It takes more than pep to make the cheerleading team—finding the location was difficult enough for me. Places that I found myself lost en route to cheerleading tryouts: empty East parking lot, empty football stadium, empty basketball stadium, empty West parking lot. Level of similarity to the major motion picture “Bring It On”? Zero.
7:52 I bump into a distant acquaintance in the eerily empty parking lot. He asks why I am there. I explain. He gives me a strange look, but leads me towards the tryouts.
7:55 The prospective cheerleaders are divided into two groups. The left group practices a routine while attempting to sing the fight song. The words seem to come out in chunks with each dance step. It’s a bit awkward.
7:56 Someone in the other group nearly drops a small friend while practicing a lift.
7:58 A cheerleader waves in my direction. I can’t tell if it’s directed towards me, so I give the “passing in a long hallway” smile. I look towards my acquaintance and realize he was the target of the wave.
8:01 A coach-type-figure appears to be interviewing prospectives one-by-one. She takes a picture of each with her Blackberry.
8:02 I realize that acquaintance is one of the Wildcat mascots. He appears to be leading an informal mascot interview. He talks about how it’s hard to retain confidentiality as a mascot.
8:04 The dancing group continues to practice the routine. It appears to be getting better.
8:08 One of the male cheerleaders confidently lifts one of the girls, eliciting cheers from the group.
8:10 My acquaintance asks the interviewee to act out the emotion “excited” at 1/10, 5/10, and 10/10 levels. The interviewee begins jumping frenetically and punching the air. He then follows my acquaintance on some sort of mascot catwalk. It kind of reminds me of MTV’s Boiling Points. I would have lasted approximately three minutes. Either way, the cheerleaders seem to be enjoying the spectacle.
8:12 The girl that is constantly being thrown heads toward the Gatorade, seeming confident. It must to be nice to not give others hernias when they lift you. Oh, the life of a sub-100 pound human.
How dare you. Bring it On is not awkward at all– it’s a classic story of white girls gettin all messed up in black girls’ business. cmon now.