History Film / ButImACheerleader

->'''Megan''': I'm not like all of you. Everyone reads Cosmo, everyone looks at girls all the time.\\
'''Dolph''': [[ArmorPiercingResponse But you only assume that they're thinking what you're thinking when they look, but they're not.]]\\

'''Megan''': ''([[OhCrap realizing]])'' I thought everybody had those thoughts...

* 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."]]

* CampStraight: {{Inverted}} and {{gender flipped}} as [[spoiler:Jan]] was just assumed to be lesbian because she has such a strong [[ButchLesbian butch]] appearance, but she actually likes boys. She leaves the camp when she discovers this.

* ComingStraightStory: Played straight with [[spoiler: Jan]] who is mistaken for being LGBT+ but actually identifies as straight and is just really androgynous. Averted with Megan who eventually realizes after much thinking that she ''is'' a lesbian after all.

* CoolKidAndLoserFriendship: Before ending up at True Directions, Megan was a popular cheerleader, while Graham seems to have a FriendlessBackground. They start off hating each other, but become friends [[spoiler: and then lovers]]. Of course, these social distinctions matter less in a place like True Directions.

* DisproportionateRetribution: For both Megan and Graham, if they fail to graduate, both of their parents have stated that they will not be welcome in their respective households, essentially to leave two minors in high school to be forced to live on the streets. [[spoiler: By the end of the movie, Megan's parents have learned their lesson, even attending a pro-gay & lesbian support group.]]

* FallingInLoveMontage

-->'''Megan:''' There is no ''way'' I'm going.
-->''Cut to shot of Megan in a moving car.''

-->'''Andre:''' Shit, Miss Mary, I ain't the only one who don't got no root.
-->'''Mary:''' Andre, we don't use profanity or double negatives here at True Directions.

-->'''Graham:''' You're really manly.
-->'''Joel:''' Thanks.
-->'''Graham:''' I like that. Manly is good.
-->'''Joel:''' I feel like the aggressor.

* IKEAErotica

* LoveTriangle: It's subtle, but present: Sinead has the hots for Graham and starts feeling her up at the gay bar, but Graham denies feeling that way about her and hooks up with Megan soon afterwards. Sinead spots them and becomes jealous and standoffish. [[spoiler: All but explicitly confirmed when Megan is kicked out of the camp after sleeping with Graham, as Sinead - who was previously the most aggressively ''against'' Megan telling on Dolph and Clayton, is suddenly the one most likely to have told Mary, as she was the only one who knew Megan and Graham were together.]]

* PomPomGirl: Megan is one of the nicest cheerleaders 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.]]

-->'''Mary:''' He wants to love you, the way God intended, to be inside you, his love muscle ''thrusting''...
-->''Graham and Rock break apart, disgusted''

-->'''Megan:''' Two, four, six, eight, God is good-
-->'''[[DeadpanSnarker Graham]]:''' God is straight!
-->'''Megan:''' ...hey, that's good.

-->'''Joel:''' You're nice, and clean, and smart, and sexy and firm and luscious and-
-->'''Andre:''' Excuse me. The ''last'' thing I need right now is some fruit who's just proved he's straight telling my ass how sexy I am!

* HomoeroticDream: Megan has one that turns into a masturbation session when she wakes up.

& GenderNonconformingEqualsGay: The 'ungaying' process by the [[CureYourGays Anti-Gay Camp]] True Directions invokes this trope by focusing mainly on trying to get the characters to fulfil traditional gender roles. This is especially mystifying for Megan, who is femme but gay [[spoiler:and Jan, who is butch but straight.]] Similarly, Dolph, a varsity wrestler, is pretty 'masculine' to begin with but somehow the camp seems to suggest that by becoming even more masculine, he'll magically stop being gay.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: When Graham's father uses the f-slur[[note]]Faggot[[/note]] 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.

* CoolKidAndLoserFriendship: Before ending up at True Directions, Megan was a popular cheerleader, while Graham seems to have been a CoolLoser with a FriendlessBackground. They start off hating each other, but become friends [[spoiler: and then lovers]]. Of course, these social distinctions matter less in a place like True Directions.

* ButchLesbian: [[spoiler:{{Subverted|Trope}} quite brilliantly with Jan, the most butch girl, who realizes that she's straight.]] Graham is however a [[PlayedStraight straight]] [[JustForPun example]], though a soft butch.

* GoneHorriblyRight: The counselors at True Directions set out to force Megan to acknowledge that she's gay so that she can begin the work of "overcoming" her homosexuality. After spending most of her life in the closet, she ''does'' finally admit that she's gay--and decides that she'd like to stay that way.

** Everything at the Conversion Camp, from the clothes to the mattresses to the flowers on the lawn, are all made to look like plastic plastic, showing that they are trying to impose arbitrary standards of living (like heteronormative values) in an unnatural manner.

** The house itself looks like [[Franchise/{{Barbie}} Barbie's]] Dreamhouse, their curriculum simulating Nuclear Family-style domesticity onto the boys and girls not unlike how children would "play house" or "play soldier", almost as if they are being instructed to pretend being heteronormative. This implies just how childish and lacking in nuance their worldview really is, as well as driving home that their methods won't work in the real world.

* IDidntMeanToTurnYouOn: Mike occasionally causes this in the boys.

** Everything at the ConversionCamp grounds, from the clothes to the mattresses to the flowers on the lawn, are all made to look like plastic plastic, showing that they are trying to impose arbitrary standards of living (like heteronormative values) in an unnatural manner.