I tried to post this last night, but was thwarted! By the internet!
So I got But I'm a Cheerleader from Netflix, and I'm afraid I was disappointed. It's just…too pastiche for me, I’m afraid. Perhaps this is just typical-lesbian (or in my case, bisexual) lack of a sense of humor, but honestly I thought the generalizations were too broad and the jokes too expected to even be funny, let alone poignant, as I think the film intends. Maybe it's just dated. I'm not sure how I would have felt had I seen the film in 1999, when it came out. Maybe the rise and rise of Will and Grace since has desensitized me to all the easy jokes about gay identity. I didn't, for instance, laugh at the assumption (as per the main character's friends and family) that because Megan has a picture of a woman in her locker she must be a lesbian, whether she believes it or not. Nor did I find it funny that the leader of the "reform" camp she's sent too is a…well…a ball-breaker. I found it, in fact, essentializing. Yes, it's parody. Yes, parody is by nature essentializing. But that doesn't mean that's all it is. Or that that's the only way to be funny about an issue that involves sexuality. I mean, sexuality doesn't have to equal identity, even in a very type-based comedy, like this.
I guess I didn't feel that any of the characters were compelling, and the storyline was far too parodic to be emotionally or politically meaningful. The deep problems we face, for instance, in Virginia, with an amendment on the ballot to prevent the courts from deciding in favor of equal marriage rights, aren't at all addressed by pointing out that some women hate vacuuming and some men can't chop wood. I guess I don't feel that America's problems with sexuality or with same-sex desire really have to do with the idea that a person can be "cured" from it any longer. Or that the main issue we have to address is that people don't recognize desires that are alien to them. Neither do I find it useful to assert that people who love rules are in denial, or that teenage sexuality ought to hold primary right. I feel like this film sets up a sort of straw man – impossibly dim proponents of some fantasy conservative sexual ideology who can be defeated by a lesbian in a cheerleader costume running down a mock wedding aisle. I’m afraid it isn't anywhere near that simple, and I'm too much of a killjoy to appreciate the simple answer for itself.
That's all right, though. I worked on my Halloween costume while I was watching it, and I really like that I got to watch it because I have netflix. I like netflix, that's for sure. And I appreciate that it recommended the film to me. And I appreciate that I saw it. Maybe I was just in a grouchy mood tonight. It doesn't do anyone any good to mutter that beginning the film by focusing on teenage cheerleaders' bouncing breasts is classically dismembering male gaze move, indicating that the desires of a lesbian are exactly aligned with those of a straight man, or that there's no room for bisexuality in this movie. Stop the grouching! I should read some of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia! That will make me happier!
So I got But I'm a Cheerleader from Netflix, and I'm afraid I was disappointed. It's just…too pastiche for me, I’m afraid. Perhaps this is just typical-lesbian (or in my case, bisexual) lack of a sense of humor, but honestly I thought the generalizations were too broad and the jokes too expected to even be funny, let alone poignant, as I think the film intends. Maybe it's just dated. I'm not sure how I would have felt had I seen the film in 1999, when it came out. Maybe the rise and rise of Will and Grace since has desensitized me to all the easy jokes about gay identity. I didn't, for instance, laugh at the assumption (as per the main character's friends and family) that because Megan has a picture of a woman in her locker she must be a lesbian, whether she believes it or not. Nor did I find it funny that the leader of the "reform" camp she's sent too is a…well…a ball-breaker. I found it, in fact, essentializing. Yes, it's parody. Yes, parody is by nature essentializing. But that doesn't mean that's all it is. Or that that's the only way to be funny about an issue that involves sexuality. I mean, sexuality doesn't have to equal identity, even in a very type-based comedy, like this.
I guess I didn't feel that any of the characters were compelling, and the storyline was far too parodic to be emotionally or politically meaningful. The deep problems we face, for instance, in Virginia, with an amendment on the ballot to prevent the courts from deciding in favor of equal marriage rights, aren't at all addressed by pointing out that some women hate vacuuming and some men can't chop wood. I guess I don't feel that America's problems with sexuality or with same-sex desire really have to do with the idea that a person can be "cured" from it any longer. Or that the main issue we have to address is that people don't recognize desires that are alien to them. Neither do I find it useful to assert that people who love rules are in denial, or that teenage sexuality ought to hold primary right. I feel like this film sets up a sort of straw man – impossibly dim proponents of some fantasy conservative sexual ideology who can be defeated by a lesbian in a cheerleader costume running down a mock wedding aisle. I’m afraid it isn't anywhere near that simple, and I'm too much of a killjoy to appreciate the simple answer for itself.
That's all right, though. I worked on my Halloween costume while I was watching it, and I really like that I got to watch it because I have netflix. I like netflix, that's for sure. And I appreciate that it recommended the film to me. And I appreciate that I saw it. Maybe I was just in a grouchy mood tonight. It doesn't do anyone any good to mutter that beginning the film by focusing on teenage cheerleaders' bouncing breasts is classically dismembering male gaze move, indicating that the desires of a lesbian are exactly aligned with those of a straight man, or that there's no room for bisexuality in this movie. Stop the grouching! I should read some of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia! That will make me happier!
Labels: feminism, movies, queer, representation, reviews
There really are brain-washing camps like that, though, where everybody has to dress according to a certain definition of feminine/masculine. I suppose the idea is that if you act according to your God-given sex role, your sexual desires will reorient themselves accordingly.
Not surprisingly, it does not work very well. Maybe one of those camps would have kept Natasha Lyonne from becoming a crack burnout, though.
i sympathise with her. i want her to play me in the movie of my life ;-) she will need to stop getting older, though, if she's going to play the young me.
I agree that But I'm a Cheerleader! feels dated now, but I guess it depends on where the audience is in time. For middle-American Republicans this is probably still a radical movie. Plus, the girls are really cute.