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★★★★☆
13 July 2018
A movie review of THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST. |
“I told you to keep your hair out of your eyes. There is no hiding from god,” Lydia (Jennifer Ehle)
At first the absurdity and hypocrisy makes you laugh, then the absurdity and hypocrisy makes you feel pity for the deluded, and then the absurdity and hypocrisy makes the audience despair. The use of organised religion to oppress gay people makes me sick. It is not about goodness or godliness, it is about control. When the power of the immoral is waning, or the immoral strive to acquire power, and the arguments are not convincing to the populace as to why they should have power, minority groups are targeted and scapegoated. If this is news to you, read some history books and look at current credible news sources.
THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST damns the parents who send their children to gay conversion camps. (This is a hot topic in cinema in 2018. Due later this year is BOY ERASED starring Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe.) These facilities should be made illegal. They violate human rights. While this story is set in 1993, it still feels dispiritingly relevant today. And while unfolding in the United States, this could be anywhere where equality is in deficit.
At first the absurdity and hypocrisy makes you laugh, then the absurdity and hypocrisy makes you feel pity for the deluded, and then the absurdity and hypocrisy makes the audience despair. The use of organised religion to oppress gay people makes me sick. It is not about goodness or godliness, it is about control. When the power of the immoral is waning, or the immoral strive to acquire power, and the arguments are not convincing to the populace as to why they should have power, minority groups are targeted and scapegoated. If this is news to you, read some history books and look at current credible news sources.
THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST damns the parents who send their children to gay conversion camps. (This is a hot topic in cinema in 2018. Due later this year is BOY ERASED starring Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe.) These facilities should be made illegal. They violate human rights. While this story is set in 1993, it still feels dispiritingly relevant today. And while unfolding in the United States, this could be anywhere where equality is in deficit.
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Titular Cameron Post (Chloë Grace Moretz) is caught after a high school prom in the backseat of a car with her female lover. In a conference with the local pastor, Cameron’s mother insists her daughter now be educated at a gay conversion camp for teenagers, called “God’s Promise”. As the film progresses you will not only see there is absolutely no science to them (not that that will come as a surprise to any intelligent person), but the psychological and emotional toll they take. The sister and brother owners just seem to be winging it.
It is hard to believe Dr Lydia Marsh (Jennifer Ehle) is a qualified psychologist. There is something sociopathic about her, reminding of Nurse Ratched in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST. (The two movies have several similarities.) That she is in charge is doubly unnerving. Sibling Reverend Rick (John Gallagher Jr.) claims to have been successfully converted to heterosexuality, though he is fooling nobody. They are charlatans doing untold damage. Cameron is forced to sign a contract on attendance. Interesting that it is not purely a religious arrangement, but also a legal one.
Terminology at God’s Promise is both sinister and laughably dumb. The inmates are called “disciples”. They fill in therapy “icebergs”. There is a religious fitness television show titled “Blessercise”. THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST is amusing while the leads are aloof and confident, but as self-esteem erodes the film gets darker and sadder. Their impressionable minds are being messed with. Familial betrayal makes exploitation of vulnerabilities easier.
There are echoes of DEAD POETS SOCIETY and FOOTLOOSE. Those films about teenager oppression remain modern cinema benchmarks, and THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST joins them.
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