in the arts
from March 2009

Sometimes bar-stool queens and couch potatoes who loudly protest that politics and gay rights campaigning is oh-so-boring and last year need a catalyst to remind them that the struggle for equality is not over yet.

Gus Van Sant’s latest film Milk might just provide an opportunity to reflect that gays have had to fight hard for their human dignity and to be secure in their employment. Being part of a community and confident in asserting their views can be positive and fun, as well.

Milk is quite a reverential biopic of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay American to be elected to public office as a district supervisor in San Francisco in 1977. A year later he was shot dead by a fellow supervisor, Dan White, jealous of Milk’s political successes. There’s a hint that White was a closet queer who found the tension difficult to handle. His defence argued that too much junk food upset his mind! Milk’s political campaigning is set at a time of national debate on ‘Proposition 6’ which sought to sack homosexuals in public service. This was led by the religious right, fronted by Anita Bryant.

The film picks up the career of Milk, a boring office suit, on his fortieth birthday as he picks up a cute, smiling trick in the New York subway. Following a whirlwind romance, they move in together, move to the Castro district in San Francisco, and energise the newly awakening gay community. Milk’s camera shop is a drop-in centre for gay rights activism at a time when the police were harassing people on the streets and in the bars. Only by wearing a suit again to gain respectability, and by making business alliances with the teamsters union, does Milk get elected, on the third attempt, to public office. He is clearly a charismatic leader, able to make speeches and witty self-putdowns to a wide audience. He attracts a coterie of young, energetic activists who run his campaigns. The film includes archive footage of protests and police harassment.

Milk, played by Sean Penn, has a basic campness beneath the skin of an accomplished political operator. He attracts attractive, younger companions but his subway pick up leaves because the campaigning takes over their lives and his next lover, an unstable Latino, commits suicide for similar reasons. The Castro district is in state of pre-AIDS euphoria where life is fun - all denim, short shorts, perms and moustaches. Gay businesses flourish whilst homophobic ones are boycotted and leave. The sheer force of numbers on the streets protesting seems to ensure inevitable success. There are a couple of moving vignettes when a teenager in a wheelchair rings Milk to say his parents are taking him to hospital to be ‘cured’ of his homosexuality. He rings again some months later to say he has escaped and is in a caring gay community. He thanks Milk for raising the self confidence of gays. Although he has a loyal following, like one of his favourite doomed operatic divas, Milk faces the ultimate hubris of assassination. He is aware of the threat and commits his thoughts to audio tape.

Despite its tragic ending, the film does have a positive message that the struggle for gay rights continued beyond Milk’s demise into the recognition of civil partnerships and raising awareness of HIV.

It is very much an American film with its Californian setting, and offers an authentic view of gay life 30 years ago when there was a certain youthful exuberance around. But the darker side of drugs, promiscuity and gay bashing is not dealt with in detail. The threat from AIDS is not part of the timescale. Milk is never criticised by his acolytes. Somehow the Americans do their protest movements with more pizzazz than the Brits. Peter Tatchell is just that touch too worthy and serious and Lord Mandy would perhaps lose out in a vote between him and Harvey Milk. The sense of a gay community can be less marked in British cities and more uptight English queens don’t rush shouting into the streets in quite the same way as their American counterparts do.

But even if you don’t ‘do’ activism you can still feel a sense of excitement by seeing this history of Harvey Milk and reflect, however briefly, about how our current rights have been achieved. It is important to have a sense of community by supporting individuals under threat. Maybe a late New Year’s resolution is to actually smile, be nice to people and be more active in countering homophobic comments in the street. You could certainly take mother to see Milk and no doubt she would be charmed by all those nice faggots.

But wearing denim and a moustache again may be taking homage a bit too far.

Nick Tyldesley