Ready? Okay!

[adiva_calandia]

Say sorry: More Heroes related content. It's all general, though, so don't worry about spoilers.

Okay. Cheerleaders.

I know basically nothing about cheerleading. My high school didn't have any sports teams -- well, except for the gym hockey and the ultimate frisbee, but those barely count. So of course, we had no cheerleaders. My experience with cheerleaders is limited to a couple football games that I played music at, and being in a show with a few girls with cheerleading experience (I don't think any of them were active at the time).

Heroes perpetuates the cheerleader stereotype: blonde, beautiful, and bitchy. Jackie doesn't hesitate to take credit for someone else's heroism; she pressures and belittles her BFF while they're BFFs, and shows no remorse over the switch from BFF to rival. The other cheerleaders are there for set dressing, basically, so it should be no surprise that they go along with The Popular Girl and become The Posse Of Shallow Gigglers.

Am I the only person really bothered by this? I don't know cheerleading, but I know people. I'm not saying that people like Jackie don't exist, but why aren't there more Claires? Or even Zachs, people who are at least quietly uncomfortable with overt bitchiness?

Yeah, okay, storytelling. *sigh* If I can defend SPN's portrayal of women through the lens of storytelling, I can defend Heroes' portrayal of teenage girls the same way. We need Claire to look good -- not just as in "likable," but as in "heroic." And the easiest way to do that is to put her against her foil, Jackie (I probably don't need to go into the Jackie-Claire foil, but I do have to say that I still love the fact that even the characters can't tell them apart).

Still! It don't make it right! I don't need a miraculously kind amazing cheerleading squad leader -- I just want one girl on the squad looking uncomfortable when The Bitch makes snide comments about Hapless Extra's fashion sense/athleticism/sexual orientation. A cheerleading captain who was genuinely in it for the athletics or the school spirit, rather than the popularity and Bitch rights, would be amazing, but probably too much to ask for.

In a slightly related theme, I've decided that Claire is really inordinately klutzy for such a good cheerleader. Again, storytelling -- she has to be so she can be Wolverine, and it's not totally unreasonable since she knows she's indestructible -- but it gets to the point where every time she moves faster than a walk I start wincing, because I'm so sure she'll trip while moving at a run and break her neck.

Comments

[agonistes]

We spent a fair amount of time last night picking apart everything that was wrong with that particular scene, as far as our experience went. Conclusion was same as that of last season: the writers don't know what high school is like any more and they can't write it.

(For the record: what struck me as most ridiculous? Cheerleaders do not practice during PE in uniform. They dress out just like everybody else.)

[adiva_calandia]

(What I loved was [whitetexted] nobody comments on the fact that Claire just hangs out on the tower until after school. Okay, West is like "Why are you still here?" but he's clearly stalking her so he doesn't count. You'd think some gym teacher would come along and go "Um, class/home?"

Honestly, if high school really works the way the writers think it does, the Popular Girls ought to be trying to recruit Claire, a la Rachel McAdams and Lindsey Lohan in Mean Girls.)

[genarti]

And we were all sitting there in Karen's living room going "...Where is the teacher? Where is the coach? Where is the spotter? Where is ANYONE being responsible for these teenaged girls jumping off high things and doing high lifts, and making sure that random kids from PE don't try to do the same thing without training?" There is no way in HELL that would happen in any school, especially any school rich enough to have that kind of equipment for cheerleading practice, because they all know they would get sued and LOSE if anyone got hurt.

Also, wtf. I liked Zach. New Flying Boy, however, does not act like any human kid I have ever met. He acts like a Hollywood version of a sensitive-but-not-geeky kid. (If they INTEND him to come off as a stalker, rather than likeable, I will forgive them a little. But not the flying, or the fact that he does not talk or act like a human being.)

[adiva_calandia]

FOR SERIOUS.

OH OH AND. *giggling* Exactly what class was she in where she turned on a Bunsen burner, was asked questions about Darwin, and never used the burner? Last night's comments: "Is this biology or chemistry?" "It's biochem!"

I like West less and less as the premiere is further and further in the past. Just. What the hell.

[genarti]

I KNOW. *facepalms* Also, does she not even date her notes? Just writes the answers in big letters without any context for actual... note-taking?

Maybe the teachers are just in on the conspiracy to make sure there are life-threatening things around Claire at all times, the better to show off her Wolverininess? Next thing you know, it'll turn out that all the lockers shoot knives at you if you get the combination wrong, or something.

*facemakes at West* I would like to like him. I would like to like the trials of Claire in a new high school. And yet it kind of... sucks. Bleh.

