As a transplanted Southerner, I am ambivalent towards cheerleaders. They seem to “expected” by my Yankee friends.
At my high school, the football cheerleaders were amongst the most popular and attractive girls. Top of the social ladder, for sure. They weren’t airheads or dumb, though. Hardly. They went on to top colleges like the rest of us, none of them married their high school sweetheart, and many today downplay the fact they ever led cheers.
I made the morning announcements on the PA system at my school, and I had an alter-ego I created named “Buffy the Cheerleader” who would make cheerleading related announcements. I gave her a very ditzy high pitched voice. Amazingly, many people didn’t know she was me for a long time. She took on a life of her own, Buffy did. She even had a picture in the yearbook. And the cheerleaders in my grade were really cool about it. They thought it was kind of funny and even let me/Buffy pretend to cheer at one quarter of the homecoming game senior year. They knew that my Buffy wasn’t really like them.
Inasmuch as cheerleaders are a disdained stereotypical aspect of Southern life (overly happy, wearing too much makeup, PG sex objects, not too smart, etc.), I’m not a fan.
But I can handle them in small doses. You know. A pinch or two.
(Source: fiercest-athletes, via prepitude)
