Pray Away is an American documentary film released in 2021 by Netflix. The director, Kristine Stolakis, devoted this work to exploring covenant therapy practiced by Christian associations in the United States. This film makes many convincing arguments for the unproductive nature of conversion or reparative therapy. Quality work incorporates a thorough investigation of the problem and numerous examples from real people’s lives. The documentary also contains some artwork elements that have allowed all its components to be combined into a thought-provoking solid message. The strategy of the narration and the means chosen by Stolakis provide all evidence exposing the inconsistency of the conversion therapy movement.
The author of the film describes the experience of finding LGBTQ people in Exodus, the most prominent Christian organization practicing reparative therapy. The company is also known for its aggressive publicity in America’s mainstream media. The organization has always actively used the stars of its religious and commercial sect – “ex-gays,” lesbians, and trans people. Exodus was founded in 1976 and stopped its activity in 2003. Its promotions claimed that Exodus could help homosexual and trans people become heterosexual and cisgender.
The director introduces the viewers to its founders and how their beliefs have changed. She explores the methodology of the organization and the reasons for its success and subsequent disintegration. The film’s target audience is young people severely influenced by conservative parents and all adults who approve of religious movements considering homosexualism as a disorder. The director sees her essential task in depicting the negative changes that occur in all areas of the lives of people who have once turned to conversion therapy. Kristine Stolakis clearly expresses her disapproval of this practice, seeking to demonstrate its failure and destructiveness concerning the individual through the examples of real people.
Conversion therapy, also known as reparative therapy, is a set of techniques to change a person’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Such methods have been and sometimes are still used to change the gender identity of transgender people and to bring it in line with the sex assigned at birth. The ethics and efficacy of such procedures are controversial. Most medical professionals warn that attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity contains potential mental health risks. Most medical and psychiatric organizations that have expressed opinions about this therapy condemn its use. The therapy is currently banned for minors in 20 states in the USA. Only in Massachusetts and Illinois is conversion therapy denied for adults as well. So far, this industry was not stopped on a U.S. scale, primarily because homophobes and transphobes use the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as a cover for freedom of conscience and speech and consider reparative therapy a “right” of religious people (Barnard 7). Former activists of “ex-gay” Christian groups talk a lot about the mutually beneficial business of homophobic doctors and their respective religious structures.
From the first minutes of the film, the viewers are given basic information about the essence of this kind of movement and the attitude of the scientific society to it. The director does not immediately introduce her position to the audience. She allows them to look at conversion therapy from different perspectives (Oliver). The film shows the stories of the founders of the Exodus movement and organization and its followers who were able to give up their beliefs over time. The author uses the confessions of her characters as the main argument to support the thesis. The filmmakers manage to show in their conversations the variety of motivations and destinies of people over a long period from the late 1970s to the early to mid-2010s.
Randy Thomas, formerly Vice President of Exodus, cannot hold back tears as he reminisces about his long struggle with orientation, asking himself the extent of his damage to others. John Polk is a charming and confident man who has been the leading public face of the organization for a decade and a half (Kenigsberg). Together with a companion, they formed a “traditional family” and then, for many years, actually lived in the studios of daytime talk shows on the main T.V. channels. During his performances, he describes how easy it was to ruin everything. It was enough once at the peak of depression to get drunk and go to a gay bar, to the delight of reporters and LGBTQ activists.
Yvette Cantu Schneider analyses her experience in Exodus most thoroughly. She is a bisexual, with the tragic experience of sitting at the bedside and saying goodbye to her friends. They died during the HIV crisis, and she could not resist the temptation of fame and power in the early ’90s (Kenigsberg). Yvette was invited to join the top managers of the Family Research Council, the most influential right-wing conservative organization in Washington, DC. The board of directors, which consisted exclusively of white hetero men, found a young woman with Hispanic roots and a “queer past” quite beneficial (Stolakis). After years of successful work on the popularization of the reparative therapy movement, the woman realized that the kind of treatment practiced in Exodus did not bring any positive changes in their followers’ lives.
One day, when John Polk was found in a gay bar, it became clear to her that all those who started their therapy stood the same by their nature. Later, he admitted: “I felt alone in my wife and my child” (Stolakis). This thought clarifies for the viewers that the movement does not work to make a person happy. Homosexual men and women who came to Exodus were taught to change their behavior. Girls learned how to cook or do make-up, and boys played football and other team games, developing their masculine traits. However, Yvette, John Polk, and many other followers of Exodus eventually realized that their desire to be who they wanted to be did not retreat.
Another touching story that the director tells the viewers to show the invalidity of conversion therapy is about Julie. She came to Exodus at a young age and subsequently became a popular speaker. The young woman spoke about her intimate experience of being a lesbian in her performances. Her crucial task was to persuade her listeners that the cause of her disorder lay in the traumatic experience of heterosexual relationships, which led to mistrust towards men. Julie tells the viewers that, gradually, she starts feeling pressure from the management (Stolakis). She was asked to speak about private episodes of her life that she would never like to share. Being a part of Exodus made her feel more and more uncomfortable, and eventually, the woman decided to leave the organization.
After some time, when Julie had got the opportunity to analyze her experience, she realized that quitting the movement let her feel real happiness and relief. Julie joined the so-called “ex-ex-gays movement” that had been developing much. The movement’s followers had also been disappointed in Exodus and conversion therapy. The more people Juile met there, the more she realized she had been seriously mistaken. After leaving the movement, she felt God’s absolute love and support. The girl understood that reparative practice deprived her of the opportunity to be treated well as she is by her nature, and there is no need to struggle for the right to be what a person wants to be.
Showing the stories of people who had been a part of the destructive movement, Kristine Stolakis draws a picture of the whole conservative system. It seeks to gain cultural and political weight by basing its activities on suppressing individual freedom. Pray Away works on at least two ideological levels to represent this idea. First is a sweeping political statement about a system of oppression that has long existed and is essentially unbeaten today. On this level, the film addresses the same concerns as last year’s Netflix doc-sensation, the grandiose Disclosure, a multi-layered account of the prolonged silencing, vilification, negative profiling, and transgender people in culture in general and Hollywood cinema in particular. Another level of ideological representation addresses the individual harm caused by the therapy to many LGBTQ people. It has still made young and adult people feel ashamed of what they are. However, Stolakis convinces the viewers that will for truth can always steer them away from delusion, from the path of intolerance and evil, which is what supposedly happened to most of the Pray Away speakers (Oliver). Those psychiatrists and psychologists who advocate a cure for homosexuality are just looking for profit, turning the people’s hardships into a business and a political tool.
Due to the thorough investigation of real people’s uneasy experiences, the producers proved their thesis. The film articulates its message cogently and delicately at the same time. It is clear, understandable, and crucial to those who have difficulty accepting their views or face the condemnation of a conservative reference group. This documentary can also be helpful for anyone interested in conversion therapy and who wants to examine its methodology.
The tone and the evidence chosen to prove the thesis are the strongest sides of the film. The director competently combines people’s confessions with archival footage and scientific and statistical data. The narrative strategy allows each viewer to come to conclusions closest to their own, making the film entertaining. Stolakis’ film doesn’t condemn or shame anyone. The former leaders of the “ex-LGBT” movement, who did a lot of harm to themselves and many others, are shown without additional directorial tricks. They are responsible for much but are still victims of the same homophobic system, heteronormative culture, and fundamentalist morality. Like other followers, they have been deprived of the opportunity, to be honest with the audience and, what is more, with themselves. The film shows the viewers how much effort it took from the characters to understand that this therapy actually brought more harm than use. The documentary accomplishes the initial purpose by presenting the history of Exodus and the challenging ways of the organization’s ex-followers. It proclaims the freedom to accept sexual orientation as the natural and inalienable need of a personality.
Works Cited
Barnard, David. “The ‘Gay’ and Psychopathology: Interrogating the Sexual Theories of Homophobes.” Phronimon, vol. 20, no. 3, 2019, pp. 1-21.
Kenigsberg, Ben. “’Pray Away’ Review: Atoning for an Anti-Gay Stance”. New York Times, Web.
Oliver, David. “’Pray Away’ tackles conversion therapy.” USA Today, Web.
Pray Away. Directed by Kristine Stolakis, Netflix, 2021.