The Imitation Game Themes

The Imitation Game is an outstanding film that takes place during World War II in 1952, which won Oscar for best writing-adapted screenplay. It serves as a tribute to the life of Alan Turing, a great mathematician who worked with fellow mathematicians through the British Intelligence MI6 agency to crack the Enigma Code. That’s not all there is though, this story brings you a profoundly odd man who has many secrets who is supposed to be solving secret code to stop the war. When looking at this movie through the lens of social conflict we can analyze how society is an arena of conflict and change. The theory looks at how how different parts in society generate conflict, change, and looks the individual is affected. So in this case we can look …show more content…
Alan Turing’s homosexuality makes up a big part of who he is. What upsets the LGBT community most is that the main issue of the story has not been brought up enough to be considered an accurate biography. Turing always felt uncomfortable around other men, because his old friend Christopher was the only one that filled his heart with love. Christopher befriended Alan when Alan was being pushed around by bullies, he believed in him. From a conflict perspective we can see how the british government during the time of this movie institutionalized heterosexism and discrimination on homosexuals. Alan Turing’s sexual orientation, person’s romantic and emotional attraction to another person, cost him his life. Despite being a secret war hero, despite the fact he built the first computer, despite the fact that he shortened the war by two whole years cracking an unsolvable enigma code his efforts were never go noticed. Actually instead of being celebrated, 10 years after the war the hero was forced to either take hormonal estrogen drugs to be “cured” of his homosexuality or go to jail for 2 years. Alan Turing would be considered having a “mental illness” during that time period, which is why he was forced to hide in the closet: so he couldn’t be “cured”, keep his work, and live a life. Sorry for the spoiler but he decides to take the pills, goes mentally insane, then eventually commits …show more content…
Deviance by definition is the state of departing from usual or accepted standards, especially in social and sexual behavior. Alan Turing in the movie was the definition of deviance. People discriminated homosexuals, so being gay was a deviant behavior. Alan Turing has always been an odd man, even in his childhood, He would be obsessive-compulsive, extremely neat which was different than all the other boys who were tough had messy hair and weren’t afraid to get dirty, therefore Alan was considered deviant. The social-conflict theory views this as there is always going to be a group of people that are dominant like the bullies and then there are subordinate groups in which Turing would belong to. These subordinate groups are discriminated most of the time, which includes anyone who just doesn’t follow social norms like Turing. This is due to the fact that the bullies set the definition of deviance. He presents an obnoxious personality so no one cares enough for him to look into his secrets. He never did things that other people approved of, but he is just doing him. When looking at Alan Turing’s life we can see how social conflict affects an individual to great extents. It is true that this movie covers the bigger themes of sexuality and deviance, but there is also a bit of gender stratification. Along with the fact that Alan Turing is far from society’s definition of masculinity, another character is also