But I'm a Cheerleader

But I’m a Cheerleader

Seventeen-year-old Megan (Natasha Lyonne) is a sunny high school senior who loves cheerleading and is dating a football player, Jared (Brandt Willie). She does not enjoy kissing Jared, however, and prefers looking at her fellow cheerleaders. Combined with Megan’s interest in vegetarianism and Melissa Etheridge, her family and friends suspect that she is in fact a lesbian. With the help of ex-gay Mike (RuPaul), they surprise her with an intervention. Following this confrontation, Megan is sent to True Directions, a reparative therapy camp which uses a five-step program (similar to Alcoholics Anonymous’ Twelve-Step Program) to convert its campers to heterosexuality.

At True Directions, Megan meets the Founder, strict disciplinarian Mary Brown (Cathy Moriarty), Mary’s supposedly heterosexual son Rock (Eddie Cibrian) and a group of young people trying to “cure” themselves of their homosexuality. With the prompting of Mary and the other campers, Megan reluctantly agrees that she is a lesbian (Step 1 of the Five-Step program). This fact, at odds with her traditional, religious upbringing, distresses her and she puts every effort into becoming heterosexual. Early on in her stay at True Directions, Megan discovers two of the boys, Dolph and Clayton (Dante Basco and Kip Pardue), making out. She panics and screams, leading to their discovery by Mike. Dolph is made to leave and Clayton is punished by being forced into isolation. The True Directions program involves the campers admitting that homosexuality (Step 1), rediscovering their gender identity by performing stereotypically gender-associated tasks (Step 2), finding the roof of their homosexuality through family therapy (Step 3), demystifying the other sex (Step 4), and simulating heterosexual intercourse (Step 5). Over the course of the program, Megan becomes friends with another girl at the camp, Graham (Clea DuVall), who, though more comfortable being gay then Megan, was forced to the camp at the risk of otherwise being disowned by her family.

The True Directions kids are encouraged to rebel against Mary by two of her former students, ex-ex gays Larry and Lloyd (Richard Moll and Wesley Mann), who take the campers to a local gay bar where Graham and Megan’s relationship develops into a romance. When Mary discovers the trip, she makes them all picket Larry and Lloyd’s house, carrying placards and shouting homophobic abuse. Megan and Graham sneak away, one night to have sex and begin to fall in love. When Mary finds out, Megan, now at ease with her sexual identity, is unrepentant. She is made to leave True Directions and, now homeless, goes to stay with Larry and Lloyd. Graham, afraid to defy her father, remains at the camp. Megan and Dolph, who is also living with Larry and Lloyd, plan to win back Graham and Clayton.

Megan and Dolph infiltrate the True Directions graduation ceremony where Dolph easily coaxes Clayton away. Megan entreats Graham to join them as well, but Graham nervously declines. Megan then performs a cheer for Graham and tells her that she loves her, finally winning Graham over. They drive off with Dolph and Clayton. The final scene of the film shows Megan’s parents (Mink Stole and Bud Cort) attending a PFLAG Meeting to come to terms with their daughter’s homosexuality.

In this satire, parents who are worried that their children might not be walking the straight and narrow path discover a rehabilitation camp designed to curb alternative lifestyles. Megan (Natasha Lyonne), a high school student and member of the cheerleading squad, seems like an ordinary enough teenage girl, but her habit of honestly expressing herself and lack of romantic enthusiasm for her boyfriend convince her very repressed parents, Peter (Bud Cort and Nancy (Mink Stole), that Megan is becoming a lesbian. So Megan is shipped off to True Directions, a camp for gay and gay-leaning teens, where Mary Brown (Cathy Moriarty) attempts to deprogram kids with homosexual tendencies. The first step in the process is to get each teen to admit to their homosexuality, which Megan is loathing to do, since she doesn’t believe she’s a lesbian – or at least she didn’t think so before she met her new friend Graham (Clea DuVall), who seems quite sure that she likes girls. Meanwhile, Mary’s son Rock (Eddie Cibrian), may be exempt from the camp’s activities, but he turns more than a few heads among True Directions’ male inmates. Noted female impersonator RuPaul appears as a camp guide, and Julie Delpy has a cameo as a “lipstick lesbian.”

