Milk (film)
Overview
Milk is a 2008 American biographical film
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...

 on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...

, who was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco, California, United States.-Government and politics:...

. Directed by Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant
Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...

 and written by Dustin Lance Black
Dustin Lance Black
Dustin Lance Black is an American screenwriter, director, film and television producer, and LGBT rights activist. He has won two Writers Guild of America Awards for his work on the television series Big Love and an Academy Award for the 2008 film Milk.-Early life:Black was born in Sacramento,...

, the film stars Sean Penn
Sean Penn
Sean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...

 as Milk and Josh Brolin
Josh Brolin
Josh James Brolin is an American actor. He has acted in theater, film and television roles since 1985, and won acting awards for his roles in the films W., No Country for Old Men, Milk and True Grit.-Early life:...

 as Dan White
Dan White
Daniel James "Dan" White was a San Francisco supervisor who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on Monday, November 27, 1978, at City Hall...

, another city supervisor who was Milk's assassin.
Quotations

Do you understand, gentlemen, that all the horror is in just this—that there is no horror!

Aleksandr Kuprin|Aleksandr Kuprin, The Pit, translation by Bernard G. Guerney.

I can enjoy her while she's kind;But when she dances in the wind,And shakes the wings and will not stay,I puff the prostitute away: The little or the much she gave is quietly resign'd: Content with poverty, my soul I arm; And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

John Dryden, Imitation of Horace (1685), "On Fortune", Book III, Ode 29, l. 81 - 87.

[in Kenya]...any woman who is single and has multiple male sex partners is considered to be a prostitute, whether or not money changes hands.

New Internationalist, Issue 252 - February 1994.

[in India] Any sexual intercourse outside socially acceptable unions is likely to be regarded as prostitution.

New Internationalist, Issue 252 - February 1994.

[In Iran] Under mut'a, it is possible to be 'married' for as little as half an hour.

New Internationalist, Issue 252 - February 1994.

Egyptian law states that a man who is caught with a prostitute is not imprisoned; instead, his testimony is used to convict and imprison the prostitute.

New Internationalist, Issue 252 - February 1994.

Prostitutes are the inevitable product of a society that places ultimate importance on money, possessions, and competition.

Jane Fonda, in Thomas Kiernan, Jane: An Intimate Biography of Jane Fonda (1970).

Prostitution is organized rape.

Christine Stark

 
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