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“We didn’t quite look to our history. Harvey Milk was so great. He understood we needed to reach out, we needed to educate, we needed to come out of the closet and speak for ourselves. You didn’t see any gay and lesbian in the ads or in the literature.” [The Early Show via TDB]
Lee
Except for the fact that his Oscar speech was GREAT, I am getting a little sick of this guy’s constantly spouting nonsense to support his Harvey hagiography.
Now before anyone screams, Harvey WAS great, but in addition to NOT being the first gay person elected to a major office [which Black claimed TWICE in the film], I’ve seen no EVIDENCE that “seeing gays” was what defeated the Briggs Initiative.
In fact, objective historians attribute the fact that the huge antigay margin was turned around in one month’s time was primarily the result of the fact that David Mixner and another gay man managed to convince Ronald Reagan to come out against it.
I HATE, DESPISE the man, spit on his grave, but facts are facts.
Another distortion in the film is that the polls showed the antigays ahead by a huge margin up to election day. Remember the scene with Harvey screaming, “The polls were wrong! The polls were wrong!” In fact, by then both sides were neck and neck.
Black has claimed that pioneering pre-Harvey San Francisco gay activist Jim Foster [whom he curiously left out of “Milk” entirely] spoke to the 1972 Democratic National Convention [yes, five years before Harvey was elected] “in prime time.” Wrong again, Buckwheat. Foster did not speak until approximately 5 a.m.
Finally, his statement in this interview that no gays were shown in any No on 8 commericals is simply not true. Gays were shown in one commercial [yes, there should have been more], and all over the airwaves and print media discussing H8TE. To hear professional hack revisionists like Black tell it, all the gays in California were locked in a giant warehouse in the desert for six months. Mary, please!
Captain Freedom
@Lee:
FUCK YOU!
DUSTIN LANCE BLACK IS THE MAN! DON’T YOU DARE SPEAK THAT WAY OF OUR LEADER AND MY HERO!
HE IS THE VOICE OF A YOUNG GAY GENERATION AND HE WILL HELP LEAD US WITH CHARLIZE THERON AND MILLIONS OF ANGRY GAYS TO RIGHT THE WRONGS DONE TO SOCIETY!
YOU SHOULD BE SHOVED IN THE FACE FOR BADMOUTHING LANCE BLACK AND THE AMAZING SCREENPLAY THAT IS MILK!
Ryan
lol flame war in the making
daftpunkydavid
@Lee: i had not idea about this. we should hear more, not fewer, diverging opinions (or historical recollections) in order to best proceed onward.
Lee
“When Reagan subsequently announced his opposition to the Briggs Initiative, the campaign turned around almost overnight. California pollster Marvin Field found that at the beginning of September 1978, voters supported the initiative by 61 percent to 31 percent. [After Reagan’s mid-September statement opposing it] by the end of the month, voters favored it by a statistically insignificant 45 to 43 percent.” – “From Identity to Politics” by Craig A. Rimmerman.
The same story is related in the best book on the gay movement post Stonewall to the beginning of AIDS, “Out for Good” by Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney, and in other sources, including contemporaneous newspaper accounts.
Also, in addition to leaving out the history making Mixner-Reagan story, and the tireless anti-6 efforts of NATIONALLY known gay activists such as Troy Perry, Leonard Matlovich, Del Martin, and Dave Kopay, Black’s script totally misrepresented how much Anita Bryant was involved in Prop 6. Briggs had supported her “Save Our Childen” campaign in Miami, got the idea for exploiting homohatred to build his political career from her defeat of that city’s gay rights ordinance [he called his group California Defend Our Children], but she was NOT involved in 6 to any significant degree. The news footage spliced into “Milk” to suggest she was is, in fact, from her Miami campaign the year before.
HayYall
You have to love a troll post that starts off with “Fuck you!” in its own little paragraph.
Vincent
Lee, Lee, Lee…
I don’t know you or DLB but c’mon man no movie can tell every side of every story. I admire DLB for providing the impetus for a movie about Harvey Milk to get made after prospects had languished for close to 20 years in Hollywood. Choices made in the editing of the movie (even splicing in Anita Bryant footage not from Californis in order to, I dunno, give a tenor of the times to younger audiences) are not the sole act of the screenwriter…there’s this guy called a director and another person called the editor. Every movie, as is memory itself, a construct and open to interpretation – but in this case I’m with DLB all the way.
Captain Freedom
@HayYall:
I’m not a troll. I post on this site all the time. I was just very angry and outraged that any gay person would badmouth Dustin Lance Black. He is a personal hero and someone who has done great things for our community and I feel he is doing great things and more.
Lee
@Vincent:
Of course, any biographical movie cannot include all the facts.
But changing them, e.g., the claim of Milk’s “firstness” which insulted the achievements of others a long as three years before his, is another thing entirely.
@ Captain:
Having heroes is good; blindly denying or defending their faults is not. See: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
TANK
@Lee:
Are you the ghost of leland francis?
Jay
@Lee:
Lee … what have you done for the community? so before mouthing off others, think about yourself and your contribution first. If you have done nothing beside yelping on Queerty, shame on you.
Lee
@Jay:
I’ve been involved in activism longer than many Queerty readers have been reading.
But, please note, no one has to EARN the right to express an opinion.
Shae
I dont know why people are arguing on this. I really like him and he is super hot so that does not hurt lol
RU4Real
Dustin Lance Black our leader? Leader of what? And the voice of a new young generation? Come on, let´s be serious about this.
Mr. Black could definitely bust open the Hollywood closet case like some gay activists did years ago and bring more attention to the battles gays face all across America. If Hollywood´s closeted stars, colleagues of Mr. Black, came out or were finally outed by an insider with an Oscar like him, the game would be very different. Sure, that would affect his career. He´d be blacklisted perhaps, sued, who knows, but hey, those are risks, and isn´t that what Harvey Milk was all about then? Speaking up when he had to even if it was unpopular? But of course, Mr. Black wants to remain an insider and join in the charade, not ruin anyone´s party, be a celebrity and chase twink porn stars. No, Mr. Black is no leader. Because, it is gay agents, gay producers, gay executives and gay writers like him in Hollywood who keep quiet and nurture the industry´s homophobia. Harvey Milk is the past, enough with that. We need action now, and for the future.