20 Underrated Movies From 2000 You've Probably Never Seen

Released: 11th August 2000 (US)

In recent years the depressingly horrific real world concept of gay conversion therapy has been mined for gritty "true-to-life" emotional dramas such as Boy Erased and The Miseducation Of Cameron Post.

But I'm A Cheerleader was a couple of decades ahead of the curve in tackling the same subject, but rather than the realistic approach it did so as a high camp romantic comedy and was not very well received by contemporary critics. Today, though, it feels forward thinking for 2000 in both satirising the conversion industry and providing an unabashedly joyful queer love story in an era in which gay romantic movies, when they existed, tended to end in tragedy.

Natasha Lyonne, then best known for a snarky bit part in American Pie, is charming as the All-American princess, a cheerleader dating the high school football star, who doesn't feel like she belongs with all the more stereotypically gay people at the "True Directions" therapy camp. Ironically, it is only through being at the camp that Lyonne's character learns to embrace her queer identity and find love with Clea DuVall's more alt girl.

With its heightened reality, broad characters and Barbie pink colour scheme, But I'm A Cheerleader exists in the camp cinema mould of John Waters and should be enjoyed by any fans of him or of RuPaul who has an (out of drag) part as an "ex gay".