From my experience in the past with lesbian movies, I find many of them are unoriginal in terms of their plot and characters. Lots of the movies try so hard to have a strong romantic relationship between two shallow female leads, which ends up being a snooze fest. As the viewer I want to connect with the characters and enjoy watching their love story. Going into this movie I didn’t know what to expect because of its mixed reviews online. After finishing the full movie I can proudly say that this movie is truly something special. ‘But I’m a Cheerleader’ by Jamie Babbit, is worth watching regardless of your orientation.
The movie starts off with the main character, Megan, at cheer practice. From the obvious shots of the cheer team the viewers can tell Megan doesn’t have just practice on her mind. We meet Megan’s boyfriend and we can tell she has no interest in him romantically as she refuses to kiss him back. Following Megan the next day, her friends at school treat her weirdly and when Megan comes home she discovers her parents have set up an intervention for her because they think she is a lesbian. Megan argues against this claim saying that she doesn’t have any traits of being a lesbian but her parents have already made up their minds, they send her to a conversion camp.
At the camp she joins a group of other kids who are all queer. There she must learn how to be straight and how to act like a good wife for her future husband. We are introduced to another girl at the camp called Graham, Megan’s love interest. Megan struggles throughout camp to suppress her emotions towards girls and finding that she still is not into boys. She gets closer to the other campers who tell her that many of them don’t want to change, they will always be queer.
While Megan is at camp she learns a lot about herself and about the world of homosexuality. All the characters have character development that matches their backstory and personality. This movie tackles the issues with fighting who you are and realizing that the people you care for might not have unconditional love for you. Megan knows that if she follows her heart she will lose her parents, her friends, and her life before. This movie is able to connect with its audience by talking about real issues many of the LGBTQ+ community goes through. This movie was sad, cheesy, funny, and really enjoyable to watch. ‘But I’m a Cheerleader’ really lived up to the expectation that I hoped for and this movie is a must watch for everyone.
