Jezebel Rewatches ‘But I’m a Cheerleader’: The Brilliant Queer Cult Classic Starring Natasha Lyonne
The 1999 film, which the director said she wanted to be a "gay Clueless," was initially rated NC-17...since it featured intimate scenes between two women.
EntertainmentMovies
Last week, The Hollywood Reporter did what it does best: convened two beloved actors—this time, Natasha Lyonne and Melanie Lynskey—you’d actually consent to hear in a conversation about their craft. They had a good giggle about their enduring friendship and peaking in their 40s but their heart-to-heart inevitably turned to But I’m A Cheerleader, the queer cult classic that was about as well-received 24 years ago as any other of the time, which was not well.
“At the time, nobody liked it, and now everybody likes it,” Lynskey said. “I do feel like the movie was very ahead of its time.”
The film, starring Lyonne as Megan Bloomfield—a vegetable-eating, Melissa Etheridge-loving, high school cheerleader whose parents send her to a rehabili-straight-ion camp in suspicion of her sexuality—and Lynskey as her goodie-two-shoes co-camper, was initially rated as NC-17 by the MPAA since it featured intimate scenes between two women. Its director, Jamie Babbit, was forced to make cuts for it to be downgraded to an R rating. Babbit—who’s since said she’d sought out only to make a gay Clueless—criticized the MPAA for discriminating against films with gay content. Film critics, too, took issue with the movie, and while the lead actors (Lyonne, Lysnkey, Clea Duvall, RuPaul Charles) garnered praise for their performances, other characters were criticized as being stereotypical…which, of course, is very much the point of But I’m A Cheerleader.
Frankly, anyone who’s seen the film would tell you that Lynskey’s observation about its continued resonance is an understatement. There are several reasons people can’t stop blabbing about it, or borrowing from its brilliance. The movie has everything: The style of John Waters! The borderline violent color palate of Barbie! A butch (well, kind of) RuPaul! And best of all, it’s a queer love story that doesn’t end in tragedy or outfit one of its lovers in a polonaise.
When it premiered in 2000, I was 5 years old and lived in a hamlet of Ohio where any idea of progressivism pretty much stopped and started with the existence of two Chinese restaurants on the same road. This is to say, I didn’t see But I’m A Cheerleader until 13 years later when I escaped to a liberal arts college two hours away. I’ve watched it a handful of times since, but because it’s been a while, and Pride Month is coming to an end (as some brands have already indicated), I thought I’d hunker down, crack a Bud Light (just kidding!), and rewatch it again.
1:23 – Close-up shots of cheerleaders’ bodies feel wrong anywhere else but right here, right now. To me, that’s cinema. I’m also suddenly inspired to do my yearly crunch.
1:40 – Wait, are these cheerleaders chanting: “Freemont power! Freemont pride! Be aggressive! Drive! Drive! Drive!” Also, Freemont? Yes, there are a lot of Freemonts, but Jamie Babbit is from Ohio and there is, in fact, a Freemont in my home state. In my mind, Megan is from Fremont, Ohio. Trust me, it tracks.
1:50 – OMG! Infantile Michelle Williams! Wearing plastic barrettes!
2:02 – There’s something so inexplicably perfect about Natasha Lyonne’s 65-year-old smoker’s rasp coming from a teenage girl’s mouth. No notes.
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