But I'm a Cheerleader | 
 enlarge | Director: Jamie Babbit
Actors: Natasha Lyonne, Clea Duvall, Michelle Williams, Brandt Wille, Bud Cort
Studio: Lions Gate
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $8.04
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Avg. Customer Rating:  183 reviews
Sales Rank: 5486
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 85
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: VMMD8348D
ISBN: 1588178005
UPC: 031398834823
EAN: 9781588178008
ASIN: B00009MEB8
Theatrical Release Date: 1999
Release Date: July 22, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Brand New and Factory Sealed Item Fast Shipping
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Product Description
Megan has it all. Shes popular pretty a model student dates the captain of the football team and shes a cheerleader. Everything seems perfect but the fun begins when her hormones start to rage and her friends and family wonder where shell find love. Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 02/01/2005 Starring: Clea Cuvall Rupaul Charles Run time: 83 minutes Rating: R Director: Eddie Babbit
Amazon.com
A promising comedy that goes awry all too early, But I'm a Cheerleader concerns a misunderstood high school kid (Natasha Lyonne) whose parents send her to a harsh, homosexual-rehabilitation camp despite a lack of evidence that she's gay. Ruled with an iron fist by a fascist counselor (Cathy Moriarty), the clinic only drives Lyonne's character toward an attraction to a rebellious tomboy (Clea DuVall), though screenwriter Brian Wayne Peterson and director Jamie Babbit are curiously intent on keeping the two apart and depriving the audience of other comic possibilities. Meanwhile, hoary cliches abound: prancing boys, butch gays, lipstick lesbians. Despite a fine cast full of young talent, and cameo appearances by Julie Delpy and RuPaul Charles, this attempt to skewer a present-day trend in "curing" homosexuals of their sexual preferences is flattened by stereotypes and unimaginative thinking. --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews: Read 178 more reviews...
 Reparative Comedy-- Laughs Won Out January 5, 2009
"But I'm a Cheerleader" is a campy,sardonic take on the "ex-gay" camps for youngsters. Megan (Natasha Lyonne) realizes she's noticing her fellow squad members more than her footballer boyfriend,and her parents, Bud Cort (of "Harold and Maude") and Mink Stole along with Michelle Williams (of "Brokeback Mountain") stage an intervention. Megan is driven off,unwillingly,to True Directions,where girls wear pink and boys wear blue. The nasty Mary (a hilarious Cathy Moriarty) is in charge,with her son Rock (Eddie Cibrian,of soap opera and "Ugly Betty" fame)Megan must go through the Five Steps to become heterosexual.
True Directions,in many ways,parallels real-life "ex-gay" camps. Boys&girls are forced into gender roles. The boys chop wood;the girls put on make-up (with the butch,androgynous female Jan,it's funny,along with RuPaul teaching manliness) They are taught the superiority of heterosexuality. In family therapy,they are supposed to reveal what traumas made them what they are (Dr. Joseph Nicolosi's former patients have admitted they've fabricated abuse stories to please him,similar things happen in Scientology auditing on e-meters) True Directions promises quick change in a short time. There's one program called Stepping Out of Alternative Lifestyles that promises to change orientation in six weeks; Ted Haggard claims Jesus straightened him out in three weeks. The only difference between the movie&real-life reparative therapy is "Simulated Sexual Lifestyle." Reparative therapy assumes LGBT teens already know what heterosexual intimacy involves. They don't have to play-act it. It's purely a fabrication for the movie for laughs.
In "But I'm a Cheerleader", the teens grow restless. (One of them is played by Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet's paramour in "Heavenly Creatures") Megan catches a pair of boys making out. She finds herself falling for Graham. There's a pair of renegade gays who take the teens to a gay bar. At the gay bar,Megan dances with Julie Delpy (of "Before Sunrise") The movie doesn't portray gays as perfect either. The gay couple bickers; at the gay bar,there's jealousy aplenty. Megan and Graham's romance grows. In the end,love triumphs over adversity and prejudice.
"But I'm a Cheerleader" mocks the underlying assumptions of reparative therapy. It does strike a chord. Such therapies assume that if LGBT teens imitate straights,change their mannerisms&dress,they'll change. Instead,it teaches play-acting. Teens are taught to care more about how others think about them than think for themselves; there's also dissembling. To add to the confusion, reparative therapies differ in their fundamentals. The Catholic group Courage's aim is to get gays in touch with their "fundamental heterosexuality." Evangelical groups like Exodus pursue a "born-again" experience,with gays becoming straight. Some Catholics believe all people are heterosexual,but some have same-sex attractions (like Fr. John Harvey); other Catholics believe heterosexuality is an achievement,one must become heterosexual (one Vatican document says that prospective seminarians must have "achieved heterosexuality") Dr. Joseph Nicolosi has the confusing "femininity is a threat to manliness,but attraction to women is fundamental to manliness."
"But I'm a Cheerleader" is a cheerful take on a serious subject. Campy,cheesy,and with RuPaul teaching masculinity,you can be a supermodel,superstar!
Heartbreaking Humor January 1, 2009
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
"But I'm a Cheerleader"
Heartbreaking Humor
Amos Lassen
Megan is an all American teenager; she is a cheerleader, she has a boyfriend. There is a little problem though--she doesn't like kissing her beau. She is also touchy with her cheerleader friends and in her locker are pictures of girls. Her friends and parents think she must be gay and she is sent off to True Directions, a sexual redirection camp which is bulging with homosexuals. She must learn to be straight. She meets Mary who is well meaning but totally insane and she becomes friendly with Mike, the ex-gay counselor. As time passes, Megan begins to think that she may be a lesbian but she also realizes that she is in love with her roommate, Graham. She knows she cannot go home because her parents will never accept her as a lesbian.
This is a different look at homosexual rehabilitation in comedic ways. It shows how ridiculous the idea of sexual redirection is and it also shows how people get swept up in it.
Natasha Lyonne as Megan is a wonder especially when she is taken off to True Directions with a bunch of misfits. She sees the horror of the place. The filmmakers chose to make fun of these sexual redirection institutes and they look at the idea almost surrealistically.
The gay characters are real and believable. The cast is uniformly good, especially Cathy Moriarity as Mary, the head of True Directions; a woman who is righteously wrong. "But I'm a Cheerleader" is a clever exercise in satire and we get a completely different kind of coming-out movie which is absolutely fun to watch.
 a movie for... not everyone December 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I don't know why it is, but I LOVE this movie. The first time I watched it was about seven years ago, and it still holds up rather nicely. The storyline is just as silly as you've probably read from the description, but totally worth watching because of the highly enjoyable storyline (not to mention maintaining an interesting and creative flow for the entire running time).
Extremely concerned parents send their daughter to a place where they are hoping the people there can remove their daughters strong feelings for other women. By the time the poor teen girl gets to the place, she's confused, lonely, and a bit scared. But this is where the storyline REALLY gets good!
She meets another girl who has an obnoxious attitude and doesn't want to be there either, but the two girls eventually develop feelings for each other. Watching the two girls kiss and fall in love all the while trying to hide their secret love for each other really was rather fun to watch!
Honestly, I've NEVER seen a storyline like this before, haha. It's really special! I also love the film for the Go Sailor songs- especially "Together Forever in Love". What a CATCHY little song that is!
2.5 stars out of 4 December 18, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Bottom Line:
A sometimes cutting, mostly just cute lesbian variation on the teen flick, But I'm a Cheerleader is diverting but not especially good.
But I'm a Cheerleader July 16, 2008
This movie is so funny! Its the most weirdest coming out story ever. A movie every lesbian much watch.
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