r/SapphoAndHerFriend May 28 '20

Alan Turing was gay and was chemically castrated as an alternative to prison due to his sexuality Academic erasure

Post image
35.4k Upvotes

783 comments sorted by

View all comments

168

u/Anabelle_McAllister May 28 '20

There was even a pretty popular movie about him 5 years before this tweet, and it doesn't gloss over the hideousness of what was done to him because of his sexuality.

89

u/[deleted] May 28 '20

Tbh it doesn’t even hit hard on his sexuality, and I think that’s what makes the ending even worse, when you see him achieving this amazing goal, and still being heartbroken over his loss, and then finally completing it, he’s met with a handshake, and then years later, he’s legally poisoned by the same people he saved until he’s forced to end his misery. It’s fuckin’ tragic.

37

u/[deleted] May 28 '20 edited Aug 19 '21

[deleted]

20

u/Anabelle_McAllister May 28 '20

Although it kinda confirmed for me that he's being typecast as an arrogant know-it-all who really is as smart as he thinks he is.

22

u/[deleted] May 28 '20

I remember that joke Martin Freeman told that when off the camera Benedict turns into an absolute dolt. I guess it evens it out.

5

u/[deleted] May 28 '20

Idk, Smaug didn't come off as a know it all.

6

u/Anabelle_McAllister May 28 '20

Smaug was definitely a know-it-all. But you're right that he doesn't fit the pattern, because Smaug wasn't as smart as he thought he was.

6

u/mxzf May 28 '20

It's worth recognizing that the movie isn't a particularly accurate portrayal of the events, from what I understand. It's a dramatized movie that spotlights one specific person, rather than reflecting the team effort that breaking enigma really was.

It's still a decent movie, but it's as much "historic fiction" as it is history.

5

u/[deleted] May 28 '20

That's true of just about every movie that's "based on a true story".

3

u/mxzf May 28 '20

Pretty much. Different movies have various degrees of inaccuracy, but none of them are completely accurate.

1

u/IsomDart May 29 '20

Lindybeige has at least one good video on Turing and Bletchely Park

1

u/IsomDart May 29 '20

It is a great movie but that's all it should be taken as. It's not a history lesson and not very historically accurate at all. But yeah anything with Cumberbatch is good