Anyone Else Watching "Cheer" On Netflix?

No one?

I saw the trailer yesterday. How is it, OP?

It's very moving.

Let me guess. The girls are super competitive, bitchy, gang up on each other, and have a really bitchy mothers as well. Oh, and lots of crying?

R4 sounds familiar

It's nothing like that at all. No bitchy girls whatsoever.

Spoiler Alert

Shelly Long leaves to become a movie star

Not enough spirit fingers

I'm watching it. Not at all what I expected. It's really interesting.

Binged it last weekend. The gay guy (La'Darius?) was overwrought, one-dimensional, and annoying as fuck. His roommate, the fat guy, seemed sweet if simple. The "famous" girl with the father managing her career? Puh-leeze. And the trashy girl with the penciled on eyebrows? Good lord.

And all of this at a junior college in Texas that, apparently, is famous only for its cheer "athletes," who seem to be the only scholarship recipients at the small, sad school.

R8 no one asked for your opinion, Sparky.

I'm surprised they haven't killed half those girls.

When did cheerleading get taken over by guys? They said they are taking eleven guys and nine girls to the championship. I mean, girls can't even have cheerleading anymore?

And, fuck that school, and Texas in general. There's a scene in the first episode, I think, that shows a teacher going on and on about conservative values and guns and anti-abortion and anti-gay shit. It's like an Intro to Fuckwad Texas class.

[Quote] I'm surprised they haven't killed half those girls.

???

R13, I think the responder was commenting on the pyramid practice in which three ladies were injured.

The sport does seem extremely hazardous for the girls and the general response to a serious injury is "shit happens".

I also like how the film just basically assumes that all the male cheerleaders are gay. There certainly don't seem to be any straight ones on the Navarro squad.

I loved and it reminded me a bit of the show Friday Night Lights which is always a good thing.

I felt bad for Gabi Butler, her parents are horrible. But the worst parents were Morgan's. The mother left, the father remarried and left his first two children alone in a trailer park. WTF? How is he not in jail? Is this normal in Wyoming?

Jerry is great and I hope he will have a good life.

I wasn't wearing my glasses and thought her top read "Harvard."

I thought the real hero was the girl who in the end basically said, "fuck this shit, I wanna get high". She probably has a longer life expectancy than the girls who stay in the sport.

Also, still not calling this a sport. You don't wear makeup and bows and flaunt your ass and crotch for points in real sports. The girls are basically there to be thrown around like decorative dolls that you just hope don't shatter when they slam them to the ground.

How is that not a sport R20? It’s gymnastics.

I loved it. Binged it over two days. Had no idea cheerleading was so dangerous for these girls. I guess that makes me naive.

I especially loved the song at the final credits “Snowqueen of Texas” by the mamas and the papas. That was definitely referring to coach Monica Aldama. A true snow queen for sure. Shows no emotion and pushes her athletes towards unhealthy risk and for what? To get a win in the junior college division of a national championship?

Bela karolyi got heavily criticized but at least his athletes were olympians.

R17 I think he put the kids in a trailer on their own property. Fucked up for sure but it’s not like they were in some random trailer park.

I loved the song Snowqueen of Texas at the end and was shocked when I looked it up that it was by The Mamas and Papas.

R16, that was one of my criticisms, too. If they get a second season, the producers should follow one of the straight white guys—there were more than a few on the team.

I also did not care for the lack of female leadership displayed by the ladies. I noticed that aside from Gabi right before they went on in Daytona, no women spoke up to inspire or correct. I am not sure it’s the editing or that they just don’t talk.

It was also disturbing how there seemed to be no repercussions for the guys who weren’t there to catch Sherbs. She’s flying in the air only to realize none of her bases/stunters/whatever were there to catch her? And they tried to blame her???

On the third episode--really bright idea to have someone injured go full-out--nice way to risk other team members.

Bets on how many of these kids end up with the kind of chronic injuries that create Oxycontin addicts?

I haven't finished it yet but I have to say that Gabi Butler came off rather well even if her parents were awful. She seemed humble and driven so I hope she continues to be a good person on top of her fame.

Why hasn’t anyone commented on how hot La’Darius is? He is a HOT piece of ass.

R29, you’re right. He is. I find the two Alexes especially hot.

I wonder how much they were doing each other, considering that the men on the squad were the only gays in the tri-county area.

