 I LITERALLY DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW IT'S POSSIBLE THAT I HAVE GOTTEN THIS FAR IN MY LIFE AND NEVER SEEN EITHER OF THESE MOVIES. IT IS LITERALLY OUTRAGEOUS. I AM OUTRAGED. But before I lose my actual shit gushing about these films, a little about Jamie Babbitt...
Jamie Babbit grew up in Cleveland, where her mother ran a drug and alcohol rehab treatment program for teens called "New Directions" (inspiration for "True Directions," the gay conversion camp in But I'm A Cheerleader??). She majored in West African Studies at Barnard College which honestly cracks me the fuck up, because WHY?? After taking some film courses at NYU over the summer, she started working on film sets, basically lying her way into jobs she was totally under qualified for (honestly, mad respect). A few years later, she started making her own shorts, and just six years after graduating college, she made her first feature: But I'm A Cheerleader. Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2007) Directed by: Jamie Babbit Written by: Jamie Babbit, Tina Mabry, Abigail McCarthy, Andrea Sperling Starring: Melonie Diaz, Nicole Vicius, Guinevere Turner, Carly Pope IMDB Synopsis: High School grad and all American gal, Anna, finds her purpose and herself after she hooks up with the radical feminists in The Itty Bitty Titty Committee. If there's one thing I can applaud Babbit for, it's her commitment to an aesthetic. These movies couldn't be more visually different, but they both are cohesive, self-aware, and fully-realized. And while I would give anything to go back in time and give BOTH of these movies to my obliviously queer teenage self, I must say that I think Itty Bitty was probably best enjoyed as a teenager, and best enjoyed in 2007. Before I criticize the hell out of it, I will point out that I feel like you can't really appreciate what Babbit was trying to do unless you've seen Born In Flames, the cult-classic 1983 documentary-style film by feminist & punk icon, Lizzie Borden: But alas, Itty Bitty is more like Born Into A Sizzle, although they share a few key ingredients: female rage, teenage restlessness, queer frustration, and montages, montages, montages! The irony of course is that none of the women in the film are actually supposed to be teenagers, although they all run around like them - which is frustrating, because the whole point of their feminist gang Clits in Action ("CIA" for short, lol) is that they are Women To Be Taken Seriously, and yet their attempts at political stunts are either outdated, comically unbelievable, or downright cliché. For example, when Young And Impressionable Anna meets Chunky Highlights Anarchist Sadie, she's spray painting graffiti on the plastic surgery clinic where she works: A WOMAN IS MORE THAN THE SUM OF HER PARTS. Later on, when Anna joins the gang, she helps them replace the mannequins in a department store window and dramatically paint on the window: WOMEN COME IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES.
I will applaud the film for being neither SWERF-y nor TERF-y, which is an accomplishment since this came out before either of those words were in the average feminist's lexicon (there is both a trans-masc and low key sex worker character, neither of whom are tokenized or fetishized). But the rest of the gang's feminist politics seem to fall into the category of "A real feminist looks like this!", which of course negates the entire purpose of progressive and intersectional feminism as we know it today. At one point, Anna's older sister asks her to wear a padded bra so her bridesmaid dress will fit for the wedding (because Anna missed the tailoring appointment Being Gay And Doing Crimes), and Anna accuses her of "basically making her wear a burqa." SO MANY THINGS WRONG WITH THAT STATEMENT.
So while the gang did occasionally partake in a few cool punk antics (like the time they replace a racist statue in the park with a handmade one of Angela Davis), the rest of their vendetta was, unfortunately, ultra-cringey. If a woman wants to get bigger tits, let her! If she wants to wear a burqa, fucking let her! The issue is not in what women do, it's why. And if they're doing it because they WANT to, because they CHOOSE to, then how rich is the irony that a gang of literal self-proclaimed feminists are telling them that's the "wrong way to be a woman"?
I'm also still really caught up on just how phenomenally bad the acting was. Like I just don't get it. If you search these women on IMDB, they have pretty much all gone on to keep working (except Nicole Vicius, oddly, who's impression of a woman too afraid to leave her wealthy and established girlfriend but who loves wooing hot new recruits was an insufferable character, but amongst the least unwatchable performances). And not to get too ahead of myself, but everyone in But I'm A Cheerleader was on fucking point, and I firmly espouse that satire is an extremely difficult genre to execute well. Cheerleader definitely had a more high-profile cast, but Melonie Diaz (who plays Anna) has gone on to be in the new Charmed! So is Babbit just better with aesthetics than actors? Is some of the awkwardly pedantic dialogue to blame? Or did the cast of Itty Bitty just hate rehearsing their lines? Unclear.
