But I'm a Cheerleader!

We watched a hilarious movie recently, But I'm a Cheerleader!, which is a satirical comedy about the ex-gay movement. Megan is a closeted-to-herself lesbian who comes home from cheerleading practice one day to find her family has set up an intervention on her behalf. She, they inform her, is a lesbian, and she is being sent to a rehabilitation retreat center to "convert" her to heteronormality.

At the retreat center, she is retrained in gender roles (like that shown in the vacuuming picture above), and practices being submissive, weak, and soft. She is taught to embrace her role in washing dishes and diapering babies. . . all while being forced to wear and sleep in ridiculous fuscia fru-fru attire. Oh, and the kicker? Being paired off with other girls to learn appropriate same-gender interactions.

Sex means being kicked off the island, girls, so don't even think about it.

(Extra points if you can guess which of the four girls shown above I think is cute)

What was so fascinating to me was seeing conversion therapy from the female perspective. At least in the LDS Church, I am accustomed to only hearing about conversion retreats for men - teaching them to be more assertive, more domineering, etc. What made the movie horrifying for me was seeing those gender roles be enforced on women. The satirical nature of the film also made the whole concept of reparative therapy appear ridiculous in its very nature. Women don't become lesbians because they don't like vacuuming or baking bread. Hell, NO WOMAN enjoys picking up after toddlers or messy spouses.

While at the retreat, each of the girls has to identify her "root" - the root cause of her homosexuality. Megan's root? Her mom went back into the workforce for 9 months when she was a child. This "role reversal" between mom and dad triggered gender role confusion within herself.

Personally, I fail to see what gender roles have to do with sexual orientation. But then again, I am a lesbian who enjoys her career.

The Journey

As Mr. Curie and I have a Netflix subscription, we have gotten into the habit of watching LGBT-themed movies from time to time for our date night, and then discussing them. I thought I would share my thoughts from the lesbian-themed films.

This week, we watched The Journey, which obtained an "Good" rating from EL. I had high expectations of this movie - a movie about two lesbian schoolgirls in India who fall in love had all the promise of rich, colorful artistry and beautiful love scenes. Frankly, I expected something completely different than what this movie is.

Although the actresses in this film were quite good, and the friendship and romance that formed between the girls was very believable, I found that the "documentary" feel of the movie really took a lot away from the film. Suzanne left a comment on EL's blog explaining the motivation behind the movie:

If I remember right from the Directors commentary on "The Journey", she was upset with the high suicide rate in this particular Indian State. She wanted to give gay kids hope and show that they could choose to live and make a life for themselves.

This may explain why the movie was much less "movie" and much more "social commentary". Although the movie was released in 2004, the production quality is very circa-1970. So much for rich cinematography, sumptuous saris, and elaborate dance sequences! The movie was also very slow, and seemed much longer than its 107 minutes.

Finally, the ending left much to be desired, since I could never figure out what Kiran decided to do after losing her girlfriend, and the ending scene just goes on... and on.... and on... with no final resolution. For a movie made to show how lesbians in India can choose to make a life for themselves, this final ending did not make this clear at all.

In the end, I gave this movie 3/5 stars, because the love scene was beautiful and left everything to the viewer's imagination, and the interaction between the two girls was very believable and heart-warming.