Finished it--it was totally gripping. I ended up with really mixed feelings about the coach. The pushing and the injuries are really a problem, but I got, by the end, why the kids respond so well to her. It's strict, but the rewards are clear and she's not unfair or irrational. For kids coming from chaotic, neglected situations, being shown how to build connections (physically and emotionally), how to be responsible, how to relate and how to set rules--all that's got to be kind of a weird relief. And then you develop superhuman skills and get applause for it. These kids want someone to care enough to tell them what to do.

Though for Gabi Butler, part of the appeal seemed to be that she was just another team member instead of the family business.

If I was Jerry and lucky enough to be La’Darrius’s roommate, I would sniff his briefs on the daily. Talk about a fantastic masturbatory aid.

Briefs? I want to sniff his post-pyramid jock strap.

Gabi’s parents were the worst. Hated her father especially.

I felt so bad for Morgan. I was so so hoping she wouldn’t mess up at Daytona. I wish her well in life.

And where the heck were the guys who were supposed to catch Sherbs? Did they run off to use the restroom while she was in the air? The coach mentioned something afterwards about always telling her when they’re leaving the floor.

Lexi... that girl is probably headed for trouble.

I just finished it today. I loooved it. Morgan is totally teachers’ pet and knows it. LaDarius is a drama queen and clearly thinks he’s hot shit, but I’d probably be the same way. Jerry is cute in small doses but I think he would annoy me IRL. Monica is a goddess most high.

Finished it. Not what I was expecting. Quite moving.

I still want to know which of the guys fucked.

How fucked whom? Nobody! They're all screaming bottoms.

so, I am assuming Gabby's parents don't have any other job that pays for their animal hoarding and mcmansion besides selling their daughter? and in all that time mom never got her speech impediment fixed?

It looks like Gabby's father some male cheer himself.

R40 they live in Boca which isn’t cheap. They have to have some other revenue stream coming in, I would imagine.

I don't know, the only thing I found was them owning Total Marketing Strategies LLC and it doesn't even have a website

On the second episode. Seems like most of the male cheerleaders are gay. It is amazing what they can do.

I loved the show and all of the cheerleaders. Gabi, despite her fame, is sweet and humble.

There are straight guys on the team. The first episode had a brief interview with the beefy Daniel Fleherty (tattoo on right arm; he's now cheering for Univ. of Louisville) and Alex Kominowski. Alex Bouhys (who stepped in for the injured Austin) is also straight and dating his teammate. The show should have featured one of the hot straight guys instead of focussing entirely on the quenniest gay guys.

Assistant coach Andy Cosferent is also hot and has a cute accent.

Wonder if Monica's husband cheats since she is gone so much and distracted

I saw that Lexi went back and is cheering for Navarro again this season

La'Darrius should have been kicked off for his attitude, he blamed the girl when he didn't catch her. I could have done without all the sob stories but it was interesting.

I binge watched the whole season

I hated LaDarius, he was harassing those girls and the coach basically allowed it because all she cared about was winning.

I loved loved Jerry. Lexi is a spoiled brat.

Really compelling docuseries — the backstories of the five cheerleaders were very interesting, and I came away very impressed by coach Monica.

Why does Lexi sound like she's half-sleep (high?) all the time?

She probably is

I don't know how you guys can watch this. I'm a lesbian, and the thought would never cross my mind.

La’Darius just went public with his boyfriend of 4 years, Tanner. Tanner is one lucky bitch.

I read Jerry gave up his scholarship at Louisville and went back to cheer for Monica. I think that is short sighted but I bet they are doing another season of this show. Lexi is back too. I actually like Gabi, I thought she would act like a spoiled brat but she seemed like a nice kid despite her parents.

What happened to Lexi, Jerry, and La'Darius. Link to Pajiba:

Was home sick with the flu today and watched the entire series in one sitting. LOVED IT. It had me hooked from episode one, and was not at all what I was expecting. The filmmakers struck documentary gold with some of those subjects.

I did wonder why we didn't get to hear a bit more from Allie, though – she was the nervous blonde who figured prominently in many of the season's on-mat mishaps/dramas.

Allie was like that Carol Burnett character - an old woman who kept getting knocked around.

[quote]I read Jerry gave up his scholarship at Louisville and went back to cheer for Monica. I think that is short sighted but I bet they are doing another season of this show. Lexi is back too.

So is La'Darius.

Another season is iffy -- apparently, the NCA (whose parent company, Varisty Spirit, is portrayed badly in the series) may enforce a new-ish rule that states teams which participate in "media" may have to forfeit their eligibility to compete. See link.

Simone Biles says she wants to join the Navarro team. Is she kidding?

Any gays? If not I don't care.

R63 It's a show about cheerleaders. Have you ever seen a straight male cheerleader?

Love the show. Loathe Varsity Spirit.

Wait, La'Darius is gay?

I'm a few episodes in and I enjoy it so far. They're trying to emphasize the amount of male cheerleaders they have, which annoys me, because it pretends like the sport of cheering is an accepting and diverse sport. Most guys that try out for cheerleading get rejected on sight because they're men. Homophobia is a big contributor to that, but more importantly it has to do with the fact that cheerleading is a sport designed to sexualize young girls. I'm surprised it's still around in a post-metoo world.

All of the male cheerleaders on this show are gay, but the black ones are GAY gay.

What these girls and gays are doing isn't cheerleading, it's gymnastics. Calling it cheerleading is a pathetic attempt to legitimize cheerleading. This is just group-gymnastics set to music and squeezed into a pair of booty shorts. Real cheerleading is stuff like the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, pornstar women dressed up in short skirts shaking their asses to rile up football fans.

How do the gay guys on the team fuck each other? It's obvious they're banging since they're teenagers stuck spending almost all day together in a tiny town in Texas, but all of them seem to be femme bottoms. They must be content to just blowjobs and finger-banging.

I have a friend who constantly posts photos on their IG account in a uniform that says, "Navarros."

Now I know why.

[quote]Also, still not calling this a sport. You don't wear makeup and bows and flaunt your ass and crotch for points in real sports. The girls are basically there to be thrown around like decorative dolls that you just hope don't shatter when they slam them to the ground.

You clearly know nothing about Figure Skating, Gymnastics, and Diving!

R72 Figure skating is the only thing similar to cheerleading in terms of objectifying women and turning them into dolls to be tossed around, but even figure skaters have to have impressive talent.

R73 then you know nothing about gymnastics.

And since R73 thinks cheerleaders have no talent let's toss him around and see if he could do some flips and not break half the bones in his body.

I want to see these gals being tossed around.

R75 Let me guess, you held up the pyramid in high school and have been stuck in your glory days ever since?

Not at all, R77... I'm just not a moron who thinks they know everything because he once looked at something while eating pizza on a sofa.

No tossing these girls around!

Doesn't anyone on the team think these girls' uniforms are hideous?

One critic wrote that Monica is a Kristin Wiig character waiting to happen.

Why want Jerry to be on the top of the pyramid, I want Jerry to be tossed around!

Would love to hear his Barbara Stanwyck stories.

[quote]One critic wrote that Monica is a Kristin Wiig character waiting to happen

I thought she looked like the first Bachelorette Trista, but now I can really see Kristin Wiig

Jerry has lost more weight, the poor thing is still homely though

I’d love to see NCA try to block Navarro, R61. “Cheer” is the only reason the public at large now gives a shit about the activity and its industry. Moreover, the Large Coed JuCo division is two squads. Bump Navarro and what do you have—Trinity Valley gets to run into the water for beating NO ONE.

Their competition used to rival UCA for excellence. Where NCA emphasizes show cheer—dancing, tumbling, jumps and pyramid transitions to a complete music track with a team of 20 with specialists (tumbler, stunted, etc.), UCA focuses on crowd leading with a cheer portion in routines, strength stunting and generalists (team standing back flips and/or full twists). Before Varsity owned both, each org’s champions were crowned from deep fields and rivaled each other in quality. In the nineties and aughts, U of Kentucky (UCA) and Louisville (NCA) were the perennial winners in 1A with Moorehead, Trinity Valley and other dominating winners in other categories.

Now, UCA’s College Nationals is characterized by deep fields of contenders while NCA has micro categories. To me, the only wins of consequence aside from the early ones for Navarro are its Grand Champion title when they beat more than one or two programs. As a cheerleader from programs in the nineties that attended UCA camps, seeing Navarro’s 2018 Grand Champion performance in (highest score across all categories) without group standing tumbling, assisted stunts and no one armed stunts made me change my opinion of NCA Nats. Impressive performances, but those megaphone trophies are misleading. The premier partner stunting contest takes place at NCA Nats which is likely why stunting programs prefer UCA and why NCA has shrunk.

Recent cheerleaders, what are your thoughts? Do I have it right? Also, are the styles the same as they were previously (UCA = simple chants, stunting, guys not jumping or dancing, one armed basic stunt is a cutie; NCA = long story cheers, queenie boys OK, and one armed basic stunt is an awesome)?

