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Los Angeles Times

Opinion: The evolution of cheerleading stereotypes

If you were to imagine what any cheerleader would look like, I assume you would picture a ditsy, popular bully. If you were looking to cast one for your high school dramedy, you'd likely go with Sydney Sweeney, Sabrina Carpenter, or basically any blonde woman you could possibly imagine. What you definitely wouldn't imagine would be old white presidents. But, both Dwight D. Eisenhower and George W. Bush were cheerleaders. This begs the question: why and when did the stereotypes surrounding cheerleading develop? The answer is just before World War 2, in a world where all cheerleaders were actually young men at Ivy League universities. Once the draft started, women began to fill in for their male counterparts, a role that women would come to be associated with in the 1950s. In the popular culture of the times, cheerleaders meant far more than just school spirit. They were both portrayed and viewed as the quintessential symbol of American femininity: wholesome, supportive, domestic, unambitious, pretty, preppy, and passive, all too happy to stand on the sidelines and cheer on exclusively male athletes. In other words, the 1950s cheerleaders, as seen in movies like High School Confidential! , were the cultural ideal of young womanhood. By the 1960s, barely anyone would have remembered the sport's early masculine roots. However, feminism would flip these early scripts on their heads. In the cultural revolutions of the 60s and 70s, this archetype was too traditional to fit into the changing times. Now viewed as an antagonist to women's liberation, the cheerleader began her descent into cultural villainy. In films like Grease , Carrie , and The Pom-Pom Girls , the characterization of cheerleaders ranged from ditsy and stupid to outright cruel or even satanic: Satan's Cheerleaders is the name of an actual film from 1976. The trope would stick all the way through the 80s and 90s, but it would really take off in the early 2000s, when high school comedies and dramas exploded in popularity thanks to the surprise box office success of 90s films like She's All That , Scream , and 10 Things I Hate About You . Narratively, cheerleaders present an easy target for the format, which trades in tales of misfit outcasts learning to overcome the pressures and limitations placed on them by traditional society. And who better to fill in for the antagonistic symbol of traditional society, social conformity, unattainable beauty standards, and general unpleasantness than cheerleaders and their jock boyfriends? Films like Varsity Blues , Bring It On , Sky High , and Ice Princess followed this archetype to a tee. Even when cheerleaders aren't present onscreen, the tropes surrounding them are still coded into the evil popular girl cliches: think Regina George and the other Plastics from Mean Girls . In some ways, the evil cheerleader trope has been subsumed into the general 'Queen Bee' trope that sees ambitious women portrayed as aggressive, manipulative, or overbearing. Fortunately, times are changing yet again for the cheerleader. Recently, media has made more attempts to humanize cheer. Netflix's Cheer shined a light on the intense athleticism, grit, and discipline demanded by the sport, as well as the severe risks of injury. Elsewhere, more layered portrayals are taking precedence over the caricatures–even the recent Broadway adaption of Bring It On has attempted to complicate its characters. In the competitive scene, more efforts have been made to increase the diversity of cheerleading teams and are even attempting to bring other genders back into the sport. Really, as our expectations and understanding of gender continue to evolve, so will our representations of the cheerleader. So as our comprehension of both the sport and the people who practice it grows, will the cheerleader finally break free from its outdated stereotypes and emerge as a symbol of empowerment? Only time will tell, but I'm hoping that the first woman president will be a tumbler. Related