Gay conversion therapy is a deeply upsetting topic to focus on in a film, but Desiree Akhavan’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post treats it with a careful accuracy that maintains empathy and respect for the victims.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post opens on prom night when Cameron, played by Chloe Grace Moretz, gets caught hooking up with a girl in the backseat of a car. Shortly after, her family sends her away to attend an isolated treatment center named, of all things, God’s Promise. From here, the film follows Cameron as she seeks to navigate – or more aptly survive – her stay at the gay conversion therapy camp.
For most, gay conversion therapy is something that exists in the distance. It’s a foreign entity to be hated, to be feared, but thankfully, not something to be experienced. For many, it is something they can easily empathize with, as there exists numerous people and institutions that seek to condemn and repress homosexuality in a wide variety of ways. For others, gay conversion therapy is an all too familiar and terrifying reality – making fictional portrayals of such an experience a very sensitive issue.
Desiree Akhavan, director of the 2014 film Appropriate Behavior, seeks to lift the veil between the audience – likely unfamiliar with the gritty details of gay conversion therapy – and the lives and experiences of those forced to endure such a traumatic program. The film is, at least in part, educational – taking what may otherwise be a vague topic and revealing its dangerous and destructive methods.
We see Cameron in group therapy sessions, one-on-one talks with camp leaders, classroom settings, and more. All of the activities at the camp are meant to enforce strict gender roles while encouraging the kids to condemn their homosexual behaviors. While these scenes are carefully portrayed to ensure sensitivity and accuracy, that doesn’t mean they are not hard to sit through. The therapies in the film are deeply, often times violently, homophobic.
These therapies come to several breaking points throughout the film in moments that are both emotionally and physically violent. These are the heaviest moments in the film that all underscore the dangerous and immoral efforts of gay conversion therapy.
However, rather than make an overly exploitative portrayal of gay conversion therapy, Cameron Post is primarily focused on a narrative of self-acceptance. As conversion therapy is the antithesis to accepting oneself, it provides a natural antagonistic element to the film.
The attitude of the camp’s leaders and the nature of their techniques force Cameron to do a lot of self-reflection and evaluation. The camp’s goal is to manipulate this self-reflection to teach kids to embrace “appropriate gender roles” and identify things in their past that made them gay. However, the film uses these very techniques to show Cameron become more aware and accepting of herself, not less.
As a storytelling technique, this self-reflection lends itself to memory recall; the film uses flashbacks that help the audience piece together how Cameron’s relationship with a girl began and the terrible consequences of being outed in an environment intolerant of homosexuality. These scenes serve several important purposes in the film, not least of which is that these flashbacks mirror the very real experience of many young people dealing with new and unexpected feelings. In giving the audience a look into Cameron’s past, Akhavan better informs Cameron’s struggle at the camp and speaks the film’s concern with self-acceptance.
Thankfully, the film never once seeks to validate the conversion practices. In fact, the movie makes it clear from very early on that gay conversion therapy is something to endure, to rebel against. Even those characters in the film that appear to be success stories are later revealed to be struggling all the same. This provides a much needed balance to the film’s darker moments.
Akhavan introduces other characters at the camp, including Jane (Sasha Lane) and Adam (Forrest Goodluck), who are clear about their resistance to the camp’s practices. They speak of the camp as though it were a prison sentence – except the fact that their crime is really no crime at all. Not only do characters like Jane and Adam help reinforce the useless cruelty of gay conversion therapy, but they also help help Cameron find the confidence to accept herself.
Unlike her experiences before God’s Promise, here she is surrounded by people like her – those that have struggled with their sexuality and their identity, those that have been told who they are is wrong, and those that have persevered – however quietly – and remained true to themselves.
This is what makes Cameron Post the movie that it is. Rather than serve to traumatically reenact gay conversion therapy techniques simply for the sake of it, the movie portrays an impressively cognizant and detailed journey of one young woman’s journey to self-acceptance – yes, Cameron’s journey includes dealing with emotionally brutalizing “therapy,” but it also includes making best friends with whom she experiences laughter, adventure, joy, sadness, consolation, and comfort.
There is not a single scene in the film that does not somehow connect to Cameron’s arc towards self-acceptance. This is the constant element that runs through the film – not gay conversion therapy. That’s what makes Akhavan’s film special.
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