[skygiants]

*jumps into discussion*

To be fair . . . I don't date my notes either. >.> And writing 'Charles Darwin' makes sense, because it's clear the lecture will be about him! And we know that while Claire is very smart, she is not so much into the caring-about-academic-success thing.

Also, my fanwank for Claire is that it's like people with leprosy, who are more likely to get seriously injured because they don't feel the pain that acts as a deterrent - she looks clumsy because she's not used to bothering to be careful. And so she is more likely to get hurt, because by this point she doesn't need to pay the extra attention that all the rest of us do to get by.

However, WORD on the not like actual cheerleading/high school IN ANY WAY/West = creepy stalker/WHERE ARE THE ADULTS? shenanigans.

[adiva_calandia]

I'll concede that possibility, but . . . still. Her head gets turned 180 degrees when she gets hit by a quarterback.

Plus: At this point, she's only been aware of her abilities for ten months? Twelve? She has sixteen years worth of conditioning to, say, not run in front of cars.

I also think a skilled cheerleader could land that jump without breaking their shin. Fucking up their ankles, maybe, but shin seems less likely.

[genarti]

Or, if it had to be a shin break, I could see a greenstick fracture or something. More likely, though, an ankle problem. But not a compound fracture like that just for jumping that distance, and especially not if she has training in landing. I mean, her shin bent the wrong way. I do not mind the ridiculous frequency of her injuries -- that I could chalk up to carelessness plus bad luck, ICly, plus maybe a bit of clumsiness -- so much as the ridiculous frequency with which they are improbably huge and showy injuries given the actual events.

And I agree with the fanwank about her not taking the care she should to avoid injury. But, again, the improbable extent of them. I agree with Adiva about the sixteen years of previous conditioning, although I could see her setting a lot of that aside with the subconscious awareness that she doesn't have to avoid injury -- but I'd think that it would be a whole lot easier to fall back on it and make herself be aware again when she's in a new place where she doesn't want to be seen. At least in the middle of school. I can fanwank it as a cry for attention, acting out subconsciously what with all her trauma and family issues and figuring out her identity etc etc, but. Meh. I do not entirely like it.

I will grant you the note-taking. I will still facemake as it is my perogative, regardless of all facts! *stands proud and resolute!* But yeah, fair enough. I am anal in note-taking, so.

[skygiants]

The quarterback thing I will admit was ridiculous. (But hey, we know why that is. It's because he was a quarterback of EEEEEEEEEVIL, right? It was not Claire's fault, it was his evil that turned her head around!)

A skilled cheerleader could land that jump, but we never saw that Claire was particularly skilled. She was a late addition to the squad; she only got on when Lori Trammel got cut, and that was with her being Jackie's BFF.

And - yeah, true, but at the same time I kind of like that they show her responses as being different from everyone else's. Because, yeah, she has sixteen years of conditioning, but her talents were also manifesting somewhat before she or anyone was aware of them - she did, after all, survive the fire. It makes sense to me that she just doesn't feel pain the same way that other people do, and she wouldn't have any way of knowing that it wasn't normal until the acceleration of the healing sped up. If that makes sense. And that would affect someone's responses to the world; they're overdoing it, definitely, but at least they're overdoing it in a way that says to me that they've thought about it.

. . . though I could just be a cockeyed optimist.

[shati.livejournal.com]

This conversation looks really funny if you don't bother to highlight.

[sdelmonte]

What sets Joss and Rob Thomas apart from the pack is that they still remember. Which, given that Joss went to an all-boys boarding school in the UK, is hiliarious.

[agonistes]

Not even necessarily remembering, but...doing research. There were five of us in Karen's living room who had experiences with the cheerleading squads at our schools that totally contradicted everything in the show last night. Our experiences were...faintly similar, and that covers high school from (I'm pretty sure) 1995-2004.

All they had to do was buy a teenager some coffee and pump them for information. Not difficult.

[genarti]

Agreed. *facemakes*

Instead, they seem to have rented some Hollywood high school dramas for their research. Because cliche = truth!

[adiva_calandia]

I want that job!

[rebootfromstart.livejournal.com]

See, I liked Bring It On because at least some of the cheerleaders, including Kirsten Dunst and Eliza Dushku's characters, were in it for the athletics and the competition, not the bitch rights.

(Some were in it for the bitch rights, but not all.)

[adiva_calandia]

I have not seen Bring It On, but that's encouraging! I have a healthy respect for people who can make their bodies do stuff like that. I wish it got more attention.

[silveraspen]

You should. :) It's actually pretty fun and handles a number of problematic issues surprisingly well.

I agree with pretty much all of the whitetexted discussion above, btw. *lazy*

[genarti]

And AGREED on Claire's klutziness. As well as her incredible ability to get freakishly severe injuries from every time it comes out.