High School Bad Cheer Movies

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Apr 14, 2017
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What are some movies/tv shows you’ve seen that completely mishandle HS cheer? Doesn’t have to be a “cheer” movie per se; can just be a scene or two that you found particularly egregious.

So far I’ve got:

All the Bring It On’s (especially the second one that claims that underground cheer competitions are a thing and that kickboxing plays a dominant role in them).

Riverdale

Euphoria

Death of a Cheerleader

Drive Me Crazy

Etc.

And just for my own info: were cheerleaders ever voted on by their peers? And were crops in HS ever allowed?
 
Any Disney channel show that includes cheer probably will have the “popularity contest” aspect, and usually the friends of the prospective cheerleader will act like she wants to join a cult or something similar. A lot of 1980’s sitcoms did similar things, unless the main characters WERE the cheerleaders.

Hellcats was pretty unrealistic.

Anything with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (because they are a dance team that is called a cheer team)
 
Any Disney channel show that includes cheer probably will have the “popularity contest” aspect, and usually the friends of the prospective cheerleader will act like she wants to join a cult or something similar. A lot of 1980’s sitcoms did similar things, unless the main characters WERE the cheerleaders.

Hellcats was pretty unrealistic.

Anything with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (because they are a dance team that is called a cheer team)

HELLCATS.

I don’t remember much about that show except that I cringed pretty hard.
 
Fun fact: Death of a Cheerleader from Lifetime is based on a true story. One of the crime podcasts I listen to covered it.
 
Fun fact: Death of a Cheerleader from Lifetime is based on a true story. One of the crime podcasts I listen to covered it.

First of all, which podcast?

Secondly: it happened in Orinda CA, about fifteen minutes away from me! That bit of unsettling info is my default conversation piece when I’m drunk.

Which reminds me: have to include any movie about Wanda Holloway.

ETA: I just want to know how good/bad Wanda Holloway’s daughter was. Like was she good enough that it actually wrong that she didn’t make the team? Or was she terrible and Wanda’s delusion just told her otherwise? I mean, it was Texas cheer in the 80’s. She couldn’t have been that bad...?
 
First of all, which podcast?

Secondly: it happened in Orinda CA, about fifteen minutes away from me! That bit of unsettling info is my default conversation piece when I’m drunk.

Which reminds me: have to include any movie about Wanda Holloway.

ETA: I just want to know how good/bad Wanda Holloway’s daughter was. Like was she good enough that it actually wrong that she didn’t make the team? Or was she terrible and Wanda’s delusion just told her otherwise? I mean, it was Texas cheer in the 80’s. She couldn’t have been that bad...?

Once Upon A Crime.

As far as I recall from the last time I watched any doc about that case: Wanda's daughter was qualified and was just as good as other kid really. They trained at same place and cheered pop warner little league together.

Her mom got her disqualified from the MS tryout I think. Cheer was determined by a student body vote (cringe) and Wanda made some campaign items for her that were not allowed. Her daughter was not allowed to try out. That was really what started the murderous rage I think. Other kid ended up making it and going into HS cheer she wanted to make sure it did not happen again.

Fun fact there: The original plan was not to kill the daughter. Just to kill the mom so the kid would be too sad to try out.

I could be totally wrong though but that is what a dateline ep I watched said.
 
Other fun fact (I fell down the google rabbit hole on this one) - Wanda only served like SIX MONTHS. A reddit user posted that the girls continued to attend the same school for 9th grade until the Holloways moved. If true, that was probably awkward and miserable for both. The saddest thing about it was that (per media accounts and articles) the kids were friends until mom decided to make her a rival. So silly.
 
Once Upon A Crime.

As far as I recall from the last time I watched any doc about that case: Wanda's daughter was qualified and was just as good as other kid really. They trained at same place and cheered pop warner little league together.

Her mom got her disqualified from the MS tryout I think. Cheer was determined by a student body vote (cringe) and Wanda made some campaign items for her that were not allowed. Her daughter was not allowed to try out. That was really what started the murderous rage I think. Other kid ended up making it and going into HS cheer she wanted to make sure it did not happen again.

Fun fact there: The original plan was not to kill the daughter. Just to kill the mom so the kid would be too sad to try out.

I could be totally wrong though but that is what a dateline ep I watched said.

I thought it was that she wanted mom and daughter killed, but both would be too expensive. So she just opted for mom. I feel like something like this could ONLY happen in cheer. You never hear about it in softball, crew, tennis, etc.
 
Any Disney channel show that includes cheer probably will have the “popularity contest” aspect, and usually the friends of the prospective cheerleader will act like she wants to join a cult or something similar. A lot of 1980’s sitcoms did similar things, unless the main characters WERE the cheerleaders.

Hellcats was pretty unrealistic.

Anything with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (because they are a dance team that is called a cheer team)

You mean "Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team" on CMT?
 
I thought it was that she wanted mom and daughter killed, but both would be too expensive. So she just opted for mom. I feel like something like this could ONLY happen in cheer. You never hear about it in softball, crew, tennis, etc.

I listened to a podcast episode about a similar situation in youth soccer. However, I think the issue with the would-be killer in this case was personal as she was sleeping with the other soccer mom's husband. (Forget the podcast name though.)

Another was something equally crazy in an elementary school PTA (also from a podcast.) The mom hated another mom (PTA president) so much that she planted drugs in her vehicle and called the police on her. It started from the PTA president mom accidentally leaving drug planting mom's son (a 4th grader) on the playground after an afterschool activity. For 5 minutes before she realized she forgot him.
 
I listened to a podcast episode about a similar situation in youth soccer. However, I think the issue with the would-be killer in this case was personal as she was sleeping with the other soccer mom's husband. (Forget the podcast name though.)

Another was something equally crazy in an elementary school PTA (also from a podcast.) The mom hated another mom (PTA president) so much that she planted drugs in her vehicle and called the police on her. It started from the PTA president mom accidentally leaving drug planting mom's son (a 4th grader) on the playground after an afterschool activity. For 5 minutes before she realized she forgot him.

I heard about that one too! Those parents... I felt angry and stressed just reading about them. They were arrogant, entitled, manipulative, and thought they were too smart for the police...only to be undone by their own stupidity. Which is particularly egregious in their case because they were lawyers. They maybe should’ve been smarter than the police.
 
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