Not having been to USC to view a performance of the Coquettes, I cannot intelligently comment on the decency or lack thereof in their routine. Apparently an ‘unknown official’ has claimed that the performance is “too sexual”.
Well dog my cats, but ever since I was a wee sprat in junior high school I understood that one of the basic purposes of cheerleaders was to stir the spirit of competition, arouse teem feelings, and give us guys something to fap about.
You wanna watch the computer science guys wearing wingtips perform a precision calculator toss? Gimme a break!
My beef is twofold-only those with cojones to speak their names should have their challenges heard, and please get the stick out of your ass. You don’t like it, don’t watch. That is all.
While I’m big fan of pretty women in skimpy clothes, sooooome of them dances are suggestive to the point of being embarrasing.
To me, anyhoo. But I’ve never seen the USC girls dancin’. Need more information…
They call their cheerleading squad “the coquettes?” A coquette is a woman who lightly makes sexual or romantic gestures or suggestions–“flirt” doesn’t quite cover it, “tease” (or a mascot-appropriate variant) comes close. The article is a mess, which might be expected of a story in which no one interviewed wants to stick their neck out, but it might have asked the questions 1) why these women allow themselves to be called that; and 2) why object to coquettes acting, well, coquettish?
Way back in the day, cheerleaders were supposed to do call-and-response cheers. They’d prompt; the crowd would answer. They were supposed to get the crowd hyped through participation*. I’m not sure how it evolved into precision dance routines that the crowd is only supposed to watch.
See, I hesitate to criticize cheerleaders, because they do put a lot of time and effort into complex, strenuous, athletic (yes, it is a sport) endeavors. But I don’t like the idea of cheerleading being entertainment that’s unrelated, or only tangentially related, to the game. If it’s a distraction for whatever reason, then it’s not being true to its original purpose.
The University of South Carolina’s mascot is the Gamecock. Which inspires the cry, “Go COCKS!!!”. Which also adorns lots of school paraphenalia. Coquettes is a clever(?) play on this, which is better than “Lady Cocks” or something like that.
You can relax. As a point of information, the Coquettes are not cheerleaders. They are a dance team that performs at halftime of basketball games and other events, some athletic events, some not. The cheerleading squad is an entirely different group.
*"She emphasized that the Coquettes were not part of the athletic department, and that its administrators were doing them a kindness in allowing them to perform at all.
“We try really hard and it just seems like nobody really cares,” she said."*
You’re truly round the bend. I would say exercise science majors, but hygiene-impaired exercise-lacking computer nerds? Scary to think of them dancing.
Coquettes as the squad’s name is so anchored in the shovanist early days of the esteemed history of the University of South Carolina, and it’s nigh time that some forward thinking Carolinians step up with a new name.
I don’t see what all the fuss is about. From the website, their uniforms appear quite modest. If we survived Elvis bumping and grinding I think we can take whatever these girls are doing.
This sounds about right. My wife got her degree in “excercise physiology” or some such major from PSU. She worked as a sports rehab person (I don’t know what they called them) for a few years before following her dumbass first husband to NJ and becoming a waitress.*
*Nothing against waitresses, that was a shot against her dumbass ex-husband.
