Chloe Grace Moretz And Sasha Lane Are Playing Gay In The Movie Adaptation Of “The Miseducation of Cameron Post”

Emily Danforth’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post is one of the best queer YA novels ever written. We’ve talked about it a lot here on Autostraddle, so I’m very excited to say that it’s coming to the big screen with big name talent attached! According to the Hollywood Reporter, Chloe Grace Moretz, star of movies like Kick-Ass, 500 Days of Summer and Let Me In, will star as the titular Cameron Post, a gay girl growing up in Montana in the early ’90s who has her first love and then gets sent to a conversion therapy camp by her conservative aunt. Sasha Lane, from the recent film American Honey, will also star, playing Cameron’s best friend at the camp. Desiree Akhavan, the director of another queer movie, Appropriate Behavior, will direct, giving it even more of a queer female focus and, hopefully, a chance at being one of the better queer films of the lesbian movie canon.

This film is urgent; it’s set largely in a conversion therapy center and shows how intensely harmful those places are. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, as well as several people on Trump’s team, are big supporters of conversion therapy, where LGBTQ youth are tortured until they develop negative reactions to their attraction or gender and become “straight” or “cisgender.” Our country’s new leaders have pledged to work to overturn protections for LGTBTQ people across America. Hopefully the film will bring a spotlight to this incredibly serious issue that literally costs lives of LGBTQ youth.

Cameron Post author Emily M. Danforth agrees:

The film also includes John Gallagher, Jr., Jennifer Ehle and Forrest Goodluck, who it seems might be playing a character who was Two Spirit (a gender identity in some American Indian cultures that’s not a part of the western gender binary) in the book, so it’ll be interesting to see if that part of the character is kept for the film. No casting has been announced for Coley Taylor, the rodeo queen that Cameron first falls in love with.

If you haven’t already read the book, now would be a great time.

It’s been a bleak couple of weeks, but this news coupled with the news that Gabby Rivera will be writing the new America Chavez comic book adds a little hope into our lives.

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Mey

Mey Rude is a fat, trans, Latina lesbian living in LA. She's a writer, journalist, and a trans consultant and sensitivity reader. You can follow her on twitter, or go to her website if you want to hire her.

Mey has written 572 articles for us.

27 Comments

  1. YES. I will buy an extra ticket to this and send it to Mike Pence’s office when it comes out, who’s with me?

  2. Chloe Grace Moretz is the PERFECT Cameron Post. She’s talented as all hell, but she’s also a pretty big name in Hollywood. I could not be more happy about this!

  3. I haven’t read the book- I must do so! This is going to be a very important movie.

    I ushered a play that Chloe Grace Moretz was in a few years ago (I think she was 17 at the time). And I passed John Gallagher Jr on the street yesterday. I guess it’s an omen? Or a coincidence. Either works.

  8. I just finished listening to this as an audiobook. I’m so pleased to see this news, as I found it a hugely helpful ‘read.’

    Sounds like it’ll be properly mainstream too – bonus points!

  11. I love this book so much!! I’m so excited! Also, I remember the book was pretty long and covered quite a lot, so I wonder how they will fit it all into a movie.

    • Yeah I’ve been wondering about that too. From what I’ve read it looks like they’re focusing on the part at the conversion therapy camp. I’m a bit torn though because I prefer the parts of the book when Cameron is at home and I love the bits with Lindsey so I hope she shows up :)

  12. Definitely need to read this book. Also, I love Chloe Grace Moretz! So I’m pretty excited to see her in this movie. She is such a talented actress.

  16. I’m over the moon about this news! Cameron Post is perhaps my favorite queer coming-of-age novel. I love the depth of Cam’s character and story arc, but I also adore the richness of the setting in eastern MT. I hope that latter part comes through in the film, since it’s such an important part of the book. I imagine it will, though; the book’s sense of place is so visual that I think a screen adaptation will shine.

  18. Awesome news, I’ve bought this book just so I could lend it to every single one of my english-reading friends, and the one who is in possession of it right now had texted me about it not fifteen seconds before I learned there would be an adaptation ! (to ask me what the hell were egg rolls, fair enough) And I’m so on with Desiree Akhavan being behind the camera !
    So happy, yet still waiting for it to be translated though. Think I should do it myself ?

  24. Ahh I almost starting crying when I read this, that book was really important to me in college. Definitely here for this movie, casting is on point. Desiree Akhavan is bomb.

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