History Film / ButImACheerleader

%%* AffablyEvil: Mary Brown.

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Megan is explicitly shown doing this, with [[SexyDiscretionShot her hand just out of frame]]. It can be inferred that Sinead does this too, but differently (the campers are given small tasers that emit small shocks, and you're supposed to shock yourself if you ever have 'impure thoughts.' When Sinead introduced herself, she said she liked pain, and she shocks herself on purpose.)

* HomoeroticDream: Megan has one that turns into ADateWithRosiePalms when she wakes up.

* TooKinkyToTorture: The girls are given tasers that give small electric shocks, and are supposed to zap themselves whenever they have "impure" thoughts. But as Sinead likes pain, she uses it for [[ADateWithRosiePalms something else]].

* InnocentInnuendo / DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: While teaching the girls how to clean, Mary guides Jan in thrusting a vacuum cleaner forwards and backward while repeating "in and out and in and out". She doesn't notice anything unusual about the movement but the other girls sure do. Similarly, Mike works on a car with [[LegFocus legs]] and crotch on full display, also repeating "in and out"...and then asks the boys [[ThatCameOutWrong "Who wants to go down with me?"]] Almost all raise their hands.

* AffablyEvil: Mary Brown.

* InnocentInnuendo / DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: While teaching the girls how to clean, Mary guides Jan in thrusting a vacuum cleaner forwards and backward while repeating "in and out and in and out". She doesn't notice anything unusual about the movement but the other girls sure do. Similarly, Mike works on a car with [[ShesGotLegs legs]] and crotch on full display, also repeating "in and out"...and then asks the boys [[ThatCameOutWrong "Who wants to go down with me?"]] Almost all raise their hands.

* GoshDarnItToHeck: Megan never says a swear any harsher than "Screw you," and she continues to wear her cross necklace throughout the entire film.

* HenpeckedHusband: Megan's dad used to be unemployed for a time and his wife supported the family then. Mary is quick to jump at this example of "abnormality" and elaborate it into an absurd story of "dad losing his masculinity and Megan developing contempt for him and emulating The Mom Acting Like The Dad". But it's subtly hinted this trope is in play nonetheless: Megan's mother is the leading force in the parent's front of expressing homophobia and threatening their daughter and in the last scene it's the dad who is shown to be more open to accept Megan's homosexuality.

* InnocentInnuendo / DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: While teaching the girls how to clean, Mary guides Jan in thrusting a vacuum cleaner forwards and backwards while repeating "in and out and in and out". She doesn't notice anything unusual about the movement but the other girls sure do. Similarly, Mike works on a car with [[ShesGotLegs legs]] and crotch on full display, also repeating "in and out"...and then asks the boys [[ThatCameOutWrong "Who wants to go down with me?"]] Almost all raise their hands.

* {{Irony}}: If Megan's parents hadn't sent her to the camp, she likely would've gotten married to a man and had children, either never realising her lesbianism due to the justifications she already had in place or eventually realising it but deciding to continue presenting as heterosexual; most likely, she'd have been miserable. Because they wanted that life for her, they sent her there, and instead, she thankfully emerged as a happy woman who embraced her lesbianism and who would hopefully have a truly fulfilling life. Also, the one thing that Megan cites as being evidence above all that she's a 'normal' girl, her being a cheerleader, actually forms the main outlet of her latent attraction to girls.

* PomPomGirl: When the film isn't about homosexuality, it's about the joys of cheering people on through chanting and dancing, if the title didn't make that clear.

* BlatantLies: [[spoiler: As Megan and Dolph goes to the graduation ceremony to rescue Graham and Clayton, Dolph says that he's doing it for Megan's sake, causing Megan to say "yeah right."]]

** Shanae: Was born in [[GayParee France]].

** Graham: Her mother got married in pants, implying that her mother is also secretly lesbian and her being gay is [[SharedFamilyQuirks partially genetic]].

** Graham: Her mother got married in pants, implying that her mother is also secretly lesbian and her being gay was [[SharedFamilyQuirks partially genetic]].

** Graham: Her mother got married in pants, implying that her mother was also secretly lesbian and her being gay was [[SharedFamilyQuirks partially genetic]].

* EvenEvilHasStandards: When Graham's father uses the f-slur to refer to Andre, Mary is quick to call him out for the language, despite being perfectly happy to put that slur on a big sign later.

* ClosetKey: Surprisingly, the gay conversion camp The True Directions helped Megan to finally realize she is a lesbian.

* FemaleGaze: The opening sequence, and then the shots interspersed in the scene of Megan kissing her boyfriend, are basically one long series of this from her perspective. Of course, since the female in question is a lesbian, the shots are of scantily-clad cheerleaders with [[{{Gainaxing}} bouncing breasts]] and copious {{Panty Shot}}s.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The film exaggerates somewhat the tactics used by True Directions, but some viewers may be shocked at how similar they are to actual conversion therapy programs--mostly in the use of aversion therapy (like electroshock) and trying to make LGBT people act in more gender conforming ways. Historically, these programs were even ''worse'' than what we see here. Methods including aversion therapy, lobotomies, nausea-inducing drugs, and chemical castration were used to "cure" a person of their non-straight tendencies. Nowadays, most conversion programs in the United States stick with therapy, psychoanalysis, and (if the program is religion-oriented) prayer, though on occasion you'll hear reports of a (usually unlicensed) camp reverting to the old methods or employing full-on torture to get results.

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex:
** {{Played with}}. Mary is actually perfectly okay with the students having sex! ...As long as it's heterosexual sex in which the man is dominant and the woman is submissive and there's no foreplay and...
** [[spoiler: Graham and Megan]] also have mutually enjoyable sex late in the film.
* {{Goth}}: Sinead.

* PeriodPiece: A subtle one. Looking at the cars and school fashion, it seems like the movie is set in the near past, although an exact year is never explicitly stated anywhere.

** Conversely, there's Megan, who uses the fact that she's a [[AllGuysWantCheerleaders cheerleader]] as proof of her heterosexuality. Subverted once again, as she's actually a lesbian in denial.

* TheCheerleader: Megan is a refreshingly inverted take on this trope. She's one of the nicest members at True Directions, and any ditziness can be chalked up to a repressed Christian upbringing. She also takes cheerleading very seriously, [[spoiler: and her cheering is what persuades Graham to leave True Directions with her at the end of the film.]]

* PeriodPiece: A subtle one. Looking at the cars and school fashion, it seems like the movie is set in the near past, although an exact year is never explicitly stated anywhere. See AnachronismStew above.

* {{Meganekko}}: Creator/MelanieLynskey as Hilary.

* WhoWearsShortShorts:
** Mike. It's especially noticeable in a scene where he is working under a car with only his legs and crotch visible. [[DistractedByTheSexy As a result, the boys he's working with learn absolutely nothing.]]
** Rock also wears cut-offs, and Andre wears short shorts at The Cocksucker.

* InspirationNod: The whole film feels a lot like a John Waters movie, and indeed Mink Stole, a member of [[ProductionPosse a group of stock actors Waters usually uses in his films]], plays the main character's mother.

-->''Graham and Rock break apart, [[{{Squick}} disgusted]]''

* RefugeInAudacity: The film takes ex-gay camps and makes them look as [[TastesLikeDiabetes fluffy and inane as possible]] while playing up every gay stereotype in American culture to ensure that viewers get the message.