The satirical comedy But I’m a Cheerleader had its first screening 25 years ago.
The film starring Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall, Melanie Lynskey alongside RuPaul, Cathy Moriarty, and Eddie Cibrian, first screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Over the next few months, it toured film festivals screening at Sundance, the London Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Film Festival.
It would get a full theatrical cinema release in July 2000 and become a defining cult film for a generation of young LGBTIQA+ people.
Director Jamie Babbit was forced to make several significant cuts to the film before it was given a theatrical release as censors wanted to give it an R-rating. A director’s cut was later released.
The film tackles the very serious topic of conversion therapy and suppression and change practices, by shining a light on them via an over-the-top comedy.
Seventeen-year-old high school senior Megan Bloomfield (Lyonne) loves cheerleading and is dating Jared, a football player, but does not enjoy kissing him, instead preferring to look at her fellow cheerleaders.
This, combined with her interests in vegetarianism and Melissa Etheridge, leads her parents, Peter and Nancy, and friends to suspect that she is a lesbian. Aided by ex-gay Mike (RuPaul), they surprise her with an intervention.
She is then sent to True Directions, a two-month-long conversion therapy camp intended to convert attendees to heterosexuality via a five-step program.
The movie was director Jamie Babett’s first feature. She went on to film many more features including The Quiet, Itty Bitty Titty Committee, Breaking the Girls, Addicted to Fresno and The Stand In.
She’s also made her mark in the world of television directing episodes of Popular, Gilmore Girls, Malcom in the Middle, Nip/Tuck, Alias, Ugly Betty, The L Word, 92010, Castle, The United States of Tara, Girls, Only Murders in the Building, A League of Their Own, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, The Orville, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and many others.
Many of the film’s stars have also excelled. Natasha Lyonne appeared in the American Pie series of films around the same time that I’m A Cheerleader came out and she appeared in a steady steam of indie films in the years that followed.
She reunited with director Jamie Babett in 2015 for Welcome to Fresno. Her career kicked into oversrive when she appeared in the hit series Orange is the New Black, and went on to have more success with the totally bingeable Russian Doll and Poker Face.
Clea Duvall has described herself as being “very closeted” when they filmed But I’m a Cheerleader. In 2016 the actor came out, and now she’s happily married. She’s constantly appeared in films and television shows over the last 25 years. You might have spotted her in films including Girl Interrupted, 21 Grams, Zodiac or Argo.
On television she’s been in Carnivale, American Horror Story: Asylum The Newsroom and The Handmaid’s Tale. One of her most memorable roles was as Marjorie Palmiotti on Veep. In 2020 DuVal co-wrote and directed the film Happiest Season.
Eddie Cibrian would soon find some his biggest roles in the TV series Third Watch and CSI Miami. Michelle Williams would also become a huge star, and Melanie Lynskey would become a regular face in films and television.
But I’m a Cheerleader has also been adapted into a musical.
