However, it’s now acknowledged to be both humorous and revolutionary.
But I’m A Cheerleader, Jamie Babbit’s daring feature debut, is a true LGBTQ+ cult classic. Despite being critically criticized when it debuted at the Toronto Film Festival 25 years ago in September 1999, the satirical romantic comedy has since earned recognition for a number of reasons, including its groundbreaking lesbian depiction. Babbit’s film dismantled the obscene practice of conversion therapy and gender norms in a campy but emotional way.
Undoubtedly, the film’s cleverness, style, and defiance of traditional norms had a significant role in the broader lesbian awakening in Hollywood in the 1990s.
Babbit claims that she needed to fill a hole, which is how she came up with the idea for the movie. “I was a young femme lesbian in my twenties, and I didn’t see any movies about lesbians that felt like a movie for me,” she tells the news. My intention was to narrate the tale of a femme lesbian who, by the use of her femme skills of cheerleading, comes to the aid of a butch lesbian.
