Not enough of you have seen DEBS and it shows. If you had, you’d all be praising the film’s impeccable combination of classic genre spoof and queer romantic comedy. I am on a fifteen year quest to show this movie to every single person I know. While I am a straight cismale* guy, I am a straight cismale guy who loves romantic comedy. As someone who loves a good romcom, I’m always looking out for movies that challenge the format. Romcoms can be among the most formulaic, calcified genres in existence, so finding one with genuine ambition is always a great joy to me. DEBS (because I do not want to write out D.E.B.S. every single goddamn time) is that. Simultaneously riffing on spy movie cliches, early superhero movie cliches, and teen romcom melodrama, DEBS ties it all together perfectly. I’m drunk right now, but I’m pretty confident about that.
Amy (Sara Foster) is ‘the perfect score’. On a secret test within the SATs, she got a perfect score, and was recruited to the D.E.B.S., a secretive intelligence organization made up seemingly entirely of women. She is joined by Max (Meagan Good), Dominique (Devon Aoki), and Janet (Jill Ritchie), three other seniors preparing for graduation and assignment into the wider US intelligence apparatus. But Amy isn’t satisfied. She wants to go to art school. At least until she meets reclusive supervillainous mastermind, Lucy Diamond (Jordana Brewster). Diamond takes an immediate liking to Amy, so she breaks in and kidnaps her for… a blind date? Lucy and Amy have undeniable chemistry, but can a spy and a criminal find love together? As the DEBS find out, they try to pull Amy back into respectability. But Lucy has a plan to win Amy’s affection once and for all.
“Being bad doesn’t feel good anymore.”
Okay, everyone should be giving roles to Jordana Brewster. Jordana Brewster should be leading scores of romantic comedies. She should be headlining action-comedies. Jordana Brewster has a square-jawed, old-fashioned charm that fits a romantic comedy wonderfully. Brewster’s Lucy Diamond flawlessly has the confidence of a pulp villainess, but none of the vampy cruelty the archetype often carries. She’s confident, wry, maybe a little bit smarmy, but she has a physicality that makes the film work. Given that the film doesn’t have a long time to sell the relationship between Diamond and Amy, it’s vital to have an actress who can carry that kind of warmth, and Brewster is great at it.
A big part of the charm of DEBS comes from the way it layers the tropes of supercrime onto a romantic comedy. Lucy Diamond and Amy have a meetcute at gunpoint, while big breakups necessitate the destruction of Australia. The mechanics of the spying may make perilously little sense, but… does that matter? It’s clearly meant to be a representation of the ups-and-downs of closeted queer romance. Amy is in a fairly conservative environment: The government. Lucy, on the other hand, has created a caring family that allows her to express herself, but doing so necessitated abandoning conventional society entirely. Superspy meets supervillain, and we’re asked to consider: Which of these characters is actually free? Which of these environments is emotionally healthier?
“There is a secret test hidden within the SATs…”
Look, DEBS is a bit old-fashioned. It’s consciously campy, certainly, but it’s not purposely bad. We so often mistake the two. Bad movies, even intentionally bad movies, are not typically very good at camp. Susan Sontag’s definitive article on camp lays out some of the vital qualities: “artifice, frivolity, naïve middle-class pretentiousness, and shocking excess.” By those standards – well, maybe not shocking excess, but… – DEBS certainly makes the mark. It isn’t trying to be bad, just considerably larger than life.
So, again, I’m writing this drunk**. But you know what, DEBS is great. It’s a charming, lightweight queer comedy from the early 2000s, not unlike … But I’m a Cheerleader. That kind of film certainly isn’t common anymore, and, like melodrama, modern audiences may not totally vibe with the off-kilter aesthetic of the movie. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check it out. In so many of our discussions of the great modern cult movies, we often lean towards a very masculine, very straight aesthetic. There’s nothing wrong with that being an option, but it shouldn’t be our default. Cult movies can come from anywhere. They can look like anything. If you enjoy those kinds of experiences, a ways off the beaten path of what you’d normally see in theaters, it’s worth approaching films like DEBS with an open mind.
DEBS is currently streaming free on Crackle, and can be rented on Amazon Instant Video. Written and directed by Angela Robinson, DEBS stars Sara Foster, Meagan Good, and Jordana Brewster.
*under consideration
**edited sober
You’re absolutely right about this film.
I saw it for the first time when I was 14 or 15 on one of the movie channels at my grandparents’ house during the summer. It left a lasting impression, and I’ve returned to it consistently throughout the years. I love how campy it is. It’s fantastically cartoony and heart-filled. I’d love more lighthearted LGBTQ movies like this one.
Same! I saw it when I was 19 at a friend’s birthday, and we were all thoroughly charmed and delighted. To this day, I show it to new friends often.