This movie was so incredibly hard for me to watch, and I had the opportunity to watch it in my own home, rather than in the classroom, and having the freedom to react as I pleased might have honestly made it worse.

Milk tells the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly queer American Politician, as he works to be voted in to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He continued to run for multiple years in a row, each time decreasing the margin between his losses and wins. As he recruits other queer people to help him win, fights for public backing and newspaper WORD, the story continues, fully narrated by Harvey Milk before his death, in a recording made in case of an assassination. His narration begins with a statement that we would only hear if he had died, making the viewer aware of the ending of the film, and his life, from the very first minutes.

As is clued in by the beginning of the film, Harvey Milk was assassinated by Daniel White, Milk’s main political adversary, by gunshot in his own place of work.

Knowing this was coming felt almost like a horror film, where I was waiting for a jump scare I knew would happen, but not when it would happen. I don’t know if waiting for it on the edge of my seat made it worse, but it definitely made me more emotional throughout the film.

Cast

I thought that the movie actually did a really wonderful job of bringing in a good cast, and even if not everyone was queer, I thought that they were respectful of their roles. The film overall felt better than films like Dallas Buyers Club, because it actually talked about the queer community in a positive light, and Paris is Burning, because the film didn’t exploit the queer community in production.

Of course, I would always prefer that queer characters are played by queer actors, but I know that Hollywood is stubborn. If at the very minimum actors respectfully play their queer roles and aren’t creepily method acting (I’m looking at you Jared Leto), I have to acknowledge that it is better than no queer people being shown in media. We unfortunately do have to start somewhere.

The Twinkie Defense

The what?? You’re kidding right? They have to be kidding.

Unfortunately, Daniel White’s lawyers were not kidding. There are so many layers to why that is so stupid.

Using a defense that literally includes a derogatory word for queer men, when White killed a gay man, and when he only ended up getting a seven year sentence for two murders, just doesn’t add up well in a moral stand point.

The term “twink” was used a lot, especially when the movie is set, and even though it stoped being as common, through social media, it started to be reclaimed by the queer community. The problem with something being reclaimed is that the more that people see it, the more people think that it is okay to say, even if they aren’t even part of the queer community.

Typing that all out seems so chronically online, but I can’t help being frustrated with the name of the defense when 1. it is the dumbest defense to a MURDER CASE that I have ever heard and 2. Dan White literally tells Milk in the movie that him even running for Supervisor is embarrassing him.

How dare a gay man even try to associate himself with the same circles as he does.

Lord I need a break!

I asked my friends what they would have assumed the “Twinkie Defense” was, since they had no idea, and the answers they had were as follows:

“He was gay too, so it wasn’t a hate crime.”

“Queerness was against his religion, so he had the freedom of religion to kill him.”

“He was scared of queer people, and so it was self defense.”

Do any of those mention his mental health or his addiction to junk food? White’s lawyers knew what they were saying by naming his defense the Twinkie disorder, and the judge and police force did too. Their “Free Dan White” shirts at the White Night Riots prove just that.