The "Kisses" in the movie HARVEY MILK

By Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell

I am writing this on Valentine's Day, 2009. It is an appropriate time for me share one of my responses to the movie that I saw this week. As I sat in the darkness of the theater, I wished that I had thought to bring a notebook in which to write my many observations. I am sharing one observation that evoked memories of the once-held taboos against black persons kissing white persons on the screen. February, that has been designated Black History Month, is an ideal time for "Grandpa Gil" to remember many of the parallels between the Black experience and the experience of Gays. (In another blog I will write of a wonderful article that I have just read that addresses the areas of sensitivity that should be noted as we compare the struggles of Blacks and the struggles of Gays who are not Black).

It would have been an impossibility to film Harvey Milk without scenes depicting his personal and intimate relationships with other men. And of course, if the movie had not shown Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) kissing one with whom he shared love, the movie would have been inauthentic. Yet, there is a history and probably a current reality of some persons who react negatively first, to the idea and then secondly, to any depiction of interracial or same gender kissing.

The history of forbidding scenes of interracial kissing in movies is known by many of us. Many times that section of a movie was deleted when it was shown in certain sections of the USA. I contend that many of the inner forces that caused/cause some persons to experience a rise in blood pressure when they observe interracial kissing, are at work among some people when they observe same gender kissing.

I propose with appropriate tongue-in-cheek, this idea. Seminars that are designed to help persons identify and then be liberated from their racism and/or heterosexism (latent or overt), include depictions of interracial and same gender couples kissing, as a way of identifying and transforming our prejudices.

All of us might benefit from such a stress test.:-)

Grandpa Gil