Got Milk

If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.

Talk about an inspiring line.

And it comes from Harvey Milk as he taped his last testament woefully thinking of the numerous death threats he'd received. No doubt foreseeing how things would end for him.

Took me a while but I finally got down to watching the much-lauded movie Milk based on the life of this extraordinary man - the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Not an easy task especially with the religious conservatives galvanized by the likes of Anita Bryant opposing him. His subsequent assasination ( not a spoiler since the movie begins right after news of his death ) and the response to it made permanent and unquestionable the full participation of gay and lesbian people in the political process.

And Milk did it all after the age of 40.

Life certainly begans after 40.


Surprisingly relevant to the homosexual cause in our country now - especially since the movie begins with a brief montage detailing the struggles of gay men back in the early 1970s as they battled homophobia on almost every front. Gay bar raids, regular street arrests and back alley beatings. Sound familiar?

Rather than shamefully retreat into the closet to hide, Harvey Milk decides to come out and do something about it. Drag the queers out of their dingy bars and reorganize them into a solid front to march for their rights in public. Talk about a bold move!

And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant in television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope.

Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.

Inspirational. Makes me wanna rush out to purchase billboards, protest signs and soapboxes. About time we had a Harvey Milk of our own, don't you think? Things have to change after all. Whether big or small, we gotta start our own little revolution.

Of course interspersed throughout the wildly changing political scene is a sweet love story. That between Harvey Milk and Scott Smith. The true backbone of the story - just like the ever loyal Scott who seems to be right there for Harvey through all his ups and downs.


Hot guys in the seventies!
What's a gay movie without a couple of hotties? Played by the extremely fit James Franco who takes a naked swandive into the pool in one pivotal scene totally upstaging everyone else with his tight creamy bottom. Seriously. Who cares about swinging votes when you have one hot fella stripping by the poolside. Too bad he doesn't see fit to strut around the pool providing some eyewash.

And I haven't even talked about the sexy pizza delivery boy yet :)