Milk: Good for the Whole Family

Milk, starring Sean Penn in his Academy Award-winning role, is now available on DVD and on demand.

If you haven’t seen it yet, do make an effort. It’s well worth it, and raises some spooky parallels between what happened with the gay rights movement in the 1970’s and what’s happening today. It’s not a perfect film, and one could be picky about some of the historical details, but I think that’s missing the point. It is an important (and mostly accurate) story about a great American and has the potential to change hearts and minds about the LGBT community.

You may also be interested in the 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk (and here on demand), which is just as compelling as the Penn film.

For older elementary school or early middle school kids, check out The Harvey Milk Story, by Kari Krakow. It’s a picture book, but does mention the shooting, so be forewarned if your kids are young. It oversimplifies a bit, as is the way with most history books for that age group, but conveys Milk’s significance with warmth and appreciation. (The one gross error is that it says Milk was the first openly gay elected official in the country, when in fact he was the fifth—though clearly the one with the biggest impact at the time.) It would be a good way to explain to your kids who the man is whose face is on the DVD box on the coffee table.