Cheer Love
Quick commercial...
So Not The Drama is in the June issh of American Cheerleader. It's one of the "Read Me" selections.
And in a weird act of serendipity so is Camp Rules by Jordan Roter and A Non-Blonde Cheerleader in Love by Kieran Scott. Serendipitous, because Camp Rules is listed with So Not the Drama on Amazon as one of the "better together" features and Non-Blonde Cheerleader is listed on my Amazon page as one of the books purchased when someone bought SNTD.
Pretty darn cool, to me. American Cheerleader really gave out some serious cheer love to the literary set, this month.
We love ya back, AC!
So, back to our normally scheduled program...
Why are cheerleaders given such a hard time?
I'm tired of the portrayals of slutty cheerleaders, snotty cheerleaders and the generic view that cheerleaders are the mean girls of the high school set.
Okay, first of all, I know there are some cheerleaders that are those things.
There are millions of cheerleaders in the world. I'm sure some of them are promiscuious or down right bitchy.
But, on average, I do NOT think cheerleaders are those things.
And yes, I'm biased. I was a cheerleader. I coach cheerleading and my main character is a cheerleader.
But I think those things also give me a little more insight into cheerleaders than someone who isn't.
When I was a cheerleader, I wasn't bitchy. I was confident, assertive, friendly and no more snobby than the average teen. And honestly, I don't recall any girls on my high school squad being outwardly catty.
Now, that has nothing to do with what we may have said about other people when we were all together doing the group-think thing.
But geez, we were teen girls. That's what they do!
The little girls I coach are cheer divas to be sure. But they're divas on the competition floor. Any cattiness among them is the same level of bickering and nit picking that I've seen among most other girls their age.
And yet, I've heard people make comments about girls from our organization in uniform using a broad-based stroke of generalization. These are adults who have displayed outright disdain for these little girls for no other reason than the girls were cheerleaders.
It's like cheerleaders are to blame for all the social scarring some adults endured as teens.
And yet, I've not run across any cheerleaders like this, personally.
However, I have run across plenty of other like this who were class presidents, sorority girls, on the chess team, debate team or athletes in some other type of sport, etc...
In other words, teens can sometimes be snotty. God willing, they grow out of it. But the arrogance of youth sometimes makes them unbearable people to be around.
It just annoys me when people act like snottiness is some disease borne unto the cheerleading species.
My character Mina is a cheerleader. And I've portrayed her to be like cheerleaders I've known - a little cocky, slightly obsessed with being in the spotlight but generally a well-liked person who people wouldn't mind being a friend.
She's no angel. But her flaws, blemishes and not-so-great traits have nothing to do with being a cheerleader. They're who she is. A teen changing as her world deems she needs to.
I traded a few emails with the AC editor, who reviewed So Not The Drama. A former cheerleader and quite the cool chick, if I may say so myself.
One of the things she said was, she was glad to see a cheerleader portrayed as a little insecure, a little full of herself but mostly just a normal teen who has the same fears as other teens. One who understands that it's a privilege to wear the cheer uniform, yet still has dreams of catapulting to a new level of popularity.
And that's the thing - most cheerleaders understand that they're doing something special by being spirit leaders as well as competitors in their own right. But it doesn't mean they think they're the shiznet.
Yes, they've got to have a certain level of confidence about them to get the job done in their sport. What athlete doesn't?
They come in all sizes and shapes, they get zits like anyone else, they get dumped by boyfriends, have fights with their best friends, get bad grades, have problems at home and all the other things that any other student goes through.
But when they get out on the field or court, their job is to be the first line of spirit - smiling, happy and rooting their team on through the loss and the win. And if they're competitive cheerleaders, they've got their own struggles on the floor to combat to bring home a win.
What I wonder is, do cheerleaders sometimes get a bad rap because they're simply out in front and easier to push off a pedestal?
Maybe.
Or, perhaps it's like with other things that are primarily female - people are so quick to discount heavily female professions or sports as "catty" simply because women are notorious for being that way with one another.
Well, I'm not discounting those who fit the bad stereotypes. But I've gotta defend my peoples.
Cheerleaders rock!
They're athletic.
They're spirit leaders.
They're good will ambassadors.
But if you get on our bad side, we make a darn good gang.
Oops, did I speak that last line outloud?
