Headline: Teens Behavior Shocks Parents!
Wow, that’s only been happening since, oh, I don’t know…THE BEGINNING OF TIME!
ISTR that Lucretia Borgia was not generally considered to be much of a “lady” by folks in her day. Something about poisoning her husbands.
And you think that your “typical” cheerleader does her routine at interviews as a way of proving her ability to “work as a team player”? Wonder how many girls who work their way through college as a stripper bother listing that on their resume when they go to apply for a job? If a gal can spend 4 years stripping and pull down a 3.5 (or better GPA), while working however many hours a week as a stripper, do you think that the employer is going to consider that as a “positive” on her resume? :dubious: They see “stripper” on her resume, and its going into the round filing cabinet in most cases. We’ve had several threads here warning people that showing a bottle of alcohol on their freakin’ MySpace or facebook page is enough to get them excluded from a job. Nevermind that what someone does off the clock should be of little concern to an employer. (There are exceptions to this, of course, but getting drunk with a few friends, without a resulting DUI, isn’t one of them, IMHO.)
It the States, cheerleaders are an expected item at most sporting events. On game days, its traditional for the cheerleaders to wear their uniform at school. Google can give you an idea of what these uniforms typically look like (not a good idea to do this from a work computer, BTW). My school had a fairly strict dresscode for the era, but the cheerleaders were allowed to strut around in their skimpy little outfits, even though a girl wearing a non-cheerleading outfit that was just (or even slightly less) revealing, would get you suspended. Clearly, the attitudes dictate that its okay for cheerleaders to put on a more provocative display, than non-cheerleaders.
The girls in the video were practically fully clothed, and I have to wonder if boys who were fully clothed who did a “Chippendale” routine would be subjected to the same harsh comments as these girls. Of course, for boys, being able to “dance” is often considered a sign that one is gay.
Yes. And you should see how the kids dance at school dances, too- now THAT is horrifying. The funny thing is that I’m 23- I go to clubs with my friends and dance like a hoe and, hell, I thought I danced like a hoe when I was in high school not all that long ago. But yeah, I am a prude based on what I see.
“can actually dance” in the sense that they are just together and hitting the moves right, right? Because that just looks like a bunch of uptight suburban girls trying to do some provocative hip hop dancing and, while technically correct, they seem to be missing the. . . spirit/soul/whatever. Of course, I’ve never been a big fan of the typical robotic cheer dancing anyway, so maybe that’s it.
And from this side of the pond…
I definitely went to the wrong college.
Quite right. I remember when my kids were in middle school, and the dress code specified how short skirts (worn to school) could be. Of course, all the cheerleader’s outfits were shorter than that. They were also allowed bare midriffs, which was not allowed in the general population.
This thread reminded me of an incident which happened when my daughter was in high school. A female student, who was a member of the dance team IIRC, was disciplined by the school for performing a ‘sexy dance’ as part of a skit titled “Hot Sexy Teacher”.
This girl’s mom related the story to me. The mom and daughter went in front of the school board to appeal the disciplinary action. Apparently the girl had done a move called a ‘hip thrust’ twice in the routine. The school actually had a list of ‘forbidden’ moves which the dance team/cheerleading squad could not use in their routines. The board ruled that this girl had broken the rules by performing a ‘forbidden’ move (twice) and that she should have known better since she was on the dance team.
I’m from the southern U.S., which is big football country, and I still don’t quite understand it. So I started a new thread asking about it. 
I’ve seen worse, quite frankly. I bet if it didn’t get posted on YouTube there wouldn’t have been a kerfuffle and the dismissal of the advisor and the disbanding of the team.
I was more embarrassed at how badly the girls danced more than anything.
This is the biggest load of nothing I’ve heard people complaining about in a while. So it’s ok for teenage girls to wear tiny shorts or skorts and bend over, shake their asses, and squat/split in front of the entire school body, but it’s not ok for them to do it two feet away from a boy sitting in a chair? I disagree that this is inappropriate behavior at a pep rally. Except for the girl adjusting her junk during the routine. Honey, if you’re gonna act vaguely suggestive and shock the old people, make it entertaining at least.
I also hardly see this as a step back in women’s rights. 1) because it’s just not that important and 2) because the ability to do things like this is actually liberating for some young women. They can choose to do routines like this without a big mean scary coach pressuring them into it and destroying their innocent sensibilities. I would put money on all the girls wanting to do the routine and the coach just caving or not paying attention to a damn thing. (Now, that’s a decent reason for firing a coach, if they can’t maintain authority, or if they’re not involved enough to realize, “Hey, this routine may piss people off…uh, girls, let’s fix this and do it this way…” then they’re obviously not doing their job.)
As someone else mentioned, the entire pep rally concept could be seen as reinforcing a primal sexual hierarchy. All of high school could be seen as reinforcing a primal sexual hierarchy. Big deal. Teenagers push boundaries (News at 11!) because they’re as clever and curious as they’ve ever been, and suddenly: OMGWTFSEX!!1!! They’ll learn to be self aware, and about subtlety, and about self esteem and empowerment. Personally, I don’t think it’s possible to learn about that without pushing boundaries.
Also, the routine sucked. The cheerleaders at my high school did some suggestive routines, but they actually threw in, y’know, challenging athletics in there, like cartwheels or pyramids or handstands.
Seriously, yall have never been to my high school if you think that was even remotely slutty. Our cheerleaders never danced like that, as our cheerleaders were the rejects from majorettes/color guard, who typically were sluttier than anything in that video. Also, all of our dance/cheerleader teams were primarily self-led, so it is possible that there was no coach oversight.
I find myself thinking of my junior high assistant principal, who banned the cheerleaders and pep squad from doing the “funky chicken” cheer. It went, IIRC, like this:
How funky is your chicken
How funky is your chicken
How loose is your goose
How loose is your goose
So come on everybody
So come on everybody
And shake your caboose
And shake your caboose.
It was the shaking of the caboose he objected to, arguing that it was inappropriate for junior high school girls to shake their cabooses in public. It wasn’t even like we were any good at shaking our cabooses, the move came right out of the chicken dance song.
Poor old guy would have keeled over in shock at the moves the average cheerleader does these days.
::Shudder:: You mean…the…Chippendiddys?
I am sooooo not clicking that link, so I have no idea.
Nope… they mean… chippendales.
Yes really, it was like Cabaret *without *the sex… in the verses of Joaquín Sabina “like a Belgian dancing flamenco.”
The majority of them looked like they knew in their brain but not in their hips what the moves were supposed to be about. And each move was completely disconnected from the rest.
Wrong Lucretia, & I was referencing a poem by Martial.
Well, the chippendiddys would be the equivalent of young high school girls dancing in an “inappropriate” manner.
When I was in high school, the principal would have barred all the exits and set fire to the gym.
Except that it’s not for the enjoyment of teenage boys. It’s for the enjoyment of the audience, which includes teachers, parents, and whoever else.
The big joke is that grownups are choreographing and directing this overtly sexual dance (how successful it was is maybe questionable, but its intent is not), and grownups are watching this.
Ask any of the men afterwards, maybe the ones sitting in the front row if it got them horny. See what kind of uncomfortable or upset responses you might get.
That’s what the issue is. Grownups posing teens as sexual objects in front of other grownups questions all sorts of cultural standards.
I’m not saying that it’s wrong. I am saying that that’s really barely unspoken subject of debate. Not that girls are waggling their bits around, but that they’re doing it at older men in a school-sanctioned event, and for what purpose?
It’s certainly a fine line; I work in high school theater, and I’ve definitely put on some shows where we’ve had suggestive clothing and/or behavior. We are constantly at the whims of administration, the board, parents and students as to what shows we can do and what is and is not acceptable. It’s my (and the other adult faculty’s) job to make sure that we don’t step too far out of what our community expects of us, or we could loose our jobs.
Eonwe, I wouldn’t exactly call that “choreographed.” (And I mean that as in, “they couldn’t dance”, not as in how suggestive it was)