Got Milk? An Analyzation of the Portrayal of Politician Harvey Milk
In Milk (2008), Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) meets his lover Scott Smith and moves from New York to San Francisco. He has just turned 40 and wants to do something meaningful with his life. Once in San Francisco, he opens up a camera shop in the Castro District, which he creates into a community for gays and lesbians to be able to be themselves in. Milk then decides that he wants to run for a seat on the Board of Supervisors. He loses a couple elections and Smith doesn’t want him to run again, but Milk feels he needs to. His relationship with Smith does not survive this and instead, Milk dates another man, Jack. Milk is finally elected in 1977 and is the first openly gay man elected to a notable public office. A fellow Supervisor, Dan White, is looked at as a potential ally for Milk. However, there is tension when Proposition 6 is proposed, a proposition that would require California to fire all gay teachers. White does not want to vote against it after he feels that Milk betrays him by not voting what he had asked him to in a matter of a psychiatric hospital being put into White’s district. This causes White to come unhinged and hate Milk. Jack, unfortunately, cannot handle being Milk’s partner and kills himself, Milk doesn’t have time to mourn though and continues to rally efforts in order to vote out Proposition 6 which he succeeds in. White harbors hate and can no longer take it and kills Milk in cold blood after him only being a year in office.
I will be arguing that the movie Milk portrays a great example of the negative mentality of queerness, the pink dollar as well as acknowledge that some portrayals of the characters are dramatic and problematic. When Harvey Milk first meets his boyfriend, Scott Smith, in the subway in New York, they flirt and kiss. After this first kiss, Milk looks around nervously before leading Scott back to his house. This being in 1970 it makes sense that Milk is nervous about who sees this moment of public affection. Gross explains, “…actual or suspected homosexuals were targets of persecution…” (Gross, 2001).
They then proceed to go back to Milk’s house and that’s where the audience is privy to a tender moment of affection between Smith and Milk. They joke about Milk’s age and the danger of picking up people on the subway because they could potentially be police. This comradery and a shared fear of persecution are very indicative of what it was like to be queer in 1970. After their night together, the movie shows they move to San Francisco, Milk stating that he wants to do something meaningful with his life. Once in San Francisco Milk, not being satisfied with doing nothing, buys a store-front in the Castro district and opens a camera store.
When Milk and Smith are standing looking at their new camera store a neighbor in the district is standing near them, watching them. After Milk and Smith kiss to celebrate their new achievement they notice the man. Milk goes to shake hands with this man and after their hands release the man proceeds to wipe his hand on his jacket. Before leaving he says a rude comment, showing his hostility towards Milk and Smith and their relationship. This clearly shows the mentality that queerness was a disease, linked to the AIDS crisis, something that could be transferred or taught to heterosexuals. Treichler writes about AIDS and homophobia that people thought it was, “A gay plague, probably emanating from San Francisco” (Treichler, 1999). This issue also comes up in another part of the movie. There is a proposition that is introduced, Proposition 6, that aims to fire all teachers in California who are gay. This becomes the main issue for Milk to fight for. This was a popular mentality at the beginning of the queer rights movement.
The movie then goes on to show an exemplary depiction of the modern term, the pink dollar. We learned about the pink Yuan in the article “The pink yuan: how Chinese business is embracing the LGBT market” by Jamie Fullerton for The Guardian. Fullerton writes, “an increasing amount of startups are tailoring their products and services for LGBT people to capitalize on this change” (Fullerton, 2017). Milk portrays this exact scenario. Milk describes in a voice-over what is happening in the scenes that play out in the movie. Since Castro had become a gay mecca, shops that were tolerant of queerness were rewarded with the business of the homosexuals in the neighborhood. Those who were not were boycotted, an example being Coors beer, and smaller stores went out of business. This shows the power of the queer community and their dollar and how when businesses were faced with the idea of either accepting queerness or opposing it they chose the money over any personal beliefs.
There were some representations in Milk that I found to be problematic and dramatic. There is one character, a young gay male who Milk confronts in the street. He is someone who performs tricks. He tells Milk that he is moving to Spain to be with a man. His character is portrayed as an overly sexualized young homosexual. This is a simplification of his character and problematic in that sense. Jack’s character line is also problematic, in more ways than one. His mental health is heavily stressed, he performs in a way that makes him seem crazy. Which leads to the idea that queerness is a mental health problem. The other problematic issue I can take up with Milk is the over-dramatization of suicide in the movie. This theme is stressed in the movie. Not only with Jack committing suicide with Milk having to find his body and be a cause. In the movie Milk states that many of his exes killed themselves because he was not ready to come out yet. Although suicide in the queer community, especially in such an oppressive time, is prevalent, it seems like a dramatized part of the movie. This leads to the mentality that queer folk can never be happy, that they’re lives always have to end in tragedy, especially in media.
Resources:
- Fullerton, J. (2017, January 05). The pink yuan: How Chinese business is embracing the LGBT market. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jan/05/the-pink-yuan-how-chinese-business-is-embracing-the-lgbt-market
- Gross, L. P. (2002). Up from invisibility: Lesbians, gay men, and the media in America. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Treichler, P. A. (2006). How to have theory in an epidemic: Cultural chronicles of AIDS. Durham: Duke University Press.
