Pre-millennium coming-of-age gay classic.

The first third is hilarious: every line, each performance, every colourfully painted set, constructs its satirical world distinctly and in vivid detail. By halfway, with film’s trajectory clear, things begin to drag. By the end, things fall apart – narrative threads, character arcs, and even some basic film making 101s are abandoned – and the film sputters across the finish line. It’s a shame, because But I’m A Cheerleader is doing important work, at the very least for its time.

Cathy Moriarty, baby Melanie Lynskey, and an out-of-drag RuPaul are eating it up throughout – it’s a shame they have less and less to do as the film moves along. At this stage of her acting career, Natasha Lyonne hadn’t yet become Natasha Lyonne, but she and Clea DuVall have chemistry enough to rescue eachother from conversion therapy camp True Directions. The absurd comedy matches the absurd horror of its subject matter, and even in 2025 it’s clear why But I’m A Cheerleader was an important film for a lot of people.

Further Viewing

Matt Baume looks at the long history of ‘pray away the gay’ scams, the film’s troubled production of “a gay Clueless“, and the real life experiences which informed star Natasha Lyonne’s and director Jamie Babbit‘s work on the film:

Co-star Melanie Lynskey asks Natasha about how she handled the weight of the film’s horrifying subject matter (from 1:53, via Variety):

Our Two Cents on what makes the film timeless:

During the pandemic lockdown, the camp reunited:

Speaking of cast reunions, Natasha and Melanie re-teamed with Clea DuVall for her writer-directorial debut nearly 20 years later in 2016’s The Intervention (double feature, anyone?):