Lost and Delirious

Lost and Delirious

Lost and Delirious is the story of three adolescent girls’ first love, their discovery of sexual passion, and their search for identities. Set in a posh, private boarding school surrounded by luxuriant, green forest, Los and Delirious moves swiftly from academic routine, homesickness and girlish silliness to the darker region of lover’s intrigue. A newcomer to a girl’s boarding school is befriended by her two roommates and later discovers they are lovers. When one of the lovers decides she doesn’t dare continue the relationship, the other becomes desperate in her attempts to win her back.

Mary Bedford is a shy, naïve, freshman newcomer to a fancy girls boarding school where she strikes up a friendship with her two senior roommates, the overachieving Tori Moller, and the voraciously poetry reading, unapologetic, closeted lesbian Paullie Oster. As Mary tries to adjust to her new surroundings, with some guidance from the local groundskeeper Joe Menzies, she soon learns that Paulie and Tori are lovers. When Tori, under pressure from her classmates, wants to break it off with Paulie, she resorts to extreme measures to win Tori back. When her father remarries after the death of her mother, Mary Bedford finds herself bundled off to a posh girls’ boarding school. She’s never been to boarding school before and it’s all quite daunting at first. Soon however she makes friends, including her two roommates, Tori and Paulie, whom she soon realizes are lovers. She also becomes quite friendly with the gardener, Joe Menzies, and helps him on the school grounds as it reminds her of working with her late mother in the family garden. When Tori decides to end her relationship with Paulie however, tragedy ensues. A newcomer to a posh girls’ boarding school discovers that her two senior roommates are lovers.

Mary (Mischa Barton) is a 14-year-old freshman and a new student at an all-girls boarding school located somewhere in rural Ontario and she is assigned to a dorm room with Paulie (Piper Perabo) and Victoria, nicknamed Tori, (Jessica Pare), two seniors. In an effort to get the shy Mary to break out of her shell, Paulie and Tori involve her in their activities, such as running in the morning. When they hear that Mary’s mother has recently died, Paulie nicknames her “Mary Brave”. On Mary’s first day at school, Pauline turns a quiet afternoon on the campus into a music-blasting dance party and spikes the punch with hard liquor. Another day later, Pauline defends Victoria from a frustrated Math teacher who humiliates her when she does not understand basic Math.

Mary observes the intimacy between the two roommates. Peering out a window at night, she sees them kissing on a roof. Pauline and Tori’s relationship is close and Pauline is full of life. Over time, Pauline and Tori become more comfortable showing affection in front of Mary. It progresses from a quick kiss on the lips in front of her to the two sharing a bed and having lesbian sex while Mary is sleeping.

When the three are not jogging one day, Pauline comes across a hurt falcon, which she befriends. After reading up on falcons, she trains the animal while keeping it in a makeshift birdhouse on the roof of their dorm building. While she is tending to the falcon, Mary and Tori meet some boys from the nearby boys’ school. One of them, named Jake, flirts with Tori, asking if she will be attending her brother’s 18^th birthday party and making it clear that he likes her. When Mary and Tori are alone, Tori expresses disgust at the boy’s interest in her, saying “He liked my tits.” While Mary asks if she’ll go to the party, Tory says, “And have all those gross guys groping me? No. Thanks. I’d rather stay home and do Math.”

Meanwhile, on the sides, Mary spends time with the local groundskeeper Joe Menzies (Graham Greene) whom she volunteers to help him work with landscaping around the campus. Mary confides in Joe about her troubled home life and her lack of parental attention by her father whom began neglecting her following her mother’s death and focuses his attention on her stepmother whom treats Mary badly. Joe encourages Mary to live out her frustration and unhappiness through work.

