But I’m a Cheerleader! (1999): the best John Waters film Waters never made (Review)

It’s all very well if you’re a Jack or a Sarah, apparently, but us Grahams have few iconic movie characters who share our name. Even more reason, then, to cheer for Lionsgate’s new Blu-Ray of Jamie Babbit’s cult comedy But I’m a Cheerleader, which gives us a Graham for the ages. The fact that said Graham is a woman played by Clea DuVall is no matter – it’s of a piece with the deliciously queer delights of a film that might just be the best John Waters movie John Waters never directed.

But I’m a Cheerleader! takes place at a camp that practices “conversion therapy”, a form of pseudoscience that claims to turn gay and bisexual people straight. Desiree Akhavan used the same setting for her recent, terrific, film The Miseducation of Cameron Post, whose more serious tone seems like a more natural fit for a process that generally leaves victims with deep-seated trauma. (Despite years of promising to do so, the British government has yet to outlaw the practice) I did wonder, going in, whether Cameron Post would make Babbit’s film seem dated, but that wasn’t the case. The only parts of it that have dated are parts that are pleasurably retro – the abrasive, post-Heathers wit, the soundtrack full of vintage rock’n’roll and contemporary pop-punk, the candy-coloured production design that seems to take place a block away from Bo Welch’s sets for Edward Scissorhands, the delight of recognising the likes of DuVall, Natasha Lyonne, Michelle Williams and Melanie Lynskey arrived with their talent fully formed.

There were an awful lot of teen comedies around the turn of the millennium, many of which shared cast members with this film. (It’s quite surreal to remember Lyonne was part of the ensemble in American Pie, a casting choice which now feels like putting a piranha in a tropical fish tank, but I digress) Part of the reason why But I’m a Cheerleader! is a cut above comes from the strength of its adult cast, including a terrifically funny Cathy Moriarty as the camp’s desperate, despotic leader. You also get Waters veteran Mink Stole along with Harold & Maude‘s Bud Cort as Lyonne’s disapproving parents, and an extraordinary out-of-costume turn from RuPaul as Moriarty’s right-hand man. Back in 1999 RuPaul was already famous enough for his casting as an “ex-gay” to register as a joke. It’s an even wilder thing to see now Drag Race UK has made him into something approaching the face of the BBC (and if you stifled a laugh at that, you’re in the target market here). But it’s not just stunt casting. RuPaul instinctively gets why the brow-furrowing, whispering seriousness of his character is so funny; his delivery takes the line “I myself was once a gay” from being a good joke to one of the best jokes in a script full of them.

Despite all this, the film unquestionably belongs to its young cast members. DuVall’s unrepeatable introductory line, delivered while lounging on a bright pink bed smoking a cigarette, immediately announces a future icon of American queer cinema. Lyonne is wonderful, and has the benefit of the script’s smartest character beat, when it’s revealed she doesn’t even know she’s a lesbian – yes, she had no sexual interest in her boyfriend, but surely that’s because good Christian girls don’t have sexual thoughts? It’s this reversal – the supposed ‘sinner’ who turns out to be more committed to her faith than her accusers – that makes it clear why Babbit was right to tackle this issue using comedy. The social purpose of comedy, the flipping-around of pieties and social structures to make the downtrodden into heroes and the powerful into fools, is perfectly suited to her message.

On release, But I’m a Cheerleader! got fairly negative reviews, many of them taking issue with the humour. In particular, many critics accused the male characters (apart from Cort) of being camp stereotypes, which… isn’t exactly untrue, but they’re affectionately drawn, funny caricatures. It’s possible that those critics simply weren’t used to watching films where the male characters are unimportant to the central storyline. It’s also possible that a certain attitude I remember being prevalent in the 1990s was colouring the reactions: the sense that gay representation needed to move beyond camp sitcom characters (correct) morphing into a belief that camp itself was bad, and that real gay men weren’t camp (stop). Either way, the film’s legacy is not who it doesn’t represent, but who it does. Lesbian teenagers got a movie that not only puts their life experiences front and centre, it allowed lesbian love and sex to be tender, romantic, even funny without being crass or exploitative. It gave them a happy ending that not only resembles a canonical ’80s teen classic, it might even better it.

It is this lasting cult audience that this Blu-Ray set is made for, and they won’t go away disappointed. Aside from Babbit’s director’s cut (six minutes longer – check out Peter Jackson over here!), there’s also a featurette on the film’s soundtrack, a full-length commentary with Babbit and – nice choice, this – the film’s costume designer and set designer, Babbit’s scrappy, endearing early short Discharge, and more. I particularly enjoyed the “class reunion”, conducted by Variety for the twentieth anniversary of a film they originally described as a “shallow, only mildly entertaining satire”, and the making-of featurette from 1999. Watch them together for proof that the film’s be-true-to-yourself moral is one Babbit and her cast live by – their young selves are perfectly visible in their older selves, and vice versa. Not that Lyonne necessarily sees it that way. Asked what the message of the film is in the 1999 footage, she replies: “The moral of the film is BE GAY”. Enjoy the rest of Pride Month, folks!

The Nightingales’ drummer, joins us to talk about all manner of things including working with Cumming and Lee, her formative musical influences, the things that have got her through lockdown, the thrill of getting back on the road to tour the Four Against Fate album, and which stand-up comedian Graham sounds most like.

PATREON POP SCREEN

Thanks for reading Graham’s review of But I’m a Cheerleader

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