"It was designed in the early 1960s by Frank Robert Wake, a psychology professor with Carleton University," Fodey explains. "The Canadian government paid to send Dr. Wake to the United States to study detection devices that were used there at the time. After about a year of research, Dr. Wake returned to Canada and used his findings to create the 'Special Project' as it was officially known. A sergeant with the RCMP later coined it 'the fruit machine,' and the name stuck."
The machine itself was dismantled long ago, but it "looked like something resembling a dentist chair in front of a camera mounted on a pulley," says Fodey.
"Men would be subjected to lewd images and photographs would be taken of their pupils in response to the various images," Fodey says. "The thinking was that if one's pupils enlarged at the sight of a naked man, this would indicate same sex attraction. It was, in a word, ridiculous."
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When Fodey first started researching the film, she was shocked this had even happened — and how long it continued (it began in the 1950s and wasn't eliminated until — seriously — the early 1990s). But as her work continued, what surprised her most was how this went far beyond people losing their jobs.
"In fact, for many, losing their jobs was the least of what they endured directly because of this campaign," she says. "Poverty, homelessness, having to go back in the closet, substance abuse, gay aversion therapy, sexual assaults, and for some — suicide. The consequences of this campaign, as one of our survivors captures perfectly in the film, was a scenario from a horror story."