It's a sweet and tender moment, the first time you and your kid watch a movie together when neither of you is humoring the other. That moment came for me and my daughter a few days ago, just after her fourth birthday . . . that brief, exquisite intersection between when this strange creature who came out of my body was mine, mine, mine and when she will be hers, when she will belong to the wide, wooly world. The decision of which movie you choose just then is dire. For Sadie and me, it was the cheerleading flick Bring It On!
After watching the film, Sadie told me — her mother, the last self-proclaimed-feminist in America — that she wanted to be a cheerleader. I was pleased.
You may know me as the performance artist Lisa Suckdog, who peed in a litter box, or as the publisher of the dark and disgusting zine Rollerderby, or as the chronicler of my real-life sexual exploits. But once upon a time, I was small and shy and good, and I joined the cheerleading squad. I had to get up on frosty mornings when other teens slept in, and train. I had to jump and yell and smile when I was sick. I had to support the football team even — especially — when they were doing badly and everyone was against them, and us, for being on the losing side. The enthusiasm and oomph I managed to infuse into my tawdry chosen professions throughout a repressed and depressed, ironic and apathetic era (the '90s) had to have come, in part, from having been a cheerleader. Whatever weird, dirty things I did, I did them with feeling. And when it was cool to gaze at your shoes and mumble, I was one of the few you couldn't help but hear. Bless me, I was always loud. And I always worked hard. I didn't care who was against me. So I take cheerleading movies very seriously.
The plot of Bring It On! is this: Big Red, departing captain of the ultra-successful San Diego Toros cheer team (winners of the Nationals competitions five years in a row!), has just handed over the crown to nice girl Torrance (Kirsten Dunst). A little detective work reveals to Torrance that the legacy of Nationals trophies is a lie: Big Red was ripping off cheers invented by the black, better-but-unknown Compton Clovers, who were too poor to make it to Nationals (held in Florida) and show the judges what they had . . . until now.
Suddenly everyone, it seems, has turned against Torrance: her squad, the whole school, her ditzy boyfriend (who advises her to give up captainhood and let someone more qualified — "bitchier" — take over and "deal with the politics" in these dark times of stolen cheers discovered). Only one person believes in Torrance's ability to lead: the unlikely anti-hero, a new kid in school, with black clothes, a lopsided grin, and a love of guitar chords circa 1977 to 1983. "Nevermind the crap," he advises her (while pushing her on a swing . . . sigh). "You can do it."
Bring It On!, like many cheerleading movies, deals with overcoming adversity, and the plot pivots on a question girls are too seldom asked to ask themselves: Would you allow truth to triumph over glory?
That choice, posed in coming-of-age girl movies, is too often answered in this way: "Neither. I'll take option C, a husband." Grease, the movie my mother took me to during my window of still-formingness also starred a cute blonde popular virgin cheerleader — Sandy — who, like Torrance, had to decide between the bad-boy outsider and the cute blond popular sporty normal boy. But while Sandy flounders in a masochistic orgy of choosing based on who has greater need of her never-ending forgiveness (if only my mother had heard of deconstruction before allowing me to watch that movie forty-nine times during my tender years!), Torrance makes her choice based on who supports her in her dream to be the best head cheerleader she can be.
Yes, I said leader. Every problem and every solution in Bring It On! is generated by a girl. Name me one other movie like that. Sure, Sigourney Weaver survives the alien predator. But she didn't instigate the battle between them. And, whereas the apex of competition in Grease is the drag race between Danny and that leering, pit-faced man while Sandy watches supportively from the bleachers, the high stakes in Bring It On! are Torrance and the totally hot Compton Clovers captain showing the judges and the general public what they can do, with Cliff watching and supporting from the bleachers. (But he's not a useless pansy . . . Torrance does incorporate part of a punk rock song he wrote into her team's routine.)
So while it's Torrance's ever-changing hairdos that drew Sadie in, just like Sandy's dos did with me — and the sleepovers, makeovers, and best friendships — the lessons Torrance imparts once she's got my little girl by the roots are so superior to the one I got: tart yourself up and your man will change for you, and you'll fly off together (literally) in a levitating car to fulfill your dreams of having sex and being in love and . . . that's about it, no dream beyond that.
When Sadie told me her decision to become a cheerleader too, I said, "You know that means you'll have to exercise even when you don't feel like it and do things for the team . . . hard, dirty work, like washing muddy cars to raise money. Are you willing?" She answered with a resolute "Yes!"
I don't know why cheering has such a fluffy rep. In Bring It On! and in real life, cheerleading teaches lessons of teamwork, training, and trust. It's hard. When I left that world for anarchism at sixteen, I realize now I was trading down. At the time, it looked like insomnia, angst, and blackouts were more meaningful, but in fact they were the path of least resistance, leading me to have less resistance to just about anything.
Bring It On! is a bit dark for a four year old (but so is the world, sister!). The word "ass" is used about twenty times. And Sparky, the abusive choreographer, pops pills and smashes a stool. But only because he has a dream. He really cares about "spirit fingers." It's good to care that much about something.
That's what I want for Sadie: that she care, no matter what it is she chooses to care about.