So Not The Drama is in the June issh of American Cheerleader. It's one of the "Read Me" selections.
And in a weird act of serendipity so is Camp Rules by Jordan Roter and A Non-Blonde Cheerleader in Love by Kieran Scott. Serendipitous, because Camp Rules is listed with So Not the Drama on Amazon as one of the "better together" features and Non-Blonde Cheerleader is listed on my Amazon page as one of the books purchased when someone bought SNTD.
Pretty darn cool, to me. American Cheerleader really gave out some serious cheer love to the literary set, this month.
We love ya back, AC!
So, back to our normally scheduled program...
Why are cheerleaders given such a hard time?
I'm tired of the portrayals of slutty cheerleaders, snotty cheerleaders and the generic view that cheerleaders are the mean girls of the high school set.
Okay, first of all, I know there are some cheerleaders that are those things.
There are millions of cheerleaders in the world. I'm sure some of them are promiscuious or down right bitchy.
But, on average, I do NOT think cheerleaders are those things.
And yes, I'm biased. I was a cheerleader. I coach cheerleading and my main character is a cheerleader.
But I think those things also give me a little more insight into cheerleaders than someone who isn't.
When I was a cheerleader, I wasn't bitchy. I was confident, assertive, friendly and no more snobby than the average teen. And honestly, I don't recall any girls on my high school squad being outwardly catty.
Now, that has nothing to do with what we may have said about other people when we were all together doing the group-think thing.
But geez, we were teen girls. That's what they do!
The little girls I coach are cheer divas to be sure. But they're divas on the competition floor. Any cattiness among them is the same level of bickering and nit picking that I've seen among most other girls their age.
And yet, I've heard people make comments about girls from our organization in uniform using a broad-based stroke of generalization. These are adults who have displayed outright disdain for these little girls for no other reason than the girls were cheerleaders.
It's like cheerleaders are to blame for all the social scarring some adults endured as teens.
And yet, I've not run across any cheerleaders like this, personally.
However, I have run across plenty of other like this who were class presidents, sorority girls, on the chess team, debate team or athletes in some other type of sport, etc...
In other words, teens can sometimes be snotty. God willing, they grow out of it. But the arrogance of youth sometimes makes them unbearable people to be around.
It just annoys me when people act like snottiness is some disease borne unto the cheerleading species.
My character Mina is a cheerleader. And I've portrayed her to be like cheerleaders I've known - a little cocky, slightly obsessed with being in the spotlight but generally a well-liked person who people wouldn't mind being a friend.
She's no angel. But her flaws, blemishes and not-so-great traits have nothing to do with being a cheerleader. They're who she is. A teen changing as her world deems she needs to.
I traded a few emails with the AC editor, who reviewed So Not The Drama. A former cheerleader and quite the cool chick, if I may say so myself.
One of the things she said was, she was glad to see a cheerleader portrayed as a little insecure, a little full of herself but mostly just a normal teen who has the same fears as other teens. One who understands that it's a privilege to wear the cheer uniform, yet still has dreams of catapulting to a new level of popularity.
And that's the thing - most cheerleaders understand that they're doing something special by being spirit leaders as well as competitors in their own right. But it doesn't mean they think they're the shiznet.
Yes, they've got to have a certain level of confidence about them to get the job done in their sport. What athlete doesn't?
They come in all sizes and shapes, they get zits like anyone else, they get dumped by boyfriends, have fights with their best friends, get bad grades, have problems at home and all the other things that any other student goes through.
But when they get out on the field or court, their job is to be the first line of spirit - smiling, happy and rooting their team on through the loss and the win. And if they're competitive cheerleaders, they've got their own struggles on the floor to combat to bring home a win.
What I wonder is, do cheerleaders sometimes get a bad rap because they're simply out in front and easier to push off a pedestal?
Maybe.
Or, perhaps it's like with other things that are primarily female - people are so quick to discount heavily female professions or sports as "catty" simply because women are notorious for being that way with one another.
Well, I'm not discounting those who fit the bad stereotypes. But I've gotta defend my peoples.
Cheerleaders rock!
They're athletic.
They're spirit leaders.
They're good will ambassadors.
But if you get on our bad side, we make a darn good gang.
Oops, did I speak that last line outloud?
posted by Paula at 8:01 PM
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