Milk

 Milk (2008) covers the political career of Harvey Milk, an individual famous for his activism in the movement for LGBT rights and for his status as the first openly gay man elected to public office without incumbency. This film strikes a chord particularly at a moment in the national debate where the content that is acceptable to show to children and the role of education and visibility in allegedly promoting marginalized sexualities and gender identities has become front and center politics. This film also effectively covers the difficulty of maneuvering minority rights inside a democracy. Harvey Milk’s response towards his failed elections focusing on the absurd injustices forced on his community raises questions regarding the ability for the political inclusion of marginalized groups. Milk’s eventual strategy encouraging people to come out to their parents and their friends then emphasizes the role that optics and the sympathy of the general public have played and are playing towards the treatment of marginalized sexualities and gender identities. The work accomplished by Harvey Milk and his movement was and remains very influential in the political inclusion of the LGBTQ community, though it is worth emphasizing the potentially temporary nature that these substantial changes could be. In the context of transphobic laws going on the books at a state level and where concerns of Obergefell v. Hodges to go the way of Roe v. Wade are well founded. Where the inclusion of marginalized groups in politics and society is challenged, there is both a sharp individual cost as well as legitimate damage to a social order which a vocal minority considers them to be a threat towards. 



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