‘Cadet Kelly’ Is the Queer Girl DCOM That Disney Never Actually Gave Us

Subscribers of Disney’s new streaming platform, Disney+, now have access to hundreds of Disney films and TV shows, including Oscar-winners like Mary Poppins, megahits like Avengers: Endgame, and of course, that show starring the world’s cutest puppet, The Mandalorian. But what did I, Decider’s senior film reporter, decide to make my first for-pleasure Disney+ watch? None other than my favorite Disney Channel Original Movie Cadet Kelly, of course. Why? Because back in the day, when I was a romance-obsessed preteen glued to the network, Cadet Kelly was the only Disney Channel title that offered even the hint of a non-heterosexual relationship.

In case you’re not a woman in her mid-20s who spent too much time indoors as a child, Cadet Kelly is a made-for-TV film starring Hilary Duff as a free-spirited eighth-grader named Kelly who’s shipped off to military school after her mother marries a military school Commandant. There, Kelly learns about discipline from her Cadet Captain Jennifer Stone (Even Stevens‘s Christy Carlson Romano), and in turn, Kelly teaches her captain about the merits of creativity and individuality.

The movie is not actually a love story between two girls, because this is Disney, a studio that didn’t have any “official” gay movie characters until Josh Gad as LeFou in the 2017 live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast. Instead, both Kelly and Jennifer have a crush on the super-cute Cadet Major Brad Rigby, played by Shawn Ashmore, now best known as the guy who can turn into ice in the X-Men films. But for context, Cadet Kelly first aired on Disney Channel in March 2002, when Duff and Romano were two of the network’s biggest stars. We were just entering the second season of Lizzie McGuire, the award-winning preteen drama starring Duff as the lead character, and the third season of Even Stevens, the comedy that launched Shia LaBeouf’s child acting career starring Romano as his on-screen older sister. So when the Lizzie McGuire and the Ren Stevens were on screen together, not one loyal Disney Channel fan cared about some no-name love interest, no matter how cute. Especially not in the face of this chemistry:

Like any good trope-filled romantic comedy, Kelly and Jennifer can’t stand each other when they first meet. Kelly refuses to play by the rules and to Jennifer, whose whole life is rules, she’s nothing more than an annoying “maggot.” In one memorable scene, Jennifer stares deeply into Kelly’s eyes while dramatically stomping on Kelly’s rainbow blanket. Their rivalry is supposedly driven by their competing desire to impress Cadet Major Brad, but poor Brad (who hardly has any lines) is quickly forgotten when the military school has a drill team competition coming up. Because Kelly and Jennifer accidentally discover, via a very silly dance-off, that they make an amazing team.

I don’t claim to know much about military academies, but I have a feeling that the weird patty-cake moves here are not quite regulation. Nonetheless, this dance-off scene is truly incredible. The moves are not the least bit impressive, and yet, for some reason, it is so intense. Christy Carlson Romano doesn’t crack a smile the entire time, not even when she breaks out the Chicken Dance. Also, it involves a lot of charged looks between the two leads.

Of course, after discovering that they are the dream team of improvised patty-cake exhibition drilling, Kelly and Jennifer work together to devise a new routine for the regionals. There are ribbons involved, as well as the very early 2000s pop song, “One Girl Revolution.” (Again, I highly doubt this is regulation.) They don’t win the regionals, but they do learn that they like each other, after all. They share one last emotional moment in which Jennifer reveals she’s moving to Europe (?) and the movie ends.

Look, I’m not saying I want these two young teen characters to hardcore make out or anything, but it seems reasonable—when faced with the above evidence—to interpret Cadet Kelly as a chaste queer romance in the same way that almost every single other DCOM included some kind of chaste straight romance.  Besides Motorcrossed—my second favorite DCOM of all time, which was basically just “Twelfth Night” for motorcycling—young budding queer girls obsessed with Disney Channel didn’t have many other options, and unfortunately, they still don’t! Who knows how long we’ll have to wait before Disney Channel steps up to the plate with an actual queer girl character (of note, Andi Mack introduced the channel’s first gay male character earlier this year, and animated shows including Doc McStuffins and Gravity Falls have had LGBTQ+ characters in side roles). Until then, Cadet Kelly is streaming on Disney+.

Watch Cadet Kelly on Disney+