Milk: Icon for gay community, role model for progressive politics

Sean Penn as Harvey Milk (photo: greg hefner via Flickr.com)

“I want to recruit you,” Harvey Milk used to scream at rallies all over California in the 1970s as he campaigned against the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned homosexuals from teaching in public schools.

The recruitment meme was something the religious right, which was just getting its legs, had discovered was playing well as a scare tactic with the electorate.

In the new film by Gus VanSant, Sean Penn as Harvey Milk not only recruits but charms the pants off viewers in a powerful, riveting, challenging and ultimately life-affirming portrait of a progressive politician.

Milk was one of the first openly gay people elected to public office in the U.S., winning a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk and Mayor George Moscone were murdered by former supervisor Dan White, bringing to an end a political mind that was committed to doing something for people, not politics.

VanSant’s film is carefully crafted, paying loving homage to the everyman Milk was, while at the same time providing us with a fully realized character with human foibles. There is no sentimentalizing Milk in this film. He is there for everyone to see, blemishes and all. He ignored his partners in favor of his politics; he went to the bathhouses. And yet in spite of, perhaps because of all this, Milk rises to the level of an everyday hero.

And VanSant is just as careful with Milk’s killer Dan White. White, played by Josh Brolin, is a confused, frustrated man struggling to find his place in an ever-shifting world. Brolin’s portrayal is very real, never sentimental and most importantly layered with depth to make him a complex character.

While this film is a powerful biopic about a man few outside of the gay rights movement may have heard of, it is also a testament to the ideas of progressive coalition-building. Milk used to tell his crowds, “You gotta give them hope.” Sounds pretty familiar. And this film does give you hope. A hope for a country where people are accepted for who they are and people look for the best in each other.

While the film is currently opened in limited release, it is a must see. If you can’t get to Detroit to see it, then demand that your local theater play it. Then go see it, but bring tissues and prepare to have your heart opened.