BUT I'M A CHEERLEADER
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Lions Gate Director: Jamie Babbitt Writer: Jamie Babbitt Cast: Natasha Lyonne, Ru Paul Charles, Cathy Moriarty, Clea DuVall, Michelle Williams, Mink Stole, Bud Cort, Julie Delpy
If we accept the premise that most parents want some day to be grandparents, we'd have to go along with the view that most parents would be disappointed to discover that their only son or daughter is gay. What should they do about the situation? The psychologically healthy folks would accept reality and not make an issue of their frustration. In New York, some even cover up their discouragement by marching in gay parades with signs reading "I'm proud of my gay son (or daughter)." Neither of these situations would make for an amusing movie, so in her directorial debut, Jamie Babbit plays with a bright premise, then proceeds to make a hash of her film.
"But I'm a Cheerleader" shows the influence of the eminent John Waters on Ms. Babbitt, who even uses a Waters favorite, Mink Stole, in the role of an Edith Bunker- like parent. But Babbitt repeatedly pulls back when her story is on the verge of laugh-out-loud antics with the result that her satire is at once too amiable and too obvious.
The best thing about the movie is the casting of young Natasha Lyonne ("Slums of Beverly Hills," "American Pie") in the key role of Megan, a teenaged cheerleader whom her parents suspect of being a lesbian. What seems to give her away to her folks is her fondness for tofu and vegetarianism-- yet despite her posting of a female pin-up in her high-school locker, she is yet unaware of her own tendencies. When her dad, Mr. Bloomfield ("Harold and Maude"'s Bud Court) and her mom (Mink Stole) whisk her off to a so-called rehabilitation camp modeled on a series of steps like Alcoholics Anonymous, Megan finally confronts her homosexual tendencies when she develops on mad crush on fellow inmate, Graham ("Girl, Interrupted"'s Clea DuVall). The young men and women who share bunks in the lodge are all gay, all sent by their parents to be "straightened" out by homophobic director Mary (Cathy Moriarty)--who employs ex-gay Mike (drag performer Ru Paul Charles) to assign manly chores like repairing cars to the guys while she dispenses classes like diaper changing to the young women.
Production designer Rachel Kamerman has conceived the girls' rooms in bright pastel colors as befits this candy-coated, emasculated satire, making the thoroughly obvious point that traditional America wants its women to be pretty in pink. Stereotypes abound, the homophobic Mary contrived as a fundamentalist Christian while the boys and girls under her tutelage with the exception of Graham and Megan are nerdish, dull, even androgynous. The picture has just a few unintentional laughs, the enterprise coming not even close in quality to Rose Troche's 1994 intelligently funny "Go Fish."
Rated R. Running time: 81 minutes. (C) 2000 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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