All that being said, it's hard not to cheer a little when the CIA hilariously breaks into a live talk show to upload their footage of their most radical operative, "recovering lawyer" Shulamith (hands down the best performance by Carly Pope) who has PAINTED A GIANT PENIS ON THE HEAD OF THE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL, AND THEN BLOWS IT UP (because they're mad that everyone's celebrating the 125th anniversary of the memorial, and they hate it for no other reason except its resemblance to a penis).
It is literally outrageous and unbelievable to the point of farce, but if you can suspend your disbelief for like 5 minutes, it's begrudgingly (albeit radically ignorant and embarrassingly juvenile) just "punk" enough to be sort of awesome. But I'm A Cheerleader (1999)Directed by: Jamie Babbit Written by: Brian Peterson (screenplay) and Jamie Babbit (story) Starring: Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall, RuPaul, Melanie Lynskey, Katharine Towne, Cathy Moriarty IMDB Synopsis: A naive teenager is sent to rehab camp when her straitlaced parents and friends suspect her of being a lesbian. IT IS LITERALLY GOING TO TAKE ALL MY SELF CONTROL NOT TO TOTALLY LOSE MY SHIT BECAUSE I LOVED THIS MOVIE SO GODDAMN MUCH. FIRST of all, the CAST! Everyone cool is in this movie!!  Baby Natasha Lyonne! Someone please find me the online fan fic where her character in "Cheerleader" is the backstory for her character in "OITNB."  Did you know it is ILLEGAL in the state of California to make a movie about lesbians and NOT cast Clea DuVall?  RU FUCKING PAUL OMG (this is the butchest we will ever see him)  GAY *dies* RUFIO  Catherine FREAKING Moriarty?!?! Remember when she played Robert DeNiro's 15 year old WIFE in "Raging Bull"??  Remember season 4, episode 1 of "Buffy," titled "The Freshman," where Buffy starts her first year at college and gets attacked by a super hot goth vampire named Sunday? THAT WAS KATHERINE TOWNE, THE SUPER HOT GOTH LESBIAN IN "CHEERLEADER"!!!!
Now before I can begin worshipping every single goddamn detail in this film, we MUST all pay homage to the EXTRAORDINARY aesthetics accomplished by Rachel Kamerman (Production Designer), Macie Vener (Art Director), and Alix Friedberg (Costume Design), the likes of which I haven't seen since the (almost) equally effervescent and delightfully dykey Heathers. GAZE UPON EVERY GLORIOUSLY DELICIOUS AND PERFECT INCH OF THIS SAPPHIC PASTEL DREAM COME TRUE: Satire is an extraordinary super power. There are some subjects that are too sensitive or too painful or too cliche to approach head on. I thought about this a lot when Jojo Rabbit came out: if Scorcese or Mendes had made a serious, gritty (and probably 5 hour long) film about the young German boys who sensationalized Nazi Youth in the name of patriotism, it would be too hard to watch; or worse, the only way we could endure watching it would be to disassociate and desensitize ourselves.
Satire allows us to view and experience those stories with our guards down. Because the fact of the matter is, gay conversion camps fucking exist. Vulnerable queer youth are outed by their friends, ostracized by their communities, abandoned by their families, and victimized by (often closeted) fundamentalist and abusive adults. Religious trauma is a real thing. I have no desire to watch a movie about that harsh reality (goddess bless Joel Edgerton, but I will never watch Boy Erased). It hits too close to home. But a teen rom-com about the frustrations of being a teen, the awkwardness of falling in love, and the high stakes of speaking your truth - all set agains the technicolor dreamland of a 90's pastel Polly Pocket phantasmagoria?? Hell fucking yes, sign me UP! At no point did I forget or overlook the raw struggle of what it means to un-brainwash yourself when you've been taught to believe that your feelings are disgusting and that your body is an abomination. But I got to re-live that trauma with pink plastic raincoats, a wall made of daisies, and RuPaul being gay AF. I got to re-live the thrill of falling in love with your best friend even when it feels like the world is falling apart, and I got to see it with a happy (and totally punk rock) ending. I could see Babbit's hands all over this because they looked and felt similar to Itty Bitty. But this time, it fucking worked. When she told a joke, it was one we were all in on; when she winked at the audience, we were winking right back.
And the winner is... In an OVERWHELMING ONSLAUGHT that hardly even feels fair, the winner is, without a DOUBT: But I'm A Cheerleader.  
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May 2020
AuthorSarah Ruth(less) Joanou is a Chicago based writer, artist, production designer, actor, & cat mom. |
