Milk – Another “gay for pay” blockbuster

I have concluded that mainstream America is often so repulsed by gay people they can’t stand the thought of spending money to watch a real gay person play a gay character in a movie. There are dozens and dozens of movies out each year (so to speak) starring gay actors. But they’re always low-budget and they play to “independent,” artsy and gay audiences. A movie like Milk works out well for straight male actors. If you want to win an Academy Award, you have to play either someone retarded, psychotic, “historic” or gay. Tom Hanks and Sean Penn have mastered this.

Milk could go on to win the Best Picture Award because it contains both historic and gay. I hope before I die of old age that I’ll see an openly gay lead character played by an openly gay actor, with Hollywood behind it.

(CNN) — Sean Penn and Gus Van Sant have a proposition for us: a biopic dedicated to the memory of San Francisco activist and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, who was murdered by a fellow supervisor in 1978.

Sean Penn plays San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk in “Milk,” directed by Gus Van Sant.

The subject may be a tricky sell, but the timing feels right — a few weeks late to save Californians’ same-sex marriage rights, admittedly, but the need to keep on fighting through adversity may be Milk’s most important legacy.