Sources :

• Encyclopedia Britannica
• Wikipedia
• Robert Rosenstone, "The Historical Film as Real History",
• Sarah Johnson, "Defining the Genre: What are the rules for historical fiction?"
• Sara Villa, "Milk (2008) and The Times of Harvey Milk (1984): The Double Filmic Resurrection of the Mayor of Castro Street", Other Modernities, 2009
• Julia Erhart, "The Naked Community Organizer: Politics and Reflexivity in Gus Van Sant's Milk" (2011), a/b: Auto/Biography studies (2011)
• Nan Alamilla Boyd, "San Francisco's Castro district: from gay liberation to tourist destination", Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change (Vol. 9, No. 3, page 237-248), 2011
• The Huffington Post, December 20th 2016
• National Geographic, June 16th 2016
• Washington Post, June 14th 2016
• Vox Pop (on the Franco-German TV channel ARTE) "Being gay in Romania", January 8th 2017

Harvey Milk’s bold move in the 1970s was a major evolution for gay visibility and equal rights in the United-States, where gay rights made great progress over the last few decades. This has also been the case in many other Western developed countries, which adopted gay marriage and equal rights laws. 

For instance, in 2015 the Republic of Ireland became the first country in the world to legalise homosexual marriage by popular referendum.

Another evidence of progress is the fact that the US Navy is now planning to name one of its new oil tankers after Harvey Milk (who came from a naval family and served his country as a naval officer from 1951 to 1955 as reported in the Huffington Post dated December 20^th 2016) whereas gay people used to be banned from serving in the US armed forces until 1994.

Yet, in 2017 there is still a long way to go worldwide and more especially in emerging countries, but not only …..

As evidenced by the last annual World Survey of Sexual Orientation Laws (dated June 2016) from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA)* as reported in an article of National Geographic dated June 16^th 2016 (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/lgbt-laws-gay-rights-world-map.html), gay people in a great part of the world face a lot of danger and hatred. For instance, Africa is one of the most dangerous places to be gay: in many African countries gays are murdered and can even be sentenced to death by the laws of their countries.

*(Established in 1978, ILGA is an organisation that enjoys a consultative status at the United-Nations and publishes an annual world report and a map on legislation criminalising or protecting people on the basis of their sexual orientation. ILGA is funded by several governments (Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands) and private foundations and aims at working for the equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people and their liberation from all forms of discrimination.)

According to ILGA’s last report,

·      in 73 countries (mainly in Africa and in the Middle-East but but also in some other large countries such India or Pakistan) still punish homosexual relationships with fines, prison sentences, torture and even death penalty;

·      in 14 countries being homosexual or bisexual can lead to the death penalty (by stoning in accordance with the interpretation of the Sharia law): Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, U.A.E., Yemen (as highlighted in “The state of gay rights around the world”, an article of the Washington Post dated June 14^th 2016 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/gay-rights/)

·      in 17 countries, bans are in place to prohibit “propaganda” promoting LGBT communities and/or identities: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Somalia, Tunisia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lithuania, Russia;

·      even in the United-States, where a lot of progress has been achieved, in 2016 nearly 200 anti-LGBT bills have been introduced at the state level and less than half of the states have laws in place prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexuality;

·   as reported on January 8^th 2017 on "Vox Pop" (on Franco-German TV channel ARTE), gay marriage is presently still illegal in Romania (and altogether in 7 EU member countries), etc.

Harvey Milk’s move was a great breakthrough, but 40 years later his battle is far from being over. 

Milk was part of a “movement”

We can assess that the movie respected what Milk seemed to think about himself: he was part of a “movement” that was bigger than him and that would continue after his death. Indeed, as Sara Villa mentions it in one of her 2010  article ("Milk (2008) and The Times of Harvey Milk (1984): The Double Filmic Resurrection of the Mayor of Castro Street",  Other Modernities, 2009), Gus Van Sant chose not to represent Milk as a martyr or an exceptional tragic hero but as an ordinary man who managed to start changing society thanks to the help of the LGBT community. Although some scenes are moving and poignant, the movie does not verge on pathos. According to Sara Villa, the end of the movie conveys a positive message that underlines the ongoing activism that went on after Milk’s death, which made Milk part of a movement.

First, the last image of Milk is not that of his corpse but that of his talking to his recording tape. Thus, the film gives us a last image of Milk being alive. 

Second, the recording tape, which really exists, is a sort of will that still enables people to keep a connection with Milk, as if he were still alive.

Third, the movie ends with the other character’s images and becoming after Milk’s death. All of them have kept fighting for their rights and have constituted Milk’s legacy. 

