BS: Cheer Leaders

Subject: BS: Cheer Leaders
From: Raggytash
Date: 04 May 16 - 08:57 AM

Rather than drift from another thread I thought it would be better to start one afresh.

Personally I cannot abide cheer leaders at sporting events. If I go to a rugby match I go to watch the rugby not a load of inappropriately dressed young girls showing their knickers.

They get everywhere now even Indian Premier League cricket.... and to me it's not cricket, if you get my drift.

Subject: RE: BS: Cheer Leaders
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 May 16 - 09:10 AM

I agree Raggytash, I don't like to see cheerleaders at matches. But I have a slightly different reason for my dislike. I find it rather sexist and strangely degrading for attractive, scantily-dressed women to be supporting male teams, unless there are equivalent cheerleader teams of men supporting women's sporting events, to make it fair. It seems very old-fashioned to me, almost primitive, to have females egging on males.
I've seen boxing matches on TV (my husband adores watching boxing) where in between rounds, or bouts or whatever they're called, a half-naked woman parades about carrying a placard of some sort. Why? Almost as bad as strippers and pole-dancers. Surely times have moved on nowadays?

Subject: RE: BS: Cheer Leaders
From: Raggytash
Date: 04 May 16 - 09:19 AM

Exactly Senoufou, it's just voyeurism and unappealing. Don't get me wrong I like a pretty girl as well as the next red blooded man but to reduce them to being ogled at is frankly bloody awful.

Subject: RE: BS: Cheer Leaders
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 May 16 - 09:33 AM

Frankly.. any americanised concepts of sexual display since the 1980s are just shite
and not the least arousing...😣

Subject: RE: BS: Cheer Leaders
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 May 16 - 09:37 AM

It makes me think of those early James Bond films with merely decorative women called Octopussy and Pussy Galore etc. So out of date now.

I've heard that actually American women in cheerleader groups have to be very strong and athletic. It isn't an easy thing to make pyramids and leap about like that.
I watched the documentary on TV about selection of cheerleaders (it may have been a Texan group, but not sure) It was dreadful, the lassies were treated like Barbie dolls with gymnastic ability. But I believe in USA they go in a lot for those terrible pageants where females are paraded like prize cows in front of judges.
We all need to move on from this.

My very feminist niece would be burning holes in her iphone if she posted on this thread, but she's right in my view.

Subject: RE: BS: Cheer Leaders
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 May 16 - 11:56 AM

Thank you, Europeans, for a civilized attitude.

Subject: RE: BS: Cheer Leaders
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 May 16 - 12:49 PM

Do you recall the Lily Tomlin sketch, though? She grew up in the city, and her squad of cheerleaders were African-American teenage girls, who had pride, attitude, and rhythm. This sketch was years before hip-hop or rap, but Lily Tomlin's homage to African-American cheerleaders presents a one-woman rap squad. You laughed (I recall seeing this onstage in her show), AND you gave respect.

Subject: RE: BS: Cheer Leaders
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 May 16 - 02:26 PM

I rarely see sporting events on TV, maybe once a year; and I almost never attend them live. I did see the Super Bowl on TV this year, when I was visiting my dad in his nursing home. So, I don't really understand the whole thing. I joked in the other thread about Raggytash's disdain for "inappropriately dressed young girls." But in my heart of hearts, I know Raggytash is right.

In U.S. sports, professional football and basketball teams have teams of professional dancer/cheerleaders - and many of them also appear on the pages of Playboy Magazine. College teams tone it down quite a bit. College cheerleaders are often more gymnastic and less sexual in their performances.

U.S. baseball teams don't seem to have cheerleaders, but I did get a kick out of the cheerleading squad in the bleachers at a San Francisco Giants game at the old Candlestick Park. They were all shirtless males, not necessarily in prime physical condition, each with a single letter in black shoe polish on his belly. When they sat in the right order, they spelled out G-I-A-N-T-S. They were some of the most enthusiastic cheerleaders I've ever seen.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Cheer Leaders
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 May 16 - 03:55 PM

Now that sounds much more fun Joe! I also like those very plump ladies who do dances in tutus on TV occasionally. No-one is trying to be sexy or inappropriate, just jolly and funny.

Subject: RE: BS: Cheer Leaders
From: Donuel
Date: 04 May 16 - 04:27 PM

The pay is awful and the exploitation is supreme.
Even the TV editors go out of their way to not show the cheerleaders for more than 2 seconds.

Younger cheerleaders do not benefit by title 19 and the horrible injuries are uncompensated.

Subject: RE: BS: Cheer Leaders
From: olddude
Date: 05 May 16 - 02:56 PM

Two of my daughters are ex nfl cheerleaders. I was never so happy when they left it. I nearly got thrown out of several games wanting to clobber a drunk or two yelling obscene comments. I hate it