TV shows we love: Cheer

Cheerleaders get a bad rep. According to Hollywood they’re all sex-crazed, pom-toting airheads on a killing spree – usually in the deep south. Cheer gives us the truth. And it is G-R-I-P-P-I-N-G!

A gritty, injury-laced cocktail of life as a competitive college cheerleader, this eight-part Netflix docuseries is a world away from the happy, clappy, psycho cheerleading movies.

Competitive cheerleading is Rough with a capital R. Nearly 70 per cent of catastrophic injuries to female athletes in high school or college occur due to cheerleading accidents. And as the series follows the Navarro team on their journey to the national championship competition in Daytona, we see why.

Single-minded ambition, hours of daily training, and total focus on the team result in injury after injury. At the command of team coach Monica Aldama we see lithe young women topple from the pyramid, cracking ribs, breaking ankles, and experiencing concussion, while bruise-coated young men stagger off to soak aching limbