GO, TEAM!

She’s a vegetarian. She likes Georgia O’Keeffe paintings. She’s got photos of bikini-clad women in her school locker. And the fledgling lesbian in “But I’m a Cheerleader,” an indie film opening Friday, hates to kiss her hunky boyfriend. It is a stereotype run amok.

And the gay community can’t get enough.

Gay activists, gay publications and gay cinephiles have embraced the $1 million film as they have few others produced by Hollywood in recent years. Some even see “Cheerleader”--though reviews have been mixed-- as a new vehicle for attacking church groups that attempt to “cure” homosexuality.

At a smattering of film festivals from Miami to Toronto, audience members at early screenings broke into applause when Megan made a decision to accept her homosexuality.

“Homosexuals stay [gay] and the self-righteous right is defeated,” declared the Boston Phoenix, an alternative weekly newspaper, after the 24th Toronto International Film Festival late last year. “The Toronto audience applauded happily.”

Some activists say the gay community hasn’t been this engrossed by a feature film’s release since “Gods and Monsters,” the 1998 movie that fictionalized the final days of “Frankenstein” director James Whale.

The film’s stars and romantic leads, Natasha Lyonne (Megan) and Clea Duvall (Graham), are on the cover of the July issue of Out, a gay lifestyle magazine and sister publication of the Advocate.

“We definitely wanted to push the film,” said Judy Wieder, editor in chief of the Advocate and editorial director of Out. “There is a buzz.”

And not just on one side of the political fence.

“This has been going on in the media for a long time,” said John McFarland, a politically conservative United Methodist pastor in Fountain Valley. “Who gets it at the end? The angry, fundamentalist, tripped-out parents.”

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The film torches one of the gay community’s favorite targets: “rehabilitation” camps where children are sent to “overcome” their homosexuality and “become” straight. Megan is an all-American teen--a Christian and a cheerleader--who comes home one day to find that her parents, friends and boyfriend have conspired to place her in a gay intervention program called True Directions. Though she initially doesn’t understand why she’s been sent to the camp, Megan comes to find that it’s true, she’s gay.

“You were right, I am a homosexual,” she tells her parents in a telephone call from camp. “But I’ll be regular soon.”

Eventually, she falls in love with a young woman, the character Graham. (In a typically subversive move, one of the camp counselors is 6-foot-6-inch tall transvestite RuPaul Charles, clearly still gay but sporting a T-shirt that says “Straight is Great.”)

The film was written and directed by Jamie Babbit, 29, a Cleveland native who was marching in Equal Rights Amendment rallies by the time she was eight. She came up with the idea for the film five years ago in a San Francisco coffeehouse, where she read a gripping testimonial from a man who failed to “overcome” his homosexuality at a similar rehab camp.

“Not only did I want to talk about the absurdity of trying to change someone’s sexuality, but I also wanted to talk about how sexist the whole idea is,” Babbit said earlier this summer over a lunch of potato pancakes and carrot juice at Mani’s Bakery in West L.A.

“It’s the absurdity of teaching men to be straight by catching a football or chopping wood, as if that’s all they are, or teaching women to put on makeup or clean the house. It’s the artifice of gender identification. That’s why everyone in the film is a stereotype. It’s a send-up of stereotypes.”

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The momentum behind “Cheerleader” has also raised concern in the gay community over a perceived double standard when it comes to assigning ratings to movies that address gay issues.

Initially, the Motion Picture Assn. of America slapped “Cheerleader” with an NC-17 rating, which would have banned teenagers under 17 from viewing, and would have effectively prevented its release in theaters. Although Babbit was hoping for a PG rating, the movie is now rated R, even after she made some cuts, including Lyonne’s veiled masturbation scene. “American Pie,” she pointed out, got an R rating even though its male heterosexual protagonist pleasured himself with a baked good.

Rich Taylor, an MPAA spokesman in Washington, said the organization does not comment on debate over a specific film’s rating. However, he said the Encino-based board comprises parents who simply think of their own children while screening movies. “They have no industry connection,” he said. “Through the prism of their eyes, they determined the rating they thought was most appropriate. I do not think there is an anti-gay bias, or any bias, within the board.”

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Kevin Thomas reviews “But I’m a Cheerleader” in today’s Calendar section. F4