CHEER C Changing the perception of cheerleading By Erik Gustafson ommonly portrayed as a stereotypical mean girl, or a bully who dates the quarterback, television has not been kind to cheerleaders. “Cheer,” a six-part doc-series on Netflix, takes great pains to break these stereotypes and show the commitment and dedication it takes to be a championship-winning cheerleading team. Corsicana, Texas, about 50 miles south of Houston, houses Navarro Community College, a cheerleading powerhouse with 13 national titles between 2000 and 2018. The series follows the cheerleaders’ journey to the 2019 National Cheerleaders Association’s (NCA) National Championships in Daytona, Florida. Each episode presents the struggles of balancing college-level sports and school, delves into the personal life of the cheerleaders, the history of cheer, and shows the brutal training that cheerleaders go through to ultimately perform for only two and a half minutes in Daytona. While watching the impressive performances, the one thing on my mind was “How is any of this possible?” JOIN See something you like? Want to be a part of it? Sign up for Advanced Journalism No prerequisite required! SUBSCRIBE We love our subscribers! Your sponsorship makes this publication possible. Please go to bit.ly/donatejollyroger 24 Looking at the team’s practices and their final performance, someone with no cheerleading or much athletic experience can only imagine the sheer brutality of the sport. The team’s head coach, Monica Aldama, has coached at Narvaro for 24 years and has led the team to all 13 national titles. She held an integral part of the film and showed the effect that a strict but respected coach has on a team. As a person with no real interest in cheerleading or sports in general, I would recommend “Cheer” to anyone who doesn’t know what it takes to do these incredible demonstrations of athletic ability. Though episodes can be repetitive, I felt a connection to these college students that I wasn’t expecting. I genuinely hoped that my favorites, Jerry and Lexi, would make mat and that Morgan would step up to be one of the head top-girls after the lead dislocates her elbow. “Cheer” is a spectacle of athleticism and brutality, combining both into absolutely beautiful performances that would make anyone want to grab a pair of pom-poms.
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