It's Milk!

My girlfriend and I watched the Academy Awards last night. It's not something I'm inclined to do normally, because I live under a metaphorical rock and have usually never seen most of the movies up for awards. This year was much the same except for one notable exception: Milk. The film was a biography of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to a public office in the United States. It was incredibly well made, offering up a story known mostly to people in gay culture and making it accessible to a wider audience. How wide is debatable, since it wasn't one of the more widely distributed movies of the year. When my girlfriend came to visit me in Florida we had to drive for over an hour to see it at the one theater in the area where it was listed.

It was worth the drive.

We both agreed that Sean Penn deserved an Oscar. He became Harvey Milk, so much so that clips of photos from the '70s interspersed with footage of the film were almost indistinguishable. That Penn as an actor could create a character who was clearly gay without once approaching the line of stereotype is nothing short of a miracle, one that everyone in the gay community viewed with both relief and applause.

The film drew several Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Original Screenplay. It won two, Best Actor and Best Screenplay, both well deserved. The movie was incredibly well-written, told in a series of narratives and flashbacks that highlighted the most important aspects of Milk's life. And Sean Penn, as I said before, was simply amazing.

Both Penn and Dustin Lance Black, the writer, alluded to Prop 8 in their acceptance speeches. It's an important reminder that while Milk died thirty years ago, the issues he worked hard for are still timely in our society today.

Black's Speech:



Penn's Speech:



My thanks to both of them for making this amazing movie, and for recognizing its importance in our country today. Hopefully their statements and these awards will raise consciousness for those who still haven't figured out that people are people, no matter who they love. Blessed be.