Life Of Harvey Milk

Year: 1984

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Epstein

Review

ah, the twinkie defense. this is one of those cases that gives defense lawyers a bad name. the guy sneaks into city hall through a window, guns down two political enemies and serves five years in prison. at this point you should be applauding our justice system.

harvey milk was the first openly gay city supervisor to be elected in california and he was apparently a good leader who was strong in his convictions. by the end of the film milk is well-humanized and we are given some idea of the potential impact his assassination had on history. the films also offers a good primer to 70s california and bay area politics. proposition 6, which was defeated, would have made it illegal to be openly gay and a school teacher (because gays touch little boys, or something like that). it made me think that in 1977 california was less anti-gay than it was anti-illegal immigrant in 1997 (because of the yes vote on proposition 187, which was later found unconstitutional). yes, the two propositions are different in scope and intention, but the fact remains that, 20 years later 187 was passed, while prop. 6 didn’t. this runs somewhat contrary to what we hear about our society being so fiercely anti-gay and bolsters the stereotype of california being gay friendly. as a californian, i’m happy about the latter, and embarrassed by the former.