![milk gay bar phoenix az milk gay bar phoenix az](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nFb5pIhYOWYaD4Xn5i01GDBzLX0=/0x0:829x317/1200x800/filters:focal(349x93:481x225)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67637440/roundup-saloon-fb.0.0.png)
The new place for us refugees was this run down Irish Catholic neighborhood in Eureka Valley. As Harvey and Scott (James Franco), his partner, arrive in the city, Harvey explains the historical moment circa 1972: “In those days, San Francisco was the place where everyone wanted to go… To drop out… To fall in love… But by 1972, The Haight was boarded up.
![milk gay bar phoenix az milk gay bar phoenix az](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/9637ae_260350a20a3e4e6aaae9509cf425b44c~mv2.jpeg)
The Castro is understood as a mythic destination, amplified by screenwriter Dustin Lance Black’s narrational structure, which uses Harvey’s recorded will as a voiceover track to supplement archival and dramatic footage. A 1966 study of the Tenderloin conducted by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual found that “homosexual behavior” was prominent among young men and that many of the district’s women were not only prostitutes, but also lesbians (Sides 98).ĢAccordingly, this scene, in its correlation of the Tenderloin with urine, suggests the Castro has a monolithic claim on San Francisco’s queer community at the expense of all (historically relevant) others. Overlooked and unremarked upon throughout Milk, however, is the Tenderloin’s preeminent history as a site for queer life during the 1960s, one that precedes the “Great Gay Migration” of the 1970s and 1980s into San Francisco’s Castro District (Howe 38). Cleve’s negative opinion of the Tenderloin district finds corroboration in a 1977 article from the New York Times, where the district is described as a “desolate Pigalle,” and an enclave for “freaks, welfare cripples, runaways, and drug hustlers” (Gold 17). Strategizing about ways to defeat the 1978 Briggs Initiative, which would ban gay teachers and any of their supporters from teaching in California public schools, Harvey says: “We need something populist… What’s the number one problem in the city?” Cleve responds, “The fucking piss smell in the Tenderloin.” Harvey says, “Close,” but ultimately settles on cleaning up the city’s “dog shit” as the wiser crossover issue.
![milk gay bar phoenix az milk gay bar phoenix az](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/9637ae_74774f4a4a9b4302946254d6714b4bce~mv2.jpeg)
1Around the midway point in Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008), San Francisco politician Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) sits in his office eating lunch with several of his campaign volunteers, including Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), a young, curly-haired white male originally from Phoenix.