You always have to admire when someone goes the extra mile to make sure what they’re doing is kosher, fair, or properly represents their subject matter. The latest direct-to-streaming film to drop on Peacock is They/Them, a film that works to make sure their representation of the queer community is accurate and that creates a story where queer characters are the hero.
However, this film can’t shake off its exploitation when it uses the real life horror of conversion therapy as the vehicle for those queer characters to triumph.
A busload of queer-identifying teens arrive at a summer camp run by Owen Whistler (Kevin Bacon in a bit of stunt casting) for a week of therapy to help them with their queer thoughts/actions/orientations, often against the campers’ own wishes. Various campers tell stories about the deals they made with their parents in exchange for going to this camp for a week: the chance to emancipate themselves, a trip to NYC for a Broadway show, etc.
The first half of the film uses creepy build-up and suspense to effectively set the mood while also introducing ridiculously hot counselors/conversion aides. Whistler’s wife runs the counseling sessions while a hypermasculine, ginger man teaches riflery to the males and a cheerleader/mean girl-type woman teaches the female campers baking. A masked killer rounds out the characters to complete this film’s placement in the slasher genre.
The varied campers check off most of the spectrum of queer identities: trans and non-binary, gay, lesbian, bisexual, pre-transition trans girl, etc. In terms of representation, They/Them does everything right. But in terms of a slasher film or of genuine queer film, it fails. The film feels like it was written by a straight person trying to write a queer film, and, in spite of doing a good job with representation and ‘getting things right’, misses the soul of what could make this feel more genuine.
This is, despite this feel, is not the case. Writer/director John Logan, in interviews promoting the film, identified as gay and non-binary. He did, however, also describeconsulting with queer people to make sure he ‘got things right.’ He also described having other queer people on set to help actors feel safer with conversion therapy scenes that are potentially triggering.
Of which there are many. Another aspect the movie gets mostly right is the rhetoric and methods of conversion therapy. When conversion therapy, aka reparative therapy, first began, it claimed the ability to change a person’s sexual orientation and identity through addressing ‘misaligned desires’ and promoting traditional gender roles. As time went on, the junk psychology and unrealistic claims were exposed, and conversion therapy changed its nomenclature but not all of its methods. The film reflects this change in a monologue from Bacon in the opening scene.
This shift in rhetoric, but not mission, mightily contributes to the horror of the overall film. Viewers who have had any amount of experience with conversion therapy will find a few scenes extremely triggering in having to watchcharacters suffer traumas that have taken some viewers years of therapy to work through. The passive aggressive manipulation and gaslighting used against the campers throughout the film could be the most traumatic for ex-ex-gays (those who tried or were forced into conversion therapy but instead fully embraced their orientations and identities).
These conversion therapy scenes, combined with the tone that this was written by someone outside the queer community, creates an exploitative feel for They/Them. The other horrific experiences campers suffer at the hands of the counselors and therapist are cheapened as a result. Similarly, the sex scenes have a cheap, almost laughable quality to them.
One brighter moment of bonding between all the campers compounds this exploitation, though the scene could come off as genuine (instead of contrived and cheesy) depending on the viewer’s feelings about the artist unifying the campers.
Jason Blum, the man behind Blumhouse Productions (the lucrative production company making it’s money through low-budget, high box office return films), produced the film, though the low-budget is obvious, with nearly all the violence taking place off screen.
Though the film can be just as horrific as the more serious Boy Erased, it doesn’t rise above exploitation.
—Eric Beach