Cult Classic: But I’m a Cheerleader

By Kyle Lawson

There are very few movies that could take an issue like the reversion therapy programs that aim to turn gay people straight by brainwashing them and forcing what is essentially celibacy and guilt onto them, and make it fabulous. Somehow, director Jamie Babbit finds a way in But I’m a Cheerleader.

The movie is about Megan, played by Natasha Lyonne, a naïve straitlaced cheerleader who everyone thinks is a lesbian. So they do what all concerned parents and friends might do, they send her to True Directions, a reversion therapy camp with other teens, run by the terrifying Mary Brown, played wonderfully by Cathy Moriarty. Once Megan arrives she realizes that she is a lesbian, and is put through a process of rediscovering her gender.

There is only word to describe this film, CAMP—if you don’t know what it is, look it up, and if you think it involves a bunch of children living together in the woods look it up. You would be partly right, but not in that way. The colors are bright, the stereotypes unnerving, and the sexual references overpowering.

The movie follows the basic outline of a romantic comedy, just replace the boy in “boy meets girl” with girl and turn the urban center they met into a straight therapy camp in the middle of nowhere and you have this film. The other girl is the rebellious Graham, actress Clea DuVall, sent to the camp under threat of no college if she does not come out straight.

The film has been criticized for its camp and the way it makes fun of a very serious issue. Overall, take the film for what it is: a funny, over-the-top, colorful extravaganza full of more ridiculous stereotypes then you’ll know what to do with. And I am not just talking about the gay stereotypes, if there’s a straight one Babbit goes after it as well with as much mockery as she can muster.