One morning, Victoria’s sister, Allison (Emily VanCamp), another freshman student and her friends rush into the room to wake up the older girls. Pauline is lying in Tori’s bed, both clearly topless. Horrified silence falls over everyone. Mary pushes Tori’s sister out of the room and closes the door. Tori angrily tells Pauline to get out of her bed. Pauline tries to downplay the situation and Tori tells her she doesn’t understand, explaining that her sister will tell her parents about it. When confronted by Allison, Tori tries to extinguish her sister’s suspicion by telling her that Pauline has an unrequited crush on her and crawled into her bed. Her sister promises to “fix” the rumors about Tori and not tell their parents anything. As she walks away from this conversation, Victoria collapses into tears.

In the school library, Victoria explains to Mary that her conservative family, her parents and her sister are strongly opposed to homosexuality and she must stop the relationship with Pauline to prevent their rejection. Mary sympathizes with both of her friends, as she too feels rejected by her father, who does not bother to show up to a father/daughter dance. In the forest at night, Victoria and Jake have sex against a tree. Both Mary and Pauline accidentally witness this scene and run back to their room before Victoria returns.

When Victoria returns to the room, Pauline asks her where she’s been and Victoria says she was with a friend. Pauline lashes out at her by telling her that she saw what Victoria and Jake were doing in the woods. In a very poignant moment, Victoria tells Pauline that the intimacy that they shared will never happen again but she (Victoria) will always lover, both as a friend and as a lover. At this point, Pauline rapidly degenerates into psychotic behavior over Victoria’s withdrawal from their relationship. She smashes a mirror and hurls a dish cart to the ground and begins to act out in belligerent ways in class and out of it. A rejection letter from the agency that handled Pauline’s adoption, which informs her that her birth mother denied a request from Pauline to get in touch, further sends her over the edge.

When Pauline is called into the Headmistress Fay Vaughn’s (Jackie Burroughs) office over mouthing off one too many times to a teacher, Pauline refuses to talk to Headmistress Vaughn about her recent behavior or what is bothering her. The Headmistress suggests that Pauline is going through a nervous breakdown, but Pauline says that it’s not the reason and storms out of the office. Later, when Headmistress Vaughn confronts Pauline on the school’s quad, Pauline finally confides in her about her romance with a female student who ended it out of shame (without naming Victoria’s name). The Headmistress is surprisingly very sympathetic with Pauline. She tells Pauline that when she was younger, she suffered a nervous breakdown too when her “girlfriend” abandoned her in a similar situation, but the Headmistress got over it and offers emotional support for Pauline. But Pauline refuses to talk anymore and walks off.

Meanwhile, Victoria, clearly ashamed of being a lesbian, creates a fabricated image of her heterosexuality to her friends and her sister by dating Jake Hollander (Luke Kirby) from a nearby all boys’ school and avoiding Pauline.

One day in the woods, Pauline declares a fencing duel to the death with Jake. Jake is not taking her seriously until he ends up on the ground after being slashed, with Pauline brandishing a sword above him. She demands that he give up Victoria. When he refuses, she stabs him in the leg. Mary rushes to stop her and Pauline runs off.

Mary runs to Victoria’s soccer match, where the Headmistress, Math teacher and fellow students are congregated. Upon reaching the group, Mary sees Pauline sobbing from the top of a nearby building while holding her falcon. Whispering “I rush into the secret house” (a reference to Shakespeare on suicide) Pauline jumps to her death, and as she falls, the injured falcon flies out of the doomed Pauline’s hands into the air. The final shot shows the recovered falcon flying away into the bright blue sky background.

The Clique

The Clique

A young girl tries to fit in with a clique of popular middle school girls after moving into the guest house of one of their homes. Massie Block is the leader of a small group of privileged schoolgirls who arrogantly call themselves “The Pretty Committee”. These so-called preteen “mean girls” (cynical, egotistical, selfish and narcissistic females) and their clique are respected and feared in their middle school as their upper-class Rhode Island suburban neighborhood. But Massie’s life takes an unexpected turn when her parents friends, a lower middle-class family with a self-assured daughter named Claire move into the Block’s guest house and Claire threatens to undermine the superficial Massie’s position of the clique.

