Milk
I saw Milk at the Castro Theatre last Wednesday with KristinaK and absinthedreams.
It was really neat to see the theatre that we were sitting in displayed throughout many scenes of the movie.
I highly recommend everyone see this film...I even shedded a couple of tears.
At the end of the film they displayed side by side pictures of the main actors and correlating real life people. Some of the people had since died and some, to my surprise, were still very active in San Francisco politics. Neato!
The most interesting thing that I took away from this movie was how the presence of hostility toward homosexuals in San Francisco was very prevalent as recent as the 1970s.
I always assumed that my city was unapologetically gay from the dawn of time, but this movie made it seem like in the 70s there were hordes of rednecks, equipped with baseball bats, laying wait in the shadows for the sexual deviance alarm to sound...or maybe it was some sort of batman-like signal...I'm imagining it probably looked something like this:
Which leads us to modern day injustices:
- Fred Phelps hasn't been put out of his misery yet.
- Prop 8 just passed.
- A large percentage of Americans shamelessly believe that fantasy land gives them the right to be a hatemongering fanatical douchebag.
But in trying to keep with optimism I think it's important to note the amount of progression of consciousness that's evident by being a part of the San Francisco community. Nobody really gives two fucks about what you do in your bedroom around here these days and if the Milk film was an accurate depiction of 70s SF culture then I'd like to say you've come long way, baby.
I say give it another 20 years, let some more of these older Christians get the boot by there boo, and I think we'll be on to something.
