'Film & Ideology – Milk\r'

' subsidisation 2 †Film and Ideology The description of the raillery political theory batch be represented in m both government agencys. at present’s basic understanding of the word stub be defined as â€Å"the body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an case-by-case, group, class, or culture” (Farlex, 2009). Gus Van Sant’s special biopic draw (Gus Van Sant, 2008) depicts the story of Harvey take out, the hit man-rights motionivistic who became the first openly festal man peck at out to any solid semi governmental office in the report of the planet.\r\nHarvey draw’s emotional state flipd accounting †his courage lock motivates community today, his ideals nonwithstanding teach people today and his anticipate so far inspire people today. The fire of take out in 2008 has helped to bring impale a sassy sense of clench for the swear and passion that Harvey milk died for. take out beauti amply sh ows the advertises and struggles Harvey milk had to go by dint of to dispatch the trust of the people and in order for his ideologies of a brighter tomorrow for tout ensemble queer people to be enoughy appreciated by e precise wholeness.\r\nHarvey take out was an individual who did non die in null; his efforts in battle for gay rights unexpended a blend ining impact on the people of this planet and his hope still lives on to this day. Simply put Harvey take out’s ideology of trash on and instilling hope in the fight for gay rights when no whizz else would, immortalized him †â€Å"Without hope, lifes non worth living” ( take out, 2008) It is now June seventh 1977, the sun has set on the Castro regularize of San Francisco, and the crowd that has gathered in the road representation outside Harvey take out’s television camera shop is be culmination more and more, animated and aggravated.\r\nWe do watching that the reason that every angiote nsin converting enzyme is angry is due to the reports or so voters in Dade County, Florida, having voted to demoralize a local gay-rights ordinance, giving impulsion to a fend forlash whose most discernible unexclusive face belongs to Anita Bryant. We know we nourish reached the climax of the movie. So much is incident all at once in the life of Harvey Milk that you wonder how he has not yet lost his head. His repellent upbeat attitude and overly confident(p) optimism in the face of multiplying frustrations stirs you look up in awe at the wonderment that is Harvey Milk.\r\nThe gay residents of the Castro argon angry and spirit to Harvey for leadership. though not yet elected to office and having lost 3 long term consecutively, Harvey rises to the occasion and leads the angry crowd to city hall where he picks up a bullhorn and address the crowd in a agency only Harvey Milk tail assembly †turning an angry kin on the verge of a waste riot to a enthusiastic sp ile willing to fight for their rights the proper way. In the space of a few proceedings Harvey goes from a whisper to a shout, from an inner(a) message of consolation and support to a defiant public speech.\r\nMilk shows us that it is these moments, these distinct modes of address, atomic number 18 connected, and that the link mingled with them is what defines Harvey Milk’s aspirations and ideals. According to Dr. beset M. Benshoff, an associate professor of Radio, Television, and Film at the University of North Texas, queer theorist focalise on how begin aliveual practice was and is a growth of culture, not slightly sort of biological given. In Milk it is clearly disquieted that Harvey too did not believe that homosexualism was a genetic disease.\r\nIn the image of the 1977 June 7th march, near before he withdraw froms the store to lead the mob to city hall, Harvey answers the teleph genius only to be greeted by a sc ard and confused teen whose p bents beli eve him to be ill because he is gay. Harvey’s disregard of homosexuality as a genetic disorder is copiously clear in this scene when he reassures the teenage boy that he isn’t ill and that being gay is perfectly normal. Dr. Benshoff goes on to day that following the expire of Alfred Kinsey and Sigmund Freud, queer theorists argue that human sexualityâ€or indeed, race, gender, class, etc. are not either/or bids, scarcely are rather fluid and dynamic socially-defined positions. To suggest that there is iodin norm ( at once fair man on top sex for procreation and no liaison else) is grossly guide and only serves to foster rule by the same and persecution of every amour else. Throughout Milk we can run across that Harvey, though a very passionate gay-rights activist, is not only looking for out for the queer folk. He holds secure to the ideal that every bingle is equal. In a way he embodies what Kinsey and Freud say. He did not believe in just one norm.\r\nI n his fight for gay-rights he isn’t onerous to one-up the vast heterosexual majority by over throwing them and getting homosexuals to run the world, he is exactly filtering to get them to cypher that homosexuals are no different from any other mortal. Harvey Milk was trying to take apart shine the social barriers that led to foreshorten minded thinking of just one social norm. In Milk during one of the public rally’s he had, Harvey said that â€Å"all men are created equal. No matter how hard you try, you can never erase those words” †he believed these words with all his heart.\r\nTo Harvey Milk, he wasn’t just fighting for gay-rights; he was fighting for a way of life that did not constrict its citizens to conform to just one social norm. Milk, Gus Van Sant’s flick project that was close to two decades in the making, was released on the 26th of November 2008 and marks the thirtieth anniversary of Harvey Milk’s terminal and t he brief alone lifelike political career he led. Harvey Milk was alas gunned down on November 27th 1978, tierce weeks after his biggest political victory.\r\nThe San Francisco city executive program had been in office less than a stratum when he spearheaded a comprehensive go to get the better of prompting 6, a ballot initiative that called for the mandatory spark of gay teachers in California. Milk besides arrived in theaters three weeks after the biggest political setback the American gay rights military campaign has suffered in eld: the passage of keep uposition 8, which reversed the California Supreme courtyard ruling that legalized same-sex marriage.\r\nAs un clockly as the events that unfolded prior to the theatrical release of Milk, it begs the doubt on how did proposal 8 change the meaningâ€the symbolic and ideological moment as well as the real-world regionâ€of Gus Van Sant’s Milk. The passing of proposition 8 transformed Milk from a delicat e, serious-minded period biopic that was directed by the brilliant Gus Van Sant into something much more urgent. Milk was suddenly this shinning beacon of hope that reinstated the hope and passion that was Harvey Milk into today’s gay-rights activist.\r\nThere are some moments in the film that in retrospect convey out as though it is speaking today to the audience of the present. As the Proposition 6 results start to roll in, Harvey tells his followers: â€Å"If this thing passes, fight the hell back. ” Those eight words speak volumes to the people who are fighting against the proposition 6 of today, proposition 8. â€Å"Somehow, when 8 passed, something else happened that was even more intense than the campaign, which is good. It was an exalt reaction that showed strength to the people who were against Prop 8.\r\nSo yeah, it hangms to view an effect on something thats similar to it: Prop. 6, that appears in our movie”, Milk director Gus Van Sant was quote d during an interview with IFC. com. The activist understood the message Harvey Milk stood for in the day, and opted not to let his valiant efforts go to waste. To judge from the numerous r consort that clear sprung up across the country since Prop 8 passed, many gays and lesbians are doing just that, refusing to go down without a fight. Gay rights advocates have been quoted saying that they hope to capitalize on Milks fortuitous topicality.\r\nThe films Oscar winning screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black, and old geezer activist Cleve Jones published a pronunciamento for equality in the San Francisco Chronicle on November 14th 2008 and launched a nationwide campaign of mass protests and civil disobedience. The endnote of their manifesto read, â€Å" take to be always, and reflect in all your actions, that we are not fighting against anyone, or anything. We are struggling for equality”. Harvey Milk was the one that picked up the flag when no one else would. He was the one that led the strangled minority on to recognition and acceptance.\r\n totally who wear his badge, or speak his words, or hold strong to his ideals, keep him alive. Milk managed to revitalize Harvey and in a contrasted twilight zone sort of way enlisted today’s newly nativeized coevals to find their figurehead in the movie-hero adjustment of a long-dead hero. In Milk we depend that Harvey’s main arsenal in his fight for equality was that he spurned secrecy and shame in raise of openness and visibility. He insisted that the fight against homophobia begins with the act of coming out †â€Å"If they know us, they acquire’t vote against us”.\r\nHarvey Milk realized this earlier than many of his contemporaries. He understood that in order to gain true equality gays and lesbians should serve as their own civil advocated instead of merely relying on pacts and promises made with their straight allies in high and powerful places. Though he was seen as a rad ical at the time, in retrospect Harvey Milk is an optimist, an idealist, a true believer in the possibilities of American democracy. Gus Van Sant understood where Harvey was coming from with his ‘come out of the closet ideology’. In the interview with IFC. om Gus Van Sant sheds some light on the ideology and how it change him. â€Å"It was Harveys one idea that would have worked and plausibly did help the â€Å"No on Proposition 6” campaign…ultimately, its an interesting concept, and that was the way he thought had a ample effect on Proposition 6. If its not an unknown, its not scary. If its a known, its friendly and you understand, ‘Oh that psyche that I know is gay, and this other person I know is gay’. Thats part how it works”. The openly gay Hollywood director went on to say, â€Å"But people did come out.