Massie Block is a cynical 13-year-old “mean girl” who is first seen screaming in her bedroom at her parents. She was going to go to a party but Massie’s parents, Kendra and William, will not let her go because William’s friend, Jay and his family are moving to the small Rhode Island town of Westchester where they live from Orlando, Florida to stay in their guesthouse. Massie is angry with them so she calls her friends Dylan, Alicia, and Kristen, who form a local clique called “The Pretty Committee” to spread the word about the new people in town. Massie tells them that the host of the party, Shelby Wexler, has head lice, so that Dylan, Alicia, and Kristen will not want to attend.

Massie goes to the house’s indoor swimming pool and is reading a magazine when her mother comes out to make a deal with her. She says she can go to the end of the party if she will be nice to Jay’s daughter, Claire, a girl who is Massie’s age, and will be going to her school, Octavian Country Day. The next scene shows Claire and her family arriving at Massie’s house. When Massie first sees Claire, she hates her right away, judging her by her outfit which is a typical design not an expensive and imported item. Todd, Claire’s 10-year-old brother, is shown to have an obvious crush on Massie.

At dinner, Claire gives Massie a charm of a silver microphone for Massie’s charm bracelet which Massie makes a rude comment about. Massie then tries to leave for her party but is overheard by Claire, whom Kendra invites to go the party, but Massie, not wanting to bring her, fakes sick. Claire, envious of Massie’s colorful fashion and clothes, asks her mother to take her shopping for new clothes for school. After some begging, her mother agrees. At the mall, Claire meets one of the mean girls, Dylan, who is in a fight with her own mother because she refuses to buy Dylan pants as she is not a specific size. Claire tells Dylan to switch the tags, which Dylan delightfully replies saying, “You’re a brilliant!” Once seeing the rest of her friends, she leaves thanking Claire, who, turning away, smiles.

The next day, Massie decides to go riding with her horse, Brownie. On her trail she meets a boy named Chris Abeley who Massie instantly develops a crush on. After a short conversation, they make plans to go riding the following week, in which Chris says “It’s a date.” The following day, Claire hears she is going to school with Massie, much to her excitement. She gets into the car, soon to be accompanied by Massie, who requests that she sits in the back, as they have to “pick up a few more” (Dylan, Alicia and Kristen). Dylan and Claire recognize each other and Dylan immediately then stops liking Claire because of Massie’s disapproval. During the ride, Kristen asks Massie if they “like” Claire, which Massie coldly replies “No.” When Claire is walking to school, she runs in Chris Abeley, who is riding his skateboard and trips, falling onto Claire. Seeing him, Claire develops a crush on him. Massie sees this and storms into the school, furious. Claire comes by and asks Massie for a room location, which Massie replies to Claire to “go back to wherever the hell you came from”, then offers her friends lattes. When Claire insults Massie by calling her a “bitch” right to her face, Massie vows revenge for this.

Claire goes to Art class where the class is supposed to paint a still life of tomatoes. Alicia, who was next to her, deliberately spills red paint on Claire’s white jeans, then IMed her friends that she got her period. The Art teacher, Vincent, tells Claire to go to the nurse. Claire, not knowing why, asks Dylan for directions, in which Dylan gives Claire false directions to the class Massie is in. Claire then finds the real nurse’s office and gets new clothes because of her “period.” At lunch, Massie’s crew makes fun of her and laughs at her outfit, causing Claire to leave. Massie, Dylan, Alicia and Kristen have afterschool plans as well, to watch Chris Abeley at school, and Claire is not invited, so she walks home.