This was priceless.

apparently the last assistant coach was sexually harassing the guys. got sued for sexually abusing one.

R87 Thank you for reminding me how awful the writing team at SNL has gotten. Props to Driver for trying his damndest to make it work.

R12 interestingly, cheerleading started off as an all-male activity.

R88 He was sexually harassing guys on the Navarro team? Yikes, someone clearly has a fetish for obnoxiously queeny black guys.

R89, that skit was definitely a love letter to the series. I loved how it captured key themes. If I hadn’t seen “Cheer,” I would not get much from it.

The entire time I was watching the series, I thought Monica was a dead ringer for soap actress Nancy (Lee) Grahn.

Even if those kids resented Monica they have to kiss her ass if they know what's good for them. I wonder how a lot of people actually feel about her?

Agreed, R94. I think the outro with "Snowqueen of Texas" made hint to her icy demeanor but I wonder. A lot of these kids seem to have some sort of Stockholm Syndrome loyalty to their abuser. Monica just wants to win, I don't think she actually cares about them other than that they're a means to her end.

Did I mention I have an MBA?

Can someone explain if Navarro is #1 in the country or just #1 for the junior college division? As I understand from R86, there's a difference between UCA and NCA but growing up I remember University of Kentucky being the best cheerleading school. My cousins were obsessed with the Wildcats and had the blue triangle inserts in their Kappa shoes (anyone remember these?) for UK pride. Do the big NCAA/SEC schools do as insane stunts or does the NCAA have restrictions based on how risky to life and limb you can be?

R59 Allie probably didn't have a very interesting story. They alluded to the fact that she grew up privileged and never had to struggle to pay for her cheerleading camps, uniforms, etc. When you're not totally damaged or had to overcome major hurdles there's not much of a story arc there. I wish they focused on the straight guys on the team. There was at least one, right?

[quote]When you're not totally damaged or had to overcome major hurdles...

Fair enough, but wasn't Allie the one on her fifth (!) concussion? And who was constantly getting pretty badly injured?

And who, despite getting knocked around, kept going and going like the Energizer bunny (or the Little Engine That Could)?

Finding out why (and how) would have been an interesting story for at least one episode, IMO.

Agreed R99

So many of the concussion stuff was only briefly touched on. I really doubt Monica would've been open to a story that exposed her as an evil Bela Karolyi type sacrificing her young to the gods of Varsity. The TBI element of the story was really glossed over. Also the fact that they barely even had a legit trainer on staff (not including the student trainers) and whose only advice was "lay in a dark room, don't look at your phone" does not make Navarro/Monica look good. I know they're a cash strapped junior college in central Texas, but that's really fucked up.

I don't think Monica helping Lexie with her nude picture thing was out of the goodness of her heart

I wonder if Monica's husband and kids are resentful of the time she spends coaching and having all those kids acting like she's their mom.

R97, there is no absolute cheerleader ranking process. To my knowledge, there are two major national collegiate cheerleading championships—NCA and UCA. Of the two, NCA is the only one that crowns a Grand Champion—the highest score in the competition; although, this score category isn’t shown in the official results. AFAIK, UCA Does not crown a similar top score award.

So, in 2019, Navarro was the JuCo champion only. When the Grand Champion in 2018, it could only claim to be #1 of all NCA competitors. That same year, University of Kentucky won Division 1A In UCA.

There is also USA Cheer which seems to be the governing body of cheer in the country. It fields teams (co-Ed; all-girl) to compete internationally on behalf of the USA. It also has a competition, but it’s not clear how comprehensive it is. It appears to be an effort to elevate all-girl cheer.

Posting the 2019 NCA results. Notice that in addition to the advanced categories in which Navarro competes, there are also intermediate ones.

Man the fact that these competitions are off of ESPN really changes things. Watching these competitions On TV when you were bored or hungover was pretty much the only way many people knew about the sport. I also recall high school cheer teams being featured.

Made it to Episode 4 barely. Have yet to finish it. Fucking boring af. Dont get the hype at all. Maybe because I'm from Louisville and knew all the cheerleaders. Monica reminds me of my grandmother.

[quote]evil Bela Karolyi type

Oh, please. Bela Karolyi was not evil.

I love this. I love these people.

I'm on ep. 2, getting to know Jerry.

Hard to believe how the world has turned upside down since this (fabulous!) series premiered. It was only a few months ago that everyone was hugely invested in whether Jerry would make mat. It feels like that was YEARS ago! :-(