VivirLatino

Cuz Mala is a single mami, I never get to see movies when they come out in the theaters. I have to wait for them to come out on DVD and then wait for the kids to go to sleep. This past weekend, my Netflix finally sent me the next Oscar winning film on my queue, Gus Van Sant’s, Milk starring Sean Penn.

Now there will be some spoilers so please if you haven’t seen the movie or don’t know anything about Harvey Milk then you may want to stop reading now.

That said, I knew about Harvey Milk before I saw the film. So the story wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was in this story about the GLBT movement or at least Milk’s role in it, was how white it was. I don’t know San Fran or The Castro District pero there had to be more people of color involved in the struggle. Claro this assumption comes from my own knowledge and experience in dealing with the GLBT movement here on the east coast, a la Sylvia Rivera.

I was also surprised that Diego Luna was in the film. Then I was disappointed. Luna plays Jack Lira, Milk’s lover aka the tragic gay Latino. Don’t get me wrong. Some of my favorite lines in the film are related to Jack like, “The Latino has locked himself in the closet” when well Luna’s character during what can only be described as a temper tantrum , locks himself in a closet. Another line that made me giggle was when a drunk Dan White, played by Josh Brolin, says ” I don’t even know who you are, you just showed up out of nowhere, Latino man.”

The fact is that we, the viewers never really know who Jack Lira is. Now I know the movie is Milk not Lira, pero I felt that Lira’s character was a caricature, a childish alcoholic who was seen as a problem to Milk’s political aspirations and was prone to be jealous and mentally unstable to the point of killing himself in a dramatic fashion almost worthy of a novela. Even in interviews with Luna about playing Lira , Luna describes Lira as “simple”.

Pero all in all, Milk is an enjoyable film. Penn does a good job, I thought, especially in examining the issues of power and personal politics pero it does a poor job of looking at the bigger picture, especially in how the POC queer community played a role in the struggles of the 70’s beyond cooking, dancing, drinking and offing themselves.

What do others who have seen the film think?