But I'm a Cheerleader | 
| 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: $7.92
You Save: $7.06 (47%)
New (33) Used (10) from $7.00
Rating:  184 reviews
Sales Rank: 5048
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 85 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 71577
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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Product Description
BUT I'M A CHEERLEADER (DVD MOVIE)
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 179 more reviews...
 SCARY!!! June 14, 2009
Austen Baldwin (Hell, NV)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this film because of all the good reviews it received on here. But you know what, I have to say this is the most disturbing film I've ever seen in my life. I was looking for a cute film showing homosexuality in a positive light, but what I got instead was a creepy film that left me wondering if it was filled with subliminal messages. Just the way color was used throughout the film bothered me. All in all, I watched it once, then promptly took it outside to the dumpster so I'd never have to see it again. I gave it a one star rating because they wouldn't let me give it any less, but if I had the choice it would get nothing more than a negative 10. I would never ever suggest this movie to anyone and I think it could possibly be used as a torture device.
 A must have for all LGBT film collections March 23, 2009
Twisted Tammy (Seattle, WA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the best self discovery / coming out movies ever made. It is also the funniest appealing to both men and women. The story centers around a young woman's self discovery and dealing with the repercussions it causes in her life. This film has no real "dirty parts" but it dose star Rupaul as a male teacher at a private school teaching Queer kids to act Straight. I feel it deserves a place in every LGBT film collection.
Endearing! March 1, 2009
Veggie Copter
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Too cute for words! It teaches a good and needed message; it's absolutely hilarious as well! The art direction is to die for!
 Reparative Comedy-- Laughs Won Out January 5, 2009
Amaranth (Northern California)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"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
Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas)
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.
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