The next day, when Claire is at school, she decides to make a new friend and show Massie up. She befriends Layne Abeley, who is Chris’s little sister. Claire tells Layne she is friends with Massie, lying that she is jealous that she has a new friend can’t only hang out with her. Layne and Claire decide to hang out on Friday, but when Claire comes back home Kendra tells Claire that every Friday Massie has a sleepover with her friends and invites her as well. Claire accepts, but she does not know that Massie does not want her to come.

Claire tells Layne and lies that she has to babysit for Todd and goes to the sleepover. They are donating old clothes for the annual auction, and they all look at her like she doesn’t belong there. Massie and her mother talk, and Massie’s mother tells Massie that she has to be nice to Claire. Massie invites Claire to the place they go to sleep during the sleepovers, so Claire goes down. The girls were playing “What Would You Rather” Alicia asks if they would rather be A: Friendless B: Someone with a ton of friends who secretly hates them. Claire picks A: which Alicia says, “Congratulations, you got your wish.” Claire turns to go, but Massie says, “Have you ever played Truth or Dare?” So, they start to play. They then go to sleep, but Alicia makes a farting noise and asks Claire if it was her. Claire gets up to leave, Massie tells her she doesn’t have to go. Claire says she wants to.

The next day in the car, Kristen tells the girls she has to do a project, so the girls decide to make a makeup company which Claire named Glambition. When the girls go to make their Glambition lip gloss, Dylan, Alicia and Kristen are waiting for Massie, but Claire wants to go for a swim. Massie is out riding with Chris Abeley and finds out that Layne is Chris’s sister, therefore pretends to be friends with her. Claire convinces the three to swim with her, and they all have fun. Claire lies about the brand of her bathing suit, telling them it is an original Astrud but when Massie comes back from seeing Chris Abeley, she sees through Claire’s lie and calls her bathing suit a knock off.

Claire goes home in tears. Her mother sees that something is wrong, telling her to talk to Massie. Claire goes up to talk to Massie about what happened, but it turns out Massie is not there, so she sneaks over to her iMac computer and pretends to be Massie while Iming Alicia, telling her that she likes Claire now and that she is wearing shorts over tights the next day, which everyone but Massie wears. The next night, Claire goes up to Massie’s computer again, and insults Dylan’s legs, asking if she thinks her legs look good in a mini skirt, causing Dylan to be mad at Massie and it leads to Dylan wearing only long skirts the next day to hide her legs. The next night, Claire kidnaps Massie’s dog Bean to send Massie to go look for Bean. Claire sneaks into Massie’s room again and IMs Kristen, tricking her into telling that she’s poor. She escapes in time to get away from Massie.

The next day, Kristen, Dylan and Alicia befriend Claire and dethrown Massie, because they believe that she is friends with Layne instead of them now and make Claire their leader. Claire accepts and even hangs out with them after school. They go to a designer store, and Alicia offers to buy her a dress and gives Claire her old cell phone. They then go back to Dylan’s house and have fun trying things on and messing around. Claire goes home and starts talking back to her mother, being more like Massie was as her new status as the Queen Bee of the Pretty Committee is getting to her.

That night, the alone and bewildered Massie IMs all of her friends, but only Kristen replies because Massie tells her that she has the makeup lip gloss tubes and Kristen comes to pick them up, which the two of them get into a screaming argument and Massie figures out about Claire using her IM while she was out to bad mouth her to her minions of the clique. Massie calls Claire with her other friends on a five-way conversation and tells her that fun is over, exposing Claire as the one responsible for their internal feud, then hanging up on her.

Restored as the leader of the Pretty Committee, Massie now embarks on a hell-bent mission to destroy Claire’s life for her deception and attempts to take her on. The girls come over to Massie’s house the next day to mix the makeup recipe together to hand out at the school field trip. The girls gossip about Chris Abeley, and Massie asks her friends what to do for Chris Abeley’s birthday. They plan for Massie to jump out of a cake at the auction. Claire then comes down and asks to borrow an egg, which Massie agrees to, throwing it at Claire, who runs upstairs crying.

