Milk not for everyone

Sean Penn won an academy award for his portrayal of the San Franciscan gay activist Harvey Milk in the movie'Milk'
You might have thought that a film that won the Best Actor award this year might have featured in the programmes of one or both of the town's main multi-plexes.

Not a bit of it! If you wanted to see Milk you had only three or four days up at Lings Forum.

It was a magnificent film, full of hope and optimism-something that we are all in short supply of at the moment,so anything that cheers the spirit is worth shouting about.
But what do we get,a short run,poorly advertised in a remote small local cinema.

Fair play to the managers at the Forum and indeed to NBC for keeping this last little bastion of cultural values alive in the Philistine Borough of Nothinghampton!

But why were the mainstream houses afraid to show Milk ?
They were williing to show the fairly routine and uninspirational Frost/Nixon and yet unwilling to show Milk-now it can hardly be because Sean Penn is not box office can it? Especially as the film got rave reviews and Penn a very well deserved oscar.
And further the film well reflected the Obama mood of hope- so what held the moguls back?
Homophobia perhaps ? A reluctance to show a gay man in a heroic role ?

A great sadness, for when the 'twinky bar' defence was put forward for Dan White's murderous action-the whole shallowness of US justice was exposed- and in the current climate a timely reminder.