![]() ![]() It’s a film that’s just as commercial as it is artfully thoughtful that isn’t afraid to be broadly funny, while also putting on display what (from the media’s perspective) is considered taboo, creating a safe space to normalize them in the process. ![]() If But I’m a Cheerleader is an indication of anything, it’s that queer films should no longer be confined within the realms of a solely LGBTQ+ audience and marketing sphere. Regardless of how one feels about the type of comedy on display in the rest of the film, the ending is guaranteed to inspire the widest of smiles. It’s a beautifully intimate moment in a public setting where the characters are several feet apart, but through careful camerawork, feel like the only two people in the world. Babbit doubles down by playing the same song that Megan and Graham first made love to in an earlier scene (“We’re in the City” by Saint Etienne) to recall those private emotions within the viewer to incredible effect. It’s as if to say that at that moment, surrounded by all of this effortful artifice, they’re the only two people exhibiting genuine emotions and therefore the only two people worth our time. There is so much comedy to be mined from this situation, but instead, the camerawork is focused entirely on simple close-ups between Megan and her lover. Justice finally came for Babbit’s original vision of But I’m a Cheerleader thanks to its devoted and enduring cult audience that gets stronger every day. After trimming down on some of the sex scenes and references to methods of lesbian sex, Babbit succeeded in attaining an R-rating and, on its 20th anniversary in 2020, released a director’s cut that re-included a hilarious Reefer Madness-style conversion video, amping up the comedy and its pointed attack at homophobia even more. ![]() The alarming part of its censorship lies in the fact that the film’s content, outside some salacious shots of breasts bouncing in a cheerleader’s uniform (Megan’s fantasies) which are always more comedic than they are pornographic, is rather tame. It's not obscene as long as they burn to death with their clothes on.” But leave in the mutilation, leave in the sadism, and by all means leave in the human beings burning to death. The battle recalls Roger Ebert’s sardonic review of The Dirty Dozen, in which while commenting upon the scene of the Germans burning to death, he cheekily states “If you have to censor, stick to censoring sex… …because the human body is evil and it's a sin to look at it. Speaking against the organization for the 2006 documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, Lyonne lambasts the MPAA for their treatment of queer films, stating that those with queer themes are much more heavily censored than their straight counterparts. If you’re reading this having seen the film, it’ll no doubt come as a shock that But I’m a Cheerleader was originally slapped with a homophobic NC-17 rating by the MPAA.
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