Cheerleading in the Media

Since whenever I could remember I always grew up watching movies where cheerleaders were depicted very poorly in films, such as Bring it On, and Hellcats.  Even today cheerleaders don’t get the correct view of what they actually do.  Everyone thinks that all cheerleaders do is yell cheers, when in fact they do so much more. But the media produces movies where we only see the negative points of cheerleading.

Cheerleaders work as hard as any other athlete. Competitive cheerleading, especially, is such a rewarding, but dangerous sport. Just like every other athlete cheerleaders condition, then on top of that we throw people in the air, do jumps, throw ourselves through the air in the form of tumbling, and dance like no other. Yet cheerleading is still not viewed as a sport. Sometimes I ask myself we do so many people not believe this is a sport, since we tumble like gymnasts, dance like dancers, and condition like every other athlete.

This phenomenon is because the media has always told society that cheerleaders were the evil people at school. In almost every cheerleading movie the cheer captain is always an evil person, and the rest are either just as mean, or a dumb brainless blond. The media has been throwing these stereotypes around for as long as I can remember and it’s a major reason why cheerleading isn’t taken seriously. Cheerleaders are also usually portrayed as slutty, shallow ,and superficial. I admit that some cheerleaders are this way, but we can’t base an assumption about the entire population. The media also portrays cheerleaders as the mean “popular” girls, that rule the school. When in fact they are just like anyone else, they don’t do it for the “fame” but because they actually enjoy cheerleading, and if they only reason you do it is because you want to be popular, they that person isn’t a true cheerleader.

The other issue that I find with how the media depicts cheerleaders is that they wear their cheer uniform every single day of the week. I don’t even know where this idea came from, but it’s a terrible way to show a cheerleader. I don’t understand how that could even happen considering we only have one uniform, and there are seven days in a week. Television shows like Glee, portray cheerleaders just like all the rest of the media portrays them as, the mean girl that get everything the want, and they wear their uniform every single day. There isn’t one episode that I have seem that shows one of the cheerleaders with actual clothes on.

Overall, the media highly influences what we think of so many groups of people, one of the worst being cheerleaders. The only way we can change this outlook on cheerleaders is start with the media, and work our way down.