The Elephant in the Room: Cheer Season 2 Review
Cheer, a Netflix docuseries that follows the nationally ranked Navarro College cheerleading team from Corsicana, Texas aired its second season in January 2022. Under the direction of coach Monica Aldama, the series shows the grueling mental and physical preparation the team takes each year for the national cheerleading competition in Daytona, Florida.
In season 1, the episodes focused especially on five individual cheer team members and included elements of the history of cheerleading, including the formation of the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA).
In response to the runaway hit of season 1 of Cheer, the show’s producers aimed to recreate the fandom and admiration of the athletes of Navarro Cheer—in the midst of a global pandemic.
While both of us enjoyed watching season two, it left us feeling incomplete. There were big questions and topics that seemed to be intentionally left out, as Brittney McNamara describes in her article, “the elephant in the room”. So, we recorded a conversation between the two of us, with our thoughts written below each question. Feel free to use this as a guide for viewing with family and friends.
MEET THE CAST
What do you think about the director’s choice to leave out Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests?
Julie: When we think back to the pandemic, we will think about the lockdown, we will think about quarantine, we will think about isolation, and we will think about the protests. To have this show as a time capsule of that era and for the protests to be left out feels awkward and slightly dishonest. I think that it impacts the credibility of the show and the objectiveness of the documentary series—it makes it seem as if the narrative is being curated and crafted in a certain way.
Perhaps they were “saving” Navarro Cheer from “looking bad” for not supporting the protests. To me, it seemed like there had to have been something else going on—it was such a big issue during the pandemic (and clearly this was happening during the pandemic), there is a mixed-race team, and yet it wasn’t touched on at all.
Dani: I think it was a HUGE mistake to leave out the political climate, especially the BLM protests given (1) where the show takes place and (2) some of the most glorified Cheer team members are Black.
Black representation during Season 2 touched on important political issues without naming them. For example, Jerry Harris’ trial. Harris was accused and later convicted of child sex offenses. La’Darius Marshall, a Black and openly gay cheerleader grew up with a mother that was imprisoned for most of his childhood. In Season 2 La’Darius was depicted as lashing out against Navarro’s head coach Monica and came across as ungrateful and angry.
Then, there was Vontae Johnson, the new Trinity College “underdog” coach who was up against Coach Monica, the famous (and well-resourced) and beloved Navarro Coach. Television makes intentional choices on how people are represented, whether documentary or fictional. What was happening in Corsicana, Texas during BLM? What statements did Monica as an important advocate for her team say? The silence around this felt awkward to me and a missed opportunity to go deeper.
How do you think Jerry’s childhood impacted his choices as a college student?
Disclaimer: We have decided to ask ourselves some difficult, uncomfortable questions, as part of our own learning process. We would like to let you know that by asking ourselves hard questions, we are NOT condoning pedophilia. This in-depth article written by Rachel Aviv in The New Yorker does an excellent job of navigating the gray spaces of child sex offenders.
Julie: Jerry, a former Navarro cheerleader plead guilty to federal child sex offenses and is facing a 50-year sentence in prison. He was charged by the FBI with receiving child pornography and traveling in the attempt to engage in sexual conduct with a minor. As a therapist, it’s nearly impossible for me to view Jerry’s choices outside of a trauma-informed lens. I think the show did a really poor job acknowledging this.
Harris grew up in Illinois and when he was 16, his mother died from lung cancer. Harris was bullied as a child and lived in extreme poverty—his mother passed away next to him on their shared motel bed. Researching the case a bit, it seems his lawyers tried to address this in court—the lack of mental health resources and support to process his mother’s passing and relentless bullying—but the show failed to show the nuances of the case.
In Season 1, they talked about him being adopted and how that played out within his sense of community and family on Navarro Cheer. Unfortunately, that was left out of this season. He was villainized and his behavior was viewed as 100% wrong. I’m not saying that I condone pedophilia in any way, or think that it was the right choice, but I think the show did a poor job of talking about rehabilitation or other options for why people make decisions like that. Instead, they just showed him as a bad person that ended up in a jail cell.
Stuart Heritage addressed the intensity and incongruency of the coverage of Jerry in a recent Guardian article, “Weird, unbalanced, curdled television’: how Netflix’s Cheer was ruined.”
“In viewing terms, the episode wildly unbalances the season. By not dealing with Jerry Harris upfront, you feel as though Cheer wants to spend four hours ignoring the elephant in the room. And then, once it’s done, diving straight back into the trivial world of cheerleading can’t help but feel crass.”
This was also during the Black Lives Matter protest of 2020, which as we mentioned, was left out of the show. Instead, we as the viewer only saw a young Black male in prison as the solution to a complex problem. While I certainly don’t believe Jerry should be able to sexually assault a child in public places (highlighted on the show) I also don’t believe he deserves to live behind bars for the next fifty years.
Dani: In general, I think we overlook that college students are still in the latter developmental years of adolescents—there are major changes still happening emotionally, cognitively, and physically. Just because legally they are considered “adults”, at 18-20 people are STILL transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. So when we are explaining someone’s behavior at that age, we really have to look at the backstory. In Season 1 the director’s highlighted Jerry’s backstory, which should have been part of the overall narrative in Season 2. Things like that do not happen in isolation.
I believe Jerry was still holding on to challenging childhood experiences behind his fun, energetic “mat-talks” ALL the while being gay and black in a small town in Texas. In Season 1, cheerleading was depicted as Jerry’s “safe space.” This leads me to the second part of my answer. As much as you are celebrated as a Cheer star when you are with your team, off the mat, what was his experience like being gay and Black in Corsicana, Texas? What parts of himself do you choose to hide?
How do gender norms impact the athletes?
Julie: Gender norms played a big part in the expectations of the athletes. The men had to be strong, and athletic; women had to be thin and pretty. I think in particular it impacted the women—they are phenomenal athletes and were also expected to be beautiful with perfect hair, skin, and outfits. The emphasis on outward appearance diminishes the warranted attention to their athleticism.
Dani: What was most palpable to me was the way in which the young women on the team exhausted their bodies physically to be very thin, “always smile,” have their hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, and wear heaps of makeup in the Texas or Florida heat. A clean, neat, unified look. The overt expectations on physical appearance felt transactional to me: to gain a sense of community and purpose in the cheer world, requires investing a huge mental and emotional toll. Mental health is a real challenge for athletes, now add the mental health burdens that arise from the gender norms and expectations to be a part of something.
Growing up in Texas in the late 90s and early 2000s peers of mine who were in cheer at a young age looked the exact same as Netflix’s cast. Time has stood still in the cheer world. Cheer as a sport sexualizes girls from a young age, which feels really inappropriate and icky to me.
Where are areas where you saw power dynamics play out?
Julie: When I think about power dynamics on the show, I also think about influence. There are clear structures of power differentials and the ability to influence others.
On a large scale, the teammates from Season 1 that gained social media influence also gained power. They have the ability to use their platforms to give themselves the power of financial freedom and influence others on important issues such as racial movements and gender dynamics as we’ve already discussed.
Dani: I saw various levels of power dynamics and how they were interconnected with one another. Especially if we think of power dynamics not only between people, but places, institutions, and groups become a player in power too. For example:
Navarro College vs. Trinity College: One school had all the fame and glory of the Netflix show, and increased revenue, which in some ways boosted their resources to be able to improve their capacity to practice for Daytona.
Monica vs. the athletes: The cheer athletes, many of whom we saw came from very adverse backgrounds, found in Monica a mother figure, and many times said they would do anything for her. She filled a void for many of them, which opens up the possibility of control and manipulation.
Corsicana, Texas vs. Monica: There are some costs of a small-town sense of community, that usually comes with a set of expectations and social control. The decisions that Monica made seemed to be closely scrutinized, and Monica had to live up to those expectations, year after year.
Cheer as an institution vs. athletes and their families: To become a competitive cheerleader requires a financial, mental, and emotional sacrifice of the athletes and their families. We saw some families that had real personal struggles and decided to carry a financial burden to make their way in the cheer world. Families, like Gabi Butler, made an entire business model based on this investment.
Conclusion
Cheer Season 2 left us with more questions than answers, living mostly in the grey. These complex, nuanced social paradigms are worth diving into, even if that leaves us wanting more. Click below to download your own Cheer Season 2 discussion guide!