Film

But I'm a Cheerleader

Name: But I'm a Cheerleader
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Released: 2000
Cast: Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall, Cathy Moriarty, RuPaul, Melanie Lynskey

Satire

A pastel nightmare disguised as a teen comedy: a cheerleader gets shipped off to gay conversion camp by parents who've mistaken her love of Melissa Etheridge for a diagnosis. Director Jamie Babbit plays it as broad, John Waters-inflected satire — bright colours, blunt jokes, RuPaul in fatigues — while the romance underneath is sincere. Funny, angry, and much sharper than its candy-coated surface suggests.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like satire that pokes hard at earnest institutions while still caring about its characters, and you enjoy a candy-colored, deliberately stylized look that winks at the camera.

Skip it if you want subtle, naturalistic comedy; the performances are big, the jokes are broad, and the satire lands with a heavy hand more often than not.

What it asks of you: Under ninety minutes, it moves briskly and stays bright and playful, so you can settle in without much effort or a long warm-up.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Miseducation of Cameron Post2018

Same premise, opposite temperature — a quiet, serious drama about teenagers sent to conversion therapy, with Chloë Grace Moretz anchoring it. Where Cheerleader is a cackle, this one is a slow burn of dread and tenderness.

But No jokes to soften the subject; it sits with the misery rather than skewering it, which can be a heavier watch than you want.

Saved!2004

A pregnant teen at a Christian high school becomes the target of the same weaponised piety that fuels Cheerleader's camp. Bright, mean, and gleefully sacrilegious in the same key.

But Its satire of evangelical culture is broader and less focused specifically on queerness — you may want more of that particular target.

Pariah2011

A Brooklyn teenager quietly working out her identity against family expectation, shot with real tenderness. Where Cheerleader exaggerates for laughs, this finds the same fear rendered achingly true to life.

But There's no camp, no comic relief — it's a naturalistic drama, and the tonal gap from Cheerleader is enormous.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from But I'm a Cheerleader

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Children's Hour1961

Both are about institutions weaponising suspected queerness against women; one plays it as pastel farce, the other as a devastating classic-Hollywood tragedy — same wound, sixty years apart.

Decades before Cheerleader could make jokes about it, this stark black-and-white drama showed two schoolteachers destroyed by a rumour of lesbianism. It's the deadly-serious ancestor of everything Cheerleader is satirising.

But Bleak, dated in its framing, and utterly without the camp release valve — this is the tragedy Cheerleader is laughing in the face of.

Love, Simon2018

The studio-polished, all-ages cousin of Cheerleader's rebellion — a coming-out story engineered to be as unthreatening and warm as possible. Good for anyone who wants the theme without the edge.

But Deliberately safe and mainstream; it sands down every rough corner that makes Cheerleader interesting.

Edge of Seventeen1999

A late-'80s coming-out story that's earnest where Cheerleader is satirical, following a teenage boy's first love and first heartbreak with real specificity and period detail.

But Slower and more conventional in structure; it plays it straight (so to speak) rather than winking at the genre.

Booksmart2019

Not about conversion therapy at all, but it shares Cheerleader's specific gift for treating a queer teen character's crush and awkwardness as just another normal part of growing up, played for big laughs.

But It's a party-night comedy, not a satire with a target — the stakes and politics are much lower.

Jawbreaker1999

Same year, same lurid plastic colour palette, same delight in turning high school cruelty into high camp. If you loved the look of Cheerleader, this scratches an identical itch.

But It's a pitch-black comedy about murder and popularity, not queerness — the connection is purely aesthetic and tonal.

Clueless1995

The candy-coloured teen satire that helped invent this whole visual language — sharp, quotable, and surprisingly moral underneath the gloss, much like Cheerleader.

But It's a straightforwardly heterosexual romantic comedy; you're here for the style and structure, not the subject matter.

G.B.F.2014

A gleefully trashy satire of high school cliques fighting over who gets to claim the school's newly-out gay student as an accessory — cartoonish, mean, and very much in Cheerleader's spirit of using comedy as a weapon.

But Broader and less polished, with performances that lean hard into cartoon rather than character.

One Nation Under God1993

This is the true story Cheerleader is exaggerating for satire — the actual institutions, language, and human cost behind the pink-and-blue nightmare.

A documentary tracing the real ex-gay ministry movement that inspired camps exactly like the one in Cheerleader, told through interviews with survivors and founders. Sobering, essential context for the satire.

But No jokes, no plot, just talking heads and archival footage — a bracing dose of reality after the comedy you just watched.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch2001

Both use exaggerated performance and glitter as armour against people trying to fix or categorise a body that refuses to fit; Cheerleader whispers the idea, Hedwig screams it through an amp.

A glam rock musical about a genderqueer East German rocker, told with the same defiant camp aesthetic and refusal to apologise for who its hero is. Louder, rawer, and sung at full volume.

But It's a full-blown rock opera with a much stranger structure — if you want naturalism or straightforward comedy, this will feel like a different planet.