Academy Awards 2009

In the past two weeks I have seen two excellent movies - Slumdog Millionaire and Milk. They were both excellent for different reasons.

Slumdog Millionaire was a visual feast, and filled with a fabulous ensemble of talented actors. There were many moments in the film that lifted you up and demonstrated what is so wonderful about humanity, but there were many (more?) moments that reflected all the fear and hate and exploitation that exists in the world. Parts of the narrative were very black and white, and those parts were entertaining and fun to watch, but in some ways, I preferred all the parts of the story that were gray. All the characters who were not obviously good, or even obviously evil, but how circumstances and life caused them to enter into these gray areas that the world is full of. And just because I have the luxury of not living in a world that is so obviously morally ambiguous, doesn't mean that I would able to navigate such a world with strength or conviction.

This brings me to Milk. It was amazing and Sean Penn and Emilie Hirsch gave beautiful performances. Watching a snapshot of the story of the gay rights movement in the 1970s effected me on an emotional level, insofar as when proposition 8 was not overturned in the most recent election I was disappointed, but not in such a visceral way as I was after I seeing that film.

If I try, I can maybe understand (not support or condone) the bigotry that exists in the 1970s because it came from ignorance. But now, 30 years later? We have come so far in so many ways, and yet really, how can we still, as a society, have such an intense fear (because I think it is fear, rather than hate) people who love other people?

It also makes me wonder how brave I could have been if I had been gay in the 1960s or black in the 1950s, or how much support I would have shown to those groups as someone who is straight and white. The strength that certain people have had to show across history, or even the past fifty or sixty years is amazing. And as a woman, I know how far women have come, and I also know that it can be easy to forget how hard or how much different groups have come and become complacent, and how important it is not to forget the struggles of certain groups, or to forget the struggles of your own group in history.

And looking from Milk to Slumdog Millionaire, while I can't believe there was a time when gay people were so vilified and marginalized by the general population, I hope there is a time when I am ashamed, and when my children and grandchildren are ashamed, at the way people in the developing world are treated by those of us in the developed world, and their lack of basic necessities of life; the way I ashamed of how women, and black citizens, and other visible and sexual minorities have been treated in the past.

That is what these two wonderful movies have made me think about.