Dolph immediately succeeds at convincing Clayton to leave however, when Megan confronts Graham, Graham is initially afraid to leave with her. They hatch a plan to try to get Graham and Clayton back at the True Directions graduation ceremony. Megan joins Dolph, who is staying at Lloyd and Larry’s house, and the two find more acceptance. Megan stays at True Directions, fearful of her father’s rejection. Megan refuses to apologize for her actions and is expelled from the camp. One night, Graham and Megan sneak out of bed to have sex, and Mary discovers what they have done. Mary finds out about the trip, and requires the True Directions members to picket Lloyd and Larry’s house. While at the bar, Megan and Graham kiss, admitting their feelings for one another. One night, several members of the True Directions program sneak out to a gay bar, led by former True Directions members Lloyd (Wesley Mann) and Larry (Richard Moll). Dolph is expelled from the camp and Clayton is punished. Soon after her arrival, she discovers two male members of the program, Dolph (Dante Basco) and Clayton (Kip Pardue) making out and screams, leading to Mary waking up to discover them. Megan completes step 1 – admitting that she is a lesbian. Megan meets several other teens in the program, including Graham (Clea DuVall), who she befriends. The program is run by Mary (Cathy Moriarty) and Mike (RuPaul). She is sent to True Directions, a conversion therapy camp for teenagers, who are expected to complete a 5-step recovery program in order to rid themselves of homosexuality and reintegrate into society. Plot summaryĪs the film opens, 17-year old cheerleader Megan (Natasha Lyonne) is subjected to an intervention by her parents and friends, who are concerned that she may be a lesbian. Babbit was interviewed in Kirby Dick’s documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated (2000) and critiques the decision-making and demands of the MPAA, noting the sexism and homophobia implicit in much of their commentary. Initially, the film received an NC-17 rating Babbit removed some content to earn it a commercially viable “R” rating. LGBTQ media outlets such as AfterEllen and Autostraddle have consistently ranked it one of the best queer films of all time. More recent critical appraisals have considered it more positively, noting its use of satire and camp to critique heteronormativity. The film largely received a poor critical reception from most mainstream media outlets, often because it was perceived as engaging only stereotypes. She and Graham openly admit their attraction and become properly romantically entwined.But I’m A Cheerleader was Jamie Babbit’s first feature film. It's not until they briefly flee the camp to hang out at a local gay bar - one populated by ex-ex-gays - that Megan sees the folly of such camps. As Megan and Graham are forced through their sexist 1950s housewife training, they clearly begin developing an attraction. It's not until she is prodded by the counselors that Megan begins to realize that she is indeed attracted to women. The camp is run by the "ex-gay" Mike (RuPaul) and the iron-fisted ultra-matron Mary Brown (Cathy Moriarity, who is always great).Īt True Directions, Megan - assuming she is straight - meets other queer kids, notably Graham ( Clea DuVall) an out-and-proud lesbian eager to defy the system. Her parents (Bud Cort and Mink Stole) see this as evidence enough that she is a lesbian, and sign her up for True Directions, an ex-gay conversion program that not only seeks to reprogram queer-leaning youths as heterosexual, but also teaches them to embrace bland post-WWII American suburban values and aesthetics. The film wasn't terribly well-received upon its release - some didn't like Babbit's whimsical leniency - but some now consider it to be one of the better queer films of all time. Prior to all those films, though, came Babbit's "But I'm a Cheerleader," a lighthearted, optimistic, and hilarious skewering of conversion camps and traditional heteronormativity seen through a pink-tinged, cartoony, John Waters-inflected lesbian love story. The 2018 film "The Miseducation of Cameron Post" is about a teen girl who falls in love with a female classmate and is sent by her conservative grandparents to a camp, and Joel Edgerton's "Boy Erased" from that same year follows a teenage boy into a camp that is decidedly church-like. The Netflix documentary "Pray Away" - a shortening of the conversion camp catchphrase "pray away the gay" - traces the extreme evangelical origins of Exodus International, a conversion movement that started in the 1970s and disbanded in 2013. The 2022 slasher film "They/Them" is set at a conversion camp. In media, conversion camps have appeared as the central setting of several recent major feature films.
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