The documentary film Milk follows the life and career of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in California as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. As an activist, Milk works to pass a gay rights ordinance in San Francisco and defeat Proposition 6, a statewide initiative to ban gays from working in public schools. Despite his successes, Milk's activism leads to conflict with another supervisor, Dan White, who ultimately assassinates Milk. The film explores the emerging gay rights movement in 1970s San Francisco during a time of social change.
The documentary film Milk follows the life and career of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in California as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. As an activist, Milk works to pass a gay rights ordinance in San Francisco and defeat Proposition 6, a statewide initiative to ban gays from working in public schools. Despite his successes, Milk's activism leads to conflict with another supervisor, Dan White, who ultimately assassinates Milk. The film explores the emerging gay rights movement in 1970s San Francisco during a time of social change.
The documentary film Milk follows the life and career of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in California as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. As an activist, Milk works to pass a gay rights ordinance in San Francisco and defeat Proposition 6, a statewide initiative to ban gays from working in public schools. Despite his successes, Milk's activism leads to conflict with another supervisor, Dan White, who ultimately assassinates Milk. The film explores the emerging gay rights movement in 1970s San Francisco during a time of social change.
birthday to his death. Milk is a political activist for gay rights in San Francisco. In 1977, Milk is finally able to win a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, making him thefirst openly gay man to be voted into a major position of public office in California. He begins an effort to defeat Proposition 6, a statewide initiative to ban gays and their supporters from public school jobs. The film also details his complicated working relationship with Dan White, another Supervisor on the Board. Ultimately, Milk is successful in overturning Proposition 6, but he is assassinated shortly after by White. This story takes place in San Francisco, during the 1970s. To put things in context, the American Psychiatric Association had just removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders, meaning that it was still highly stigmatized. Initially, Milks political activism is centered in Eureka Valley, a working class, predominantly gay neighborhood, 8though his later work involves California as whole. This movie connects to our current unit in that it expands upon protest movements of the 1970s, specifically the gay rights movement. The late 1960s and the 1970s were characterized by the rise of counterculture, in which people rejected the traditional thinking of American society. The movie explores the fairly new gay rights movement, featuring activism forequal treatment of gay people and a change in long held prejudice against them. Harvey Milk championed the gay rights movement in California, passing a gay rights ordinance for San Franciscoand overturning Proposition 6. I found Milk to be very informative, especially becauseMilk was so important to the early gay rights movement, yet I hadnt really heard of him before this film. The film showsMilk passion for activism, and I felt just as triumphant when the film showed the defeat of Proposition 6. Overall, it was moving and felt very real, and I enjoyed watching it, despite a rather tragic ending.
One of Milks main conflicts involves Milks efforts
to pass the gay rights ordinance in San Francisco,and his
subsequent fight against John Briggs Proposition 6. Another
conflict involves a clash between political views as Milk rejects Whites conservative project proposals, leading to Whites growing resentment of Milk (which culminates in Whites assassination of Milk).