Oscar Review: Milk = Marriage

When the biopic of assassinated San Francisco gay activist Harvey Milk was released this fall, I neglected to see it. Maybe I’m a bad gay. But given all of the flack and fallout of Prop 8 in California, I knew that the film was going to take on a meaning about the need to win same-sex marriage.

This was clear last night when screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and actor Sean Penn picked up Oscar’s for their respective categories.

Black talked about how learning about Milk at 13 years old made him feel a sense of value despite growing up in a very homophobic environment. “It gave me the hope one day I could live my life openly as who I am and then maybe even I could even fall in love and one day get married,” he said.

Penn quite humorously opened his acceptance speech by calling the Hollywood crowd, “You commie, homo-loving sons of guns.”

He then used the moment scold “Yes on Prop 8″ voters: “I think it’s a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect on their great shame and their shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that support. We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone.”

While I felt moved by both Black and Penn’s speeches on some level, I also wondered about how Milk’s work (though not without it’s problems) for “gay rights” was also very clearly tied to coalition building among civil rights, labor, and other movements is getting conflated, confused, and reduced to a singular argument for marriage? What are the other lessons that could potentially be learned and passed on about broad-based coalition and movement-building for white gays to work on behalf of a broader social justice agenda?

Also, as San Francisco’s The Castro neighborhood celebrates this movie as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, I can’t help but remember that just a couple years ago in 2005, several gay bars were picketed for trying to prevent Black people from entering by doubling the admission or asking for multiple forms of ID, and discriminating against Black job applicants. So while the Castro is celebrating the past, what are the current injustices perpetuated in the very location where Milk launched his career as an activist?