There have been a couple of recent movies about kids tossed into gay conversion therapy centers, but the gold-standard of this particular story-line came in 1999, with Jamie Babbit’s satiric But I’m a Cheerleader, starring Natasha Lyonne and Clea Duvall, with supporting cast Cathy Moriarty, Bud Cort, Melanie Lynskey as well as Michelle Williams and Julie Delpy playing small roles. Since the subject is treated satirically – as opposed to melodramatically and/or literally and/or seriously, But I’m a Cheerleader is a stealth bomb. Satire can hit its targets in a much more calculated and devastating way. Satire takes no prisoners. Satire doesn’t worry about individual characters so much as it goes after the whole entire corrupt system. That’s what satire is for.
With an innovative and carefully conceived color-coded production design by Rachel Kamerman, But I’m a Cheerleader exposes strict gender-based behavior as a cult, a cult whose beliefs are so absurd you can’t even believe anyone buys that shit. (When I hear people who consider themselves progressive talk about glittery pink things as equaling feminine and flannel shirts and short hair and liking sports as inherently masculine … I want to set everything on fire. These people don’t seem to realize they sound like evangelical Christians, who want to maintain strict gender roles. People have been fighting against this kind of thing for over a century. I have never been into glittery pink things and I am a woman. I love sports and I am a woman. On the FLIPSIDE: if you are a woman and you love glittery pink things, you aren’t “brainwashed” or somehow caving in to gender expectations placed on you by the patriarchy, or aligning with gender norms or whatever. You just love glittery pink things because glittery pink things make you happy. On social media, I sometimes see fathers praising their 5, 6 year old daughters for wanting to play with Tonka trucks and not Barbies. Do they realize there’s latent misogyny in this? If a girl wants to play with a Barbie, don’t SHAME her for this. There’s nothing “lesser” about so-called “girl” things. In other words: Stop doing this to people, IN GENERAL.)
But I’m a Cheerleader maintains a whimsical mood, but it makes its points, and viciously, including what may be one of the most subversive points of all: the butch-est girl in the facility is actually straight, she loves boys. But since she has a shaved head and she’s a jock, nobody believes her, everyone thinks she’s lying to herself. She’s CLEARLY gay. I mean just LOOK at her. is the attitude. It crushes her soul.
This kind of thing was subversive then and it feels like it’s even more subversive now.
The LOOK of this film is captivating. It’s attention-grabbing but it doesn’t overwhelm the film. The look is part of why the film works so well. Every single shot is gorgeous and bizarre and eye-grabbing. Here’s just a small sample.
