Milk Criticism in the Huffington Post
I thought that this piece was very specific, ballsy, and well put. I very much enjoyed Sean Penn's performance as Harvey Milk in Milk, and out of the nominations, I think he is most deserving of the Academy award.
This Huffington Post article is quite critical about the sedated manner that the movie portrayed, and claims that "Harvey Milk deserved a better movie that this" and "Milk is curiously placid and sterile, even prudish." I do agree with these comments, as the film was a very sedated form of my understanding of the Castro during the 70's, and really didn't best portray the overall culture of the Castro, but rather, the specific activist view and the community support for Harvey Milk's work. The article goes on, "Bitch, I've seen queers more fired up when Bed Bath & Beyond runs out of sale items. Where's the passion?"
My favorite section of the article is as follows:
Gay history -- unedited -- is ugly, angry, and violent. It's police dragging us out of cellar bars and down to the station to gang fuck the femmes and face-rape the butches, queens, and trannies. It's military witch hunts; suicides and "experimental therapies," from lobotomies and electro-shock to Christian boot camps. It's Stonewall, where we showered raiding police with bottles, locked them in the bar, and set it afire. It's ACT UP and chaining ourselves to pharmaceutical companies' fences to protest AIDS drugs price gouging.
These elements, as mentioned, are missing from the movie, and I question how much cinematography could have changed this. Yes, you can feel the impression that Harvey had with the Castro community, however, the movement still feels small, and severely edited of who is involved in this movement. As a friend of mine had mentioned, the movie severely neglects the placement of female subjects during this movement, and though the Castro in many ways is was a gay male dominated space, the lack of female bodies in the crowds and is really limiting. The same applies to transgender bodies in San Francisco, as the movie barely mentions Stonewall, let alone the Compton's Cafeteria riots. The focus on male bodies in this specific space is truly an inaccurate portrayal of the event.
The film totally takes one the heteronormative gay, in a way, the same mindset that queers took on during the McCarthy era and the Mattachine Society, trying to show how "normal" queers are in the framework of traditional heterosexually dominated America, and that lesbians and gays are the exact same and fulfill the same roles as their heterosexual counterparts. The movie shows the partnership between Harvey and Scott, and later, Harvey and Jack's relationship, however, the lack of gay sex, gay sexual language and the infusion of queer culture into these interactions, really deters from the tension with the Castro in San Francisco at that time. However, the movie does encourage that there is change within the neighborhood, but the movie forgets to show exactly why that is.
I also found problematic that though this even is at the very beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Castro, I think that some attention could have been place to despite all of this hope created by the life and efforts of Harvey Milk, that the queer community would soon be devastated by a heavily stigmatized illness only a short time after, and the Castro changed forever. Though the timeframe is off, it just seems so negligent of what is to come, and further emphasizes the floweriness of this movie that the Huffington Post writer criticizes.
BTW, did anyone see the Cleve Jones cameo while Sean Penn is giving the Gay Freedom Day Parade speech too?
This Huffington Post article is quite critical about the sedated manner that the movie portrayed, and claims that "Harvey Milk deserved a better movie that this" and "Milk is curiously placid and sterile, even prudish." I do agree with these comments, as the film was a very sedated form of my understanding of the Castro during the 70's, and really didn't best portray the overall culture of the Castro, but rather, the specific activist view and the community support for Harvey Milk's work. The article goes on, "Bitch, I've seen queers more fired up when Bed Bath & Beyond runs out of sale items. Where's the passion?"
My favorite section of the article is as follows:
Gay history -- unedited -- is ugly, angry, and violent. It's police dragging us out of cellar bars and down to the station to gang fuck the femmes and face-rape the butches, queens, and trannies. It's military witch hunts; suicides and "experimental therapies," from lobotomies and electro-shock to Christian boot camps. It's Stonewall, where we showered raiding police with bottles, locked them in the bar, and set it afire. It's ACT UP and chaining ourselves to pharmaceutical companies' fences to protest AIDS drugs price gouging.
These elements, as mentioned, are missing from the movie, and I question how much cinematography could have changed this. Yes, you can feel the impression that Harvey had with the Castro community, however, the movement still feels small, and severely edited of who is involved in this movement. As a friend of mine had mentioned, the movie severely neglects the placement of female subjects during this movement, and though the Castro in many ways is was a gay male dominated space, the lack of female bodies in the crowds and is really limiting. The same applies to transgender bodies in San Francisco, as the movie barely mentions Stonewall, let alone the Compton's Cafeteria riots. The focus on male bodies in this specific space is truly an inaccurate portrayal of the event.
The film totally takes one the heteronormative gay, in a way, the same mindset that queers took on during the McCarthy era and the Mattachine Society, trying to show how "normal" queers are in the framework of traditional heterosexually dominated America, and that lesbians and gays are the exact same and fulfill the same roles as their heterosexual counterparts. The movie shows the partnership between Harvey and Scott, and later, Harvey and Jack's relationship, however, the lack of gay sex, gay sexual language and the infusion of queer culture into these interactions, really deters from the tension with the Castro in San Francisco at that time. However, the movie does encourage that there is change within the neighborhood, but the movie forgets to show exactly why that is.
I also found problematic that though this even is at the very beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Castro, I think that some attention could have been place to despite all of this hope created by the life and efforts of Harvey Milk, that the queer community would soon be devastated by a heavily stigmatized illness only a short time after, and the Castro changed forever. Though the timeframe is off, it just seems so negligent of what is to come, and further emphasizes the floweriness of this movie that the Huffington Post writer criticizes.
BTW, did anyone see the Cleve Jones cameo while Sean Penn is giving the Gay Freedom Day Parade speech too?