The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a soon to be released move that looks like it touches on a lot of sociology themes.
It’s a movie about a girl who gets sent to a Christian Conversion Therapy Camp where she is subjected to various forms of psychological manipulation to avert her from being gay.
It’s definitely time for a movie like this – apparently 700 000 people in the USA have undergone Christian Conversion Therapy, and 50 000 is the base point for those likely to undergo some form of it in the next five years
It’s Illegal in 14 states for America, but only for minors…. For adults, it’s legal in every single state.
The lead actress, Chloe Grace Moretz, discusses the movie on that most excellent sociological resource: The One Show – (available on iPlayer until mid September!)
In the interview she outlines how the film focuses on the micro interactions between the various ‘inmates’ in the centre, and how they still manage to hold on to their true identities and find their chosen families despite the enormous barriers put in their way by the oppressive system.
The movie has clear relevance to religion, sexuality and identity, as well as to theories of social change.
My concern is that the overall message of the movie might be that all you need to do to ‘fight anti-gay oppression’ is to be yourself, focus on developing your close relationships, and the oppressive institutions will just whither away around you.’
The Movie closes with the main protagonists disappearing on a road trip – which kind of reminds my of Bauman’s concept of the individualized utopia… the never ending journey, with no real thought about where we are going, society abandoned.
