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Synopsis: Pity poor Megan. Her parents have come to the conclusion that Megan is not destined to walk the straight and narrow of heterosexuality. The signs are all there, of course: she listens to Melissa Etheridge albums, her bedsheets are adorned with vaginal Georgia O'Keefe flowers, she has odd fantasies when she thinks about her fellow cheerleaders, and she doesn't like kissing her boyfriend. This last item is, on the evidence presented, of dubious argumentative merit, since her boyfriend's idea of kissing is to thrust his tongue into her mouth and twirl it around like a Roto Rooter. I doubt that there are many teenaged girls who would respond well to that. Megan's parents decide to intervene and enroll Megan in New Directions, a sort of boot camp that transforms gay teens into straight ones. Once there, the rigid curriculum points Megan towards her sexuality and her proper gender role. Unfortunately, since just about everyone who is involved with New Directions, from director Mary Brown on down, is DEEP into the denial of their sexuality, the direction Megan takes isn't exactly what her parents had in mind. She meets Graham, who is openly lesbian and is faking things in order to get out in the fastest time possible. Megan and Graham fall in love. Can their romance endure the opposition of New Directions?

Queer-do Culture: The obvious role models for this film are the films of John Waters (with a hint of Tim Burton thrown into the production design for good measure). The role played by Ru Paul Charles (in male drag) would have been perfect for Divine. This crosses a number of the boundaries of good taste--if your definition of good taste is hopelessly mired in heterosexuality. If you approach it from a gay point of view, it's not particularly transgressive at all. It's kind of sweet, really. As homosexuality becomes more and more accepted, I can forsee this film becoming hopelessly dated within a decade. Twenty years from now, audiences will wonder what the big deal was. For being the spiritual child of John Waters, this film has surprisingly little shock value--much to its detriment.

Sight Gags: But I'm A Cheerleader! lives and dies by the sight gag. The best of these are the various and sundry visual double entendres that populate the film's gender re-programming. Mary Brown's son, Rock, for instance, does things with lawn implements that you will never see in Better Homes and Gardens. The impetus of these gags is to demonstrate that none of the characters is really making progress with their reprogramming, not even the reprogrammers themselves. Much of this is played as a kind of broad camp comedy review that takes advantage of various and sundry gay stereotypes. My own favorite of the sight gags on display here involves the recurring use of an aversion shock device by the pain-loving goth girl character, but the attempts by the various male inmates to become more manly are all pretty funny, and the household chores that the girls are tasked with have a strange sexual rhythm to them.

Performances: Natasha Lyonne as Megan has a certain wide-eyed innocence to her that is disarming and Clea DuVall has a certain amount of the butch version of the same thing, but they are pretty much bland and colorless characters. The supporting cast, however, is superb. Cathy Moriarty seems to be making a career out of borderline psychotic characters like Mary Brown (contrast it, for instance, with her character in Soapdish). Her agression is multilayered and disguises a deep ambivalence about her own gender. When she barks that "Straight men don't use foreplay! They get in and get out!" you can hear a wonderful layer of disappointment. She's a hoot. Megan's parents are fun, too: a cartoon version of middle class straight parents that isn't a mean cartoon. It's certainly nice to see Mink Stole get work in a film by someone OTHER than John Waters, even if the film in question wants to be one anyway. The other gay teens assay roles that are written as stereotypes and play them to the hilt.

Dulled Edges: Despite Cathy Moriarty's prickly performance as Mary Brown, the film itself lacks a certain meanness. This is something of a mixed blessing. Since part of the movie wants to be a sweet romance, the lack of meanness enhances the movie. Since, overall, the film wants to be a scathing satire on gender roles and identity, the lack of meanness hurts. The end result is a pastel colored cotton candy confection that doesn't have any real meat to it. But I'm A Cheerleader! doesn't turn the screws tight enough. Which is too bad, really, since Gay and Lesbian cinema is in dire need of exactly the sort of movie this film wants to become. Alas....