Claire confides in her mother about things she did and what’s going on, and the next day at the school field trip, Claire makes up with Layne. When the Pretty Committee starts selling their lip gloss, all the girls lips swell or burn from allergic reactions to the experimental solution, which Claire saves the day with oatmeal, to help the girls’ lips. While Dylan, Alicia and Kristen half-heartedly thank Claire for saving their reputation. Massie does not, fearing it will weaken her hold of power as Queen Bee.

The next day at the auction, Claire meets Chris Abeley’s girlfriend, Fawn and Claire saves Massie from an embarrassing situation by sitting on the cake and asking Fawn to come up and talk about Chris, Massie and Claire talk backstage from the stage, and Massie is nicer and gives Claire a flower.

In the final scene, Claire goes to bed and tells her mother that Massive gave her the flower and she wants Massie being nice to her as well as the flower to last for a long while. In Massie’s room, she makes a list of pros and cons of her life. Massie lists Claire’s name in both the pro and con list implying hope that Massie might let Claire become a member of the Pretty Committee that she continues to hold an iron grip over.

For My Daughter's Honor

For My Daughter’s Honor

Fourteen-year-old high school student Amy Dustin becomes an object of romantic affection to Pete Nash, the school’s Biology teacher and football coach. They take a sudden interest in each other, sending each other notes and talking on the telephone. Although Pete has a family, the two begin a secret relationship. People then begin to suspect that Pete and Amy are having an affair. It is revealed that another reason for the students’ gossip is that Pete had trouble in the past concerning an affair with student Missy Ross. He denies these allegations when Amy confronts him about the rumors. One night she spends the night at Pete’s house because Pete convinced his daughter to invite Amy to a sleepover. During the night Pete wakes Amy up and then convinces her to sleep with him. This upsets her, but she feels that she is in love with him.

Meanwhile, Kimberly Jones, one of her best friends, worries about their relationship, thinking it isn’t healthy.  She reports it to the Principal who dismisses her allegations because the Principal thinks that Kimberly is telling falsehoods because she is jealous of her friend. Amy is constantly being pursued at school by Pete, who often takes her to a closet in the classroom in order to kiss her. She doesn’t like what he is doing and starts spending time with student Cory Wilkins.

One night, she accompanies Cory to a party and dances with him. Pete observes her behavior and is infuriated. In front of a crowd of people, he drags Amy away from Cory. Although his actions attract the attention of all the people at the party, no one intervenes. Amy then tries to break off their affair because she is uncomfortable with the manner in which things are moving, but Pete is able to win back her trust. The next day, her father is informed about what happened at the party. Norm confronts him, but Pete convinces him that he was only acting in Amy’s best interests because Cory has a bad reputation. Norm is placated somewhat.

While on a camping trip, Amy’s friend Kelly catches Pete and Amy kissing. Upon confronting her, Amy tells her about her relationship with her teacher and states that she is in love with Pete. Things become even more difficult and uncomfortable for Amy when her mother, Betty Ann, finds a love letter to her daughter from Pete. She immediately reports it to the high school Principal. Matters are complicated because Amy and Pete both deny an affair. For this reason, the Principal is unable to do anything about it.

When Amy decides to break off the affair, Pete will not leave her alone and his actions become even more irrational than they were before. Amy then admits everything to her parents an Pete is arrested. He receives a jail sentence of five months as well as a 10-year period of probation.

Betty Ann decides to sue the school as well, because the school failed to act in spite of convincing evidence that supported the fact that an affair between a teacher and a student took place. Instead of the students showing sympathy towards Amy, they act hostile towards her because Coach Nash was suspended from his job before an important football game. The fact that her friends think she was just as much to blame as Pete increases Amy’s feelings of rejection and isolation. When the Dustin house is vandalized, Amy considers dropping the case because she feels that the trouble she and her family have had to endure is not worth it. In the end, she changes her mind and decides to go through with it. She is motivated by her strong feelings that she does not want someone else to experience what she endured.