Gus Van Sant's Milk Recaptures Californian Intolerance at Exactly the Right Time - Movies - Village Voicepage 2 - Village Voice

Corny as it is, Van Sant’s ending still packs a wallop. Milk is so immediate that it’s impossible to separate the movie’s moment from this one. The 1978 victory over Prop. 6 merges with the current struggle against California’s Proposition 8, overturning the State Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage. A charismatic leader has yet to emerge, but there is … Milk, and its wholehearted devotion to the principle of equal protection under the law. (Sound bites from the filmed demonstrations are near-identical to those culled from those held two weekends ago.)

I haven’t read any review that’s noted that the triumph in Milk is in the vote of the people against discriminatory laws. It’s not a courtroom drama. That is, of course, because Milk is more than about equal protection under the law, it’s about understanding among human beings. (E.g., “they vote 2 to 1 against the law when they know one of us.”) I mean, the wallop comes from consensus, not being right. I guess it’s about persuasion through mutual respect blah blah, rather than, say, imposition of standards by elites. Not to say that the latter may not be better than some other alternative—although we don’t necessarily face that Hobson’s choice.