainstream acceptance has never been my mission in life, it also seems a bit like a defense mechanism to declare we’re fine without it; putting up a front because it’s a goal we know is unattainable, foolish even.

Seeing this first on screen kiss in what is, to my knowledge, the first mainstream movie about the gay rights movement, felt like my reawakening as a gay man.  Mainly because the love story in the midst of Harvey Milk’s empowering quest to be the first openly gay elected official in major office is presented with such delicacy and lack of salaciousness that it took my breath away.  We don’t see Harvey spitting on his dick and fucking his lover like the characters in Brokeback Mountain.  We see him making breakfast, taking photographs, walking up behind his lover and putting his arms around him on the street.   It’s homosexuality portrayed in as innocent a way as those Disney heroines of my youth.  For brief moments, it’s homosexuality portrayed with an air of nonchalance. 

That word, “nonchalance” exists in this movie because of how completely Penn throws himself into the character.  He is never a straight actor playing gay.  He is Harvey Milk.  But truth be told, however the love story is portrayed, little in Milk’s life—at least the chapters portrayed on screen—was nonchalant. 

Milk’s mouth may as well have been a bullhorn.  From the moment he moved to San Francisco he found a platform for his politics, made up of a dash of the typical scheming that is commonplace in today’s political climate and a bucket of infectious passion, which he poured over anyone he came into contact with. 

“I am Harvey Milk, and I want to recruit you,” he says while standing on a soapbox.  And for the duration of the movie, that’s exactly what he does.  By the time his assassination occurs—an event we know is coming since the beginning of the film—the on-screen Harvey Milk has managed to do for this generation what the real Milk did for his: inspire.  We are human beings deserving of the same rights as everyone else on this Earth. 

Harvey Milk was one person with passion who was able to make a change.  We are all capable.  Our biggest foe is our own complacency (and, in this case, people with guns…which is why you won’t find me supporting gun rights anytime soon).  With a little work, we may be viewed as so regular that mainstream romantic comedies are made with two men as the leads.  Wishful thinking?  Perhaps.  But that’s just what Harvey Milk had.  And that’s everything. 

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Comments

[Esther]

Hey Matt,
Wow, i don't know what to say. (Which is unusual for me.) Your review has left me a little choked up.

Last time I was in San Francisco, which was a few years ago, I visited the Castro and I saw that there was a small monument to Harvey Milk, but it was located in a kind of out of the way spot and I thought that was sad. So I'm glad he's getting his due with this movie. I can't wait to see it. Unfortunately, it might not come to a theater near me until next month.

You're right, the bigots won't see this film. Too many straight people in this country think they don't know anyone who's gay or lesbian. But that's changing, thankfully. I know in my own life, I have many, many more friends and coworkers who are openly gay today than I did 10 or 15 years ago. Hopefully (straight) people are beginning to realize that the things that unite us are more important than the things that we "think" divide us, which is what Harvey Milk was saying, after all.

And you seem pretty regular to me. You are a very good writer, my friend, as well as an excellent photographer.

[Terry Dean]

Hey Matt. great review.

surprisingly, the night we went to the show, it seemed maybe at most, 20 of the people in the whole house were 'mos. Shoulder to shoulder packed theater of mostly straight couples, and half of them crying their eyes out at the end. So, maybe it wasn't all Choir in the audience, and we can hope, with the oscar noms and amazing promotion this film has been getting, just maybe, a few of the bigoted might end up seeing this, if only by mistake or because they were dragged by their friends, girlfriends, etc.

[Laura]

Matt- Hey, this Laura, of I'm a friend of Daniel's and we've met a couple of times fame. I JUST got back from Milk and saw on the ever-provident facebook feed that you had something to say about it. So first of all- hear hear (here here?). As I was watching the movie, I knew that my own hetero-ness was shaping the way I saw it, and it was so nice to have another point of view as soon as I walked back in the door- and one so well composed at that! I forget that two men kissing in a main stream movie is a big deal; I, and the people I try to surround myself with, pride ourselves on our tolerance, so why should an honest, non-caricatured portrayal of homosexuality bother us? It doesn't; what I forget is that there are still an unacceptable number of people out there that will deem such portrayals negative, if they take the time to see them at all. Uggh, here I am preaching to the choir ABOUT preaching to the choir... ANYWAY, I agree with you that is a valuable movie for our generation to see because gay, straight, undiscriminating, whatever, we don't know our own history, and it's important. And amazing!

Esther- here's one straight person who does realize that our commonalities as human beings are bigger than the things that make us different from each other. AND, I'm from Texas, so there is hope!

Good lord, I've written a book. I may have to copy and paste for my own blog...

[Susan Glass]

Score another tedious overlong self-indulgent "review" for the internet's resident same-sex activist/blogger/ahem... "writer".

You really love the sight of your own voice don't you?

Brokeback Mountain was tedious crap, as was Milk, God-awful self-indulgent, maudlin, gay cinema.

Don't get me wrong I'm not homophobic, I just can't stand tedious shit. Your charmingly parochial vision of future romantic gay cinema is causing me to reach for the razor blade as I type.

The Seagull review at least had brevity on its side, this...? Oh boy, oh boy oh boy oh boy.

[Joe Nickell]

Ah, love. It makes the blue skies gray, it makes hope turn sour....Oh wait, no, that was just some hateful commenter trying to rain on a parade.

Wow, Susan Glass, whoever you are. Maybe this is your idea of irony or humor. Or maybe you have nothing else to do but pour your unpleasantness on other people's moments of joy. Either way, comments like that....Wow. I don't think "get a life" says it quite strongly enough. I mean, think or feel what you will, but do you really need to spend your energy typing shit like that? Does it help you? Wow again. The mind boggles.

[Cindy]

I'll keep it brief..... No one put a gun to your head to read his blog, you vitriolic bitch.

[Barbara]

I humbly suggest that we all ignore Susan Glass and with luck she'll simply go away.

[Keith]

Matt, this is a great review. It's important to remember, I think, that the opening scenes of the movie occurred only a few months after the Stonewall Riots. At that time, in most of America, two men could and would be arrested for merely dancing or holding hands together in public. And even gay men in New York and San Francisco confined themselves to the "ghettos" of the Village and the Castro. Milk and Stonewall were the bicoastal beginning of the gay rights movement as we know it, taking huge strides toward mainstreaming homosexuals. Sometimes, when we get upset at such things as Prop. 8, it is difficult to remember how far we have come in only 35 years.

[Valerie]

As always, Matt, beautifully written. Thanks for another honest and thought provoking review. I hope to see the movie soon. I was in high school when Harvey Milk was assassinated and yes, we have come a long way. It's okay.

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