“But I’m a Cheerleader”

A review and my supergay thoughts

Good lesbian movies are few and far between. Many women who love women (wlw for short — it’s just an all-inclusive, friendly term for gay girls) will tell you that lesbian movies almost always follow a few simple tropes. Here’s just a few examples.

1. The lead character’s girlfriend almost always dies. I mean, come on, lesbians don’t die any more often than any other type of human.

2. The girls in it are some type of stereotype. Be it a “man and woman” status, or two manic pixie dream girl soft uwu gays.

3. There’re unnecessarily graphic and/or abundant sex scenes. This is often seen in lesbian movies written by men who don’t understand that gay women, too, have multi-dimensional romantic relationships.

But lesbian stereotypes in Hollywood are not the point of this post.

The point is, the 1999 film But I’m a Cheerleader breaks this mold in a hundred ways.

In brief overview, But I’m a Cheerleader encompasses the journey of a 17-year-old cheerleader (played by Natasha Lyonne, my lesbian TV wife) as her parents put her through gay conversion therapy, which backfires when Lyonne’s character meets and falls in love with another girl.

Let’s get into why I love this movie.

The greatest part of this film was its utter simplicity. Many gay movies are heavy and dramatic, with the aforementioned death as well as hate and destruction from the Straight Enemy.

But this movie was not dark or dreadful. Rather, it was a very typical romcom, with a clear hero, antagonist, and plot direction. The character and relationship development was clean-cut and simple, the romantic tension between Megan and Graham was sugary sweet, and the leader of the gay conversion camp was the type of character you love to hate.

And the pure, unabashed gayness of the all the side characters! Watching them try so hard to be straight for their parents, or their own reasons, and seeing them fail miserably because you are who you are and you can’t change it and why would you want to!

I’m ranting. Sorry. I just… like being queer.

At any rate, this film was a masterpiece, due entirely to how incredibly unoriginal it was. Sometimes, as a young LGBT+ individual, it’s nice to watch two girls fall in love and get a happy ending together.

What I’m saying is, more movies like this, please. More happy fluffy gay romance. Pronto.