Nothing to Cheer About

[vovat]

Penn and Teller's Bullshit! has started its eighth season, and while I'll probably continue to watch it as long as it's on, I have to think it might have overstayed its welcome a bit. The first episode of this season was about cheerleading, and how dangerous it is. Their complaint seemed to be that cheerleading isn't regulated enough because it isn't considered a sport. I'm not entirely sure how these two things are related. Cheerleading ISN'T a sport, and I'm not saying that as a value judgment (it's not like I LIKE sports, at least as a general rule), but as a simple matter of classification. There's some gray area in what is and isn't a sport, but I think it's usually a matter of one player or team trying to achieve a specific goal before their opponents can. Cheerleading, on the other hand, is about putting on a good performance. Sure, it's a performance that requires athletic prowess and can be done competitively. As bethje pointed out, however, you could say the same thing about ballet, and is anyone lobbying to have that considered a sport?

The other point they made was that one particular company, Varsity, basically monopolizes everything to do with cheerleading, and they wouldn't be able to have that kind of stranglehold if it were classified as a school sport. I'm no fan of monopolies, but doesn't at least part of the blame lie on the schools that buy into this company, and the parents who let their kids get involved in an activity they know to be expensive? The episode didn't even address this issues, instead choosing to show us families with members who had been injured through cheerleading. The conclusion I would draw from this is that cheerleading is a dangerous activity in which parents should avoid letting their children participate, but the show refused to go against the activity in general. Why? Well, according to one guy they interviewed, apparently just because a lot of people enjoy it, which isn't really much of an argument. Whatever happened to this show making its points with actual FACTS? Even in the early days, they had some episodes that were mostly just about promoting a controversial opinion, but it seems like the weight had shifted so that these are now the vast majority. When they have episodes exposing pseudoscience in the more recent seasons, it's a refreshing change of pace.

Mind you, while cheerleading isn't a sport, I kind of lump those two things together, thanks to high school. I didn't attend any sporting events, so my only exposure to either one was at those god-awful mandatory pep rallies. As if high school students didn't have enough pain what with all those hormones and the teachers all scheduling tests for the same day, we also had to undergo noise torture every once in a while. Some of my classmates loved it, though. There's no accounting for tastes, but they really shouldn't force the tastes of some onto everyone. Anyway, the cheerleaders would do some acrobatics to really crappy (and, of course, really loud) music, and yell some blather so inane that it made me think church wasn't so bad. So yeah, I'm kind of biased here, but there were other episodes of the show where I went in with a prior opinion and at least reconsidered my position afterward. Not so for this one. Parents, if your daughters want to participate in an activity that involves teasing boys by performing athletic feats in skimpy outfits, tell them to wait a few years and become strippers. It's less patronizing, and you get tips.

Comments

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

LOL Enjoying this whole post. About pep rallies, I never knew what the hell anyone was saying at those things because they all shouted into the microphone that was practically engulfed in their throats. One time, I was so tired of the thing that I picked up a book I was supposed to read for class and focused on that instead. The book was Catcher in the Rye. Ironic that I was reading it at a pep rally, maybe?

Oh, and cheerleaders at my high school were a joke. They didn't even do pyramids, but the "main attraction" was throwing a girl up into the air and catching her. Athletic, sure, but not very exciting when that's all you do. The Pom Pom Squad was more involved in being entertaining and putting on a good show. Yeah, they picked some crappy music, but they're just another form of cheerleader combined with the dance team, so what do you expect?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm not sure I would have been able to read at a pep rally, what with the noise and the crowded bleachers. I sometimes thought about just not showing up, but I was too afraid I'd be caught.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I never bothered skipping out either, since I was afraid of the same thing. But I know plenty of kids who did and got away with it. They really don't count heads very well at pep rallies...

[zimbra1006.livejournal.com]

The only thing I liked about pep rallies was that they happened on short days, and it was better than some of the other activities that would happen on short days - like long church masses - and meant we'd get out earlier. And it was better than being in class, I guess. On the other hand, with pep rallies we got out later than when there were NO scheduled activities, so I still hated them.

I guess I have no real opinion on cheerleading. I mean, it's annoying, but one of my friends in 9th grade and several of my honors classmates were on the squad, so they weren't all boneheads that dated football players like happens in teen movies. It definitely requires athletic ability. But when I was asked if I wanted to join the summer before I did not even have to think for 2 seconds before saying no...

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe if I went to Catholic school, I would have liked pep rallies better. I don't know. I remember the pep rallies in junior high not being so bad, as they were outdoors and relatively quiet. The high school ones were in the auditorium, though, and they were horribly uncomfortable. I would have rather been in class.

Wasn't goldenmoonbear a cheerleader at one point?

[zimbra1006.livejournal.com]

I think she was for one or two days her freshman year. :p

[poisonyoulove.livejournal.com]

My friends and I once tried to skip a pep rally, but we got caught. Our punishment was we had to go back into the gym and actually watch the pep rally. ;)

Don't they have cheerleading competitions, though. It seems sport-like when there's competition.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

My friends and I once tried to skip a pep rally, but we got caught. Our punishment was we had to go back into the gym and actually watch the pep rally.

Hey, at least they didn't make you watch a SECOND pep rally. {g}

Don't they have cheerleading competitions, though. It seems sport-like when there's competition.

Well, you can do just about anything competitively. There are dance competitions, academic competitions, cooking competitions, and so on. If any of these things count as sports, I'd say they only do during the actual competition. That doesn't mean they should be classified as school sports when not done competitively.

Mind you, I'm not quite sure how to define a sport. It does seem like the goals in most sports are clearly defined, but maybe that's not the case. Is ice skating a sport? The judging in that is just as subjective as in a cheerleading competition, after all.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

The last time I went to Disney World, the Indiana Jones show was canceled due to the stage being used for some cheerleading competition. That might sound silly to have a cheerleading competition at Disney World, but my high school band and choir would go down to play every couple years. And I'm not even anywhere near Disney World!

Personally, I'd consider figure skating performing arts, since that's the basic idea behind figure skating anyway--to put on a show for an audience. But I doubt anyone in figure skating OR traditional performing arts would agree with me. (Guys, it's just dancing on ice!)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I remember our school band going to Disney World, and we were in Pennsylvania, nowhere near there either.

I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between ice skating and ice dancing is.

[slfcllednowhere.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I would skip pep rallies and I was in the band! haha. They were just...yeh, so geared at the people I HATED (especially cos high school football is just a liiiiiiiiitle bit of a big deal in TX) and I was pretty sure I couldn't handle it without breaking things, so. I never got caught. Man, high school sucked, thanks for reminding me, heh.