For all these reasons, the movie shows how and why Milk was part of the civil rights movement.

An unconventional biopic on some aspects

            Therefore, one can say that Harvey Milk could be considered, on some aspects, as an unconventional biopic, since Milk is always depicted as an ordinary man who is part of a movement that is bigger than him.

According to Julia Erhart's article ("The Naked Community Organizer: Politics and Reflexivity in Gus Van Sant's Milk", a/b: Auto/Biography studies (2011)), it also defies the conventional biopic subject that has progressively changed. Like some of today’s biopics, Harvey Milk challenges the Hollywood studio-era preference for heroic white and heterosexual men, in this post-civil-rights and post-feminist era that nevertheless still mainly stars conventional and beloved mythical figures (2013 S. Spielberg’s Lincoln, 2000 Martin Scorsese’s Aviator, etc.…). In that sense, Harvey Milk challenges the old-fashioned idea of greatness that still sometimes prevails in today’s mind-sets. Indeed, the biopic stars a non-heroic homosexual, which sometimes disturbs in democratic countries even today: several American religious universities banned Harvey Milk from screens.

Positive critics

In most cases, Harvey Milk was acclaimed by the critics. Most of them saw the movie as amplifying the cause for gay rights, raising awareness of the past and being a source of inspiration for a new generation of activists.  

Criticisms

However, according to Julia Erhart's article ("The Naked Community Organizer: Politics and Reflexivity in Gus Van Sant's Milk", a/b: Auto/Biography studies (2011)), some critics, writers and journalists blamed Gus Van Sant for omitting some aspects of Milk’s life. Most of them were gays and some of them had lived in San Francisco in the 1970s and sometimes knew Milk or some of his friends represented on screen (like American academic and writer Michael Bronski, or American writer and theatre critic Hilton Als). As a consequence, they had high expectations on the historical fidelity of the biopic.

For instance, , as underlined in Julia Erhart's article, Hilton Als criticized the fact that women were under-represented in the movie (only activist Anne Kronenberg is represented), stating that it did not correspond to Milk’s life, as shown in Epstein’s documentary The Times of Harvey Milk (1984).

Numerous writers also criticized the inaccuracy concerning Milk’s private life. First, they condemned what they called the “desexualisation” of the San Francisco gay community and Harvey Milk’s life in particular (Julia Erhart's article I mentioned above). Indeed, Milk’s protagonist was seen with successively two lovers (Scott Smith and Jack Lira). According to some critics and writers, it misrepresents Milk’s life and gay sexuality by following the convention of monogamous romance. Many gays (among whom, Milk), especially at the time in San Francisco, had many lovers at the same time and casual anonymous sex was very frequent, which is not represented in the movie. The centrality of sex and desire in gay male culture is mentioned very little. Second, some critics blamed the movie for focusing too much on politics. According to them, Harvey Milk dedicated all of its story time to politics and activism, which eclipse other personal aspects of Milk’s life (psychology, personal convictions about sex, romance, family,…). For instance, the audience does not see to what extent Scott’s departure and Jack Lira’s suicide affected Milk. The movie does not dwell on Milk’s feelings about those two traumatic events.

When it was released in November 2008, the movie echoed current events, which could explain why it was very popular, according to Julia Erhart's article "The Naked Community Organizer. Politics and Reflexivity in Gus Van Sant's Milk", a/b: Auto/Biography studies (2011). Because of its non-mainstream themes and issues, people thought that Harvey Milk would be limited to a restricted audience. But because of how positively most critics responded to the movie’s release, Harvey Milk has drawn a larger audience than expected. Milk benefited from a huge publicity thanks to journalists’ and critics’ praises. In doing so, critics made Milk accessible for large audiences. Critics and journalists particularly liked how the movie’s release echoed current events.

Proposition 8 in 2008

First the movie’s release came a few days before the voting of Proposition 8, a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment passed in the November 2008 California state elections, and which banned same-sex marriage (Proposition 8 was finally deemed as unconstitutional by a federal court in 2010, although the court decision did not go into effect until June 26, 2013). Some journalists attributed Harvey Milk’s critical and box office popularity to the dislike of Proposition 8.

Barack Obama’s election in 2008

Second, the movie’s release came about three weeks after the 2008 U.S. federal election. The press and many other people found similarities between Harvey Milk and Barack Obama. The film was seen as the epitome of B. Obama’s presidency. Reviewers often mentioned Milk’s and Obama’s identities as “outsiders” representing a community. Both are the first members of a community to rise to a certain office. Both Milk and Obama used the recurring theme of hope in their political discourses. Both embody hope and outsiders’ successes, as Milk declared in his “Hope Speech”: “Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, (…). 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”.