It's been a long time since I last blogged (June to be exact!) I thank everyone who has read my blogs in the past. I feel like I have a great audience and friends here on the Sugar Network, to make me feel like it's worth while to write in the first place!

I just looked through quickly some of the blogs I posted in the past, and because my memory fails me most of the time, I was going to write that this was my first blog specifically about a movie, but I was wrong! The last time I mentioned a movie was when I shared about how much I liked "Gone Baby Gone" (which I still think was an amazing movie). In any case, on Friday night I watched the movie "Milk." The movie moved me so much that I was still thinking about it the following day. "Milk" is a biopic about Harvey Milk (an openly gay man and his role in politics and gay rights) from the year he moved from NYC to San Francisco until his tragic death. There is also a documentary called "The Times of Harvey Milk" from 1984. After reading buzzsugar's review of "Milk" I want to check out this documentary. She recommends watching it because it has more live footage and probably goes into more detail on Dan White (the man who assassinated Milk and the mayor at that time).
Unlike buzz, I'm not writing to give so much of a review of the movie but more of how the movie really moved and touched me. When you think of a movie about a man involved in the gay rights movement in San Fran in the 70's, I can't help but think more about the audience/movie goers than the movie itself. To me, it's one of those movies people will decide to see or not to see based on their feelings about homosexuality. To me that's just a big shame, because it was so much more than a movie about a homosexual man.

The movie begins with some real footage of Dianne Feinstein (who would go on to become the Mayor of San Francisco and is now a California Senator) telling the media that Harvey Milk and major, George Moscone, were killed my city supervisor Dan White. By beginning the movie, at the end, the movie sets the stage for: 1) knowledge of his death, not being a mystery/unknown, and 2) a great lead in to a movie that really pays tribute to his life and work. Throughout the movie, the director does an incredible job of melding real footage with the dramatization of it; reinforcing that fact that this "story" is based on true events. Also early in the movie, we see Sean Penn on Castro Street (which is where he opens a camera store) looking around. When the camera pans away from Penn, you see live footage of what Castro Street looked at that time. Also mentioned in buzz's review, is footage of a woman named Anita Bryant who's entire role was shown through old television interviews of herself openly expressing her deeply held Christian views on homosexuality. I can't help but feel news channels today wouldn't allow someone like her to speak the way she did, but I can't help but also think, "You never know." At the very least, I would rarely see anyone speak so discrimatorily, and so overtly about their hatred and fears toward gays. Whenever I saw her in the movie, I thought if there's one thing we've improved on since then is that less people talk with such ignorance. However, as the movie unfolded and "Proposition 6" and "voting against it" were discussed, it made me realize how these issues are still with us and not just anachronisms of the 70's (as many of us know what happened to Prop 8 in Cali recently).

The movie, thankfully doesn't make Milk out to be a flawless character and often makes references to more of his bio through the interactions he has with his friends and partners, particularly Scott Smith. Reading his bio on wikipedia, and alluded to in the movie, is that Milk in his earlier years was more conservative and "in the closet" about his sexuality. When he began in politics, he actually was a Republican. You can see his transformation in politics, as he fights for the Supervisor seat (he lost 2 times before getting it). It almost felt like he did it to prove a point. He stood up for the years in which he suppressed who he was. When talking to the young boy on the phone who called him about possibly committing suicide, it was almost as though he was talking to himself, back then.

This story couldn't come at a better time, to express that even though we have made strides to address gay rights, we still have so much further to go. This movie, I felt, was not only a tribute to this man, and not only a tribute to the gay rights movement, but a tribute to people who stand up for equal rights, discrimination and prejudice - in general. As a person who is considered a "minority" based on my ethnicity, I watched this movie through those lenses.