\r\nIt was his drive to just come out of the closet, lock the closet, and stay out, which was followed by many people. And r eally, it was his death request. If a heater should enter his brain, may it knock down every closet inlet — that was his give way request, his will, which probably extended to many people, including me, because I came out after he was killed”. This is just one of the millions of example on how Harvey Milk’s ideals and aspiration for equality for homosexuals touched(p) and affected the lives of many closeted ones.\r\nMilk’s screenwriter Dustin Lance Black was warm to praise Harvey Milk’s ‘come out of the closet’ ideal a really good solution to a problem that tons of people had diagnosed just had yet to offer any answers to in an interview with ABC Radio. In the same interview he said, â€Å"In the years that Harvey put that into place, that sort of philosophy into the campaign, he won an election and a month later he was able to bolt down one of the biggest, most popular anti-gay pieces of decree in our country. He was able to d efeat it, very unexpectedly, with that philosophy”.\r\nThe recent anti-Prop 8 movement however seemed to embrace the opposite tactic. It was a closeted campaign, devoid of a public face, largely dependent on straight spokespeople, and run with a wary defensiveness that would have driven Harvey Milk mad. The story and scene of Milk, and of the times in which Harvey Milk lived and led, make clear the continuation of this struggle we still find ourselves in. As soon as you lose a battle, another one looms before, giving you another opportunity to try to win. You win a battle, and before you can catch your breath, another struggle is on the horizon.\r\nWe fall down only to pick ourselves back up again. Nothing close progress allows for much in the way of rest, but nor does it allow for much to repose stagnant. Harvey Milk’s thoughts were ones that changed the world. His thoughts turned into full out ideologies and his ideologies in turn morphed into a revolution. The ev er brilliant Gus Van Sant who has a certain knack for merging the lines mingled with now and then delivers to us a biopic that brings back to life its subject. In the post-proposition 8 viewing of this film, we can now see the rise of a new genesis of activist †ones that have been instilled with a new sense of hope.\r\nJust as Harvey Milk’s assassination, which he repeatedly foretold, has meant that he remains frozen in time as a martyr, the Proposition 8 result has, for now, has redefined Milk as a cause. Gus Van Sant’s 20 year long journey of bringing to life this culturally epic subject has cemented Harvey Milk’s position as an ideological leader. â€Å"Lives of great men all propel us; we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time” (Longfellow, 1838). Harvey Milk’s footprints would have never been forgotten, but Milk has in a way reaffirmed this stand.\r\nGus Van Sant brought somewhat a hero that was long gone and rise him from six feet under to be keep again as if he was never gone. Harvey Milk believed in one thing above all else and that was hope, Gus Van Sant brought back that hope. â€Å"I ask this… If there should be an assassination, I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect ‘come out’ †If a poke should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door… And thats all. I ask for the movement to continue.\r\nBecause its not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power… its about the â€Å"uss” out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the uss. Without hope, the uss give up †I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you… You gotta give em hope… you gotta give em hope. ”, were the last lines of Milk. (2 435 words) References: 1. Black, D. L. (2008) audience with Dustin Lance Black, writer, ‘Milk’, viewed whitethorn 2009, 2. Doty, A. 1998) The Oxford Guide To Film Studies: Queer Theory, Oxford University invoke Inc, New York 3. Dr. Benshoff, H. M. (2006) Notes on Gay autobiography/Queer Theory/Queer Film, viewed may 2009, < http://www. unt. edu/ally/queerfilm. html> 4. Milk, 2008. Film. Directed by Gus Van SANT. USA: Focus Features 5. Sant, G. V. (2008) Interview: Gus Van Sant on â€Å"Milk”, viewed whitethorn 2009, < http://www. ifc. com/news/2008/11/gus-van-sant-on-milk. php> 6. TheFreeOnlineDictionary. Com By Farlex (2000) The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Houghton Mifflin Company, capital of Massachusetts\r\n'