Film Review: The Fruit Machine

Authors

  • Lynne Gouliquer Laurentian University
  • Carmen Poulin University of New Brunswick
  • P-SEC Research Group

Keywords:

discrimination, gender, investigations, LGBT Purge campaign, military, prisoners of war, The Fruit Machine

Abstract

The following is a review of The Fruit Machine documentary film directed by Sara Fodey. This documentary sheds light on a dark period in Canadian history. Using the testimonials of survivors and historical expert, The Fruit Machine film illustrates how a democratic state could legally wage a discriminatory campaign against its own citizens whose only crime was being (or suspected to be) “homosexual.” For fifty years, Canadian state institutions hunted down and interrogated thousands of individuals suspected of homosexuality. This film is a must see.

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Author Biographies

Lynne Gouliquer, Laurentian University

Lynne Gouliquer is an associate professor of Sociology at Laurentian University (Sudbury, ON, Canada). She is a Banting and an O’Brien fellow. Her research focuses on the sociology of institutions and marginalisation, as they apply to groups such as women in the Canadian military, LGBTQ2IA+ soldiers and their families, women firefighters, oldest-older adults living in place, and Métis people. She is a military survivor/veteran of the LGBT Purge campaign and a two-spirit Métis. She is the co-founder of the Psycho-Social Ethnography of the Common Place (P-SEC) methodology and co-director of the P-SEC research group (https://p-sec.org/).

Carmen Poulin, University of New Brunswick

Carmen Poulin is the Associate Dean of Arts (Research & Graduate Studies) and a professor in Psychology and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of New Brunswick, Canada. Her research focuses on the impact of social practices and ideologies on women and marginalised groups’ daily lives. In particular, she is interested in the experiences of women and marginalised groups (e.g., women firefighters, LGBTQ+ in the military) within men-dominated organisations. She is the co-developer of the Psycho-Social Ethnography of the Common Place (P-SEC) methodology and co-director of the P-SEC research group (https://p-sec.org/).

P-SEC Research Group

The P-SEC Research Group is a multi-disciplinary group at the time comprised of Alissa Moore, Jennifer McWilliams, Lena Mohamad, Sandrine Poulin, Ursula Cafaro, Brandon Portelance, Sophia Konerman, and Gabriellange Parent.

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Published

2020-12-21

Issue

Section

Special Issue: Gender and the Canadian Armed Forces