Cheerleaders are often portrayed as bullies, but Netflix's Cheer gives them the docuseries they've long deserved

The Washington Post

"Television hasn’t been especially kind to cheerleaders, usually portraying them as bullies, beyotches and brazen killers," says Hank Stuever. "The worst of it is always somehow loosely based on a true-crime tale, often originating somewhere in Texas. How long must these beautiful and popular people endure the effects of stereotype? And could the sympathy violins get any tinier? This is where director Greg Whiteley’s fascinating — and often surprisingly moving — documentary series Cheer (now streaming on Netflix) tries to meet us: right at the line between cliche and reality, as he and his cameras follow a season in the life of the scrappy but consistently winning cheer program at Navarro, a 9,000-student community college in Corsicana, Tex., about 50 miles south of Dallas." Stuever adds: "There’s a depressing insularity to it — a very specific bubble of determination within the larger, protectively impermeable bubble that is Texas itself. Cheer is tasked with giving us a brief yet jaw-dropping primer on cheer, both as a loosely affiliated collegiate sport and as a billion-dollar industry. We also learn of its daunting reputation for injury — twisted ankles, broken bones, bruised ribs, concussions and worse. More hurtful, perhaps, is the final heartbreak: After the team members graduate, there’s nowhere to go, nothing left to cheer for." ALSO: Watching Cheer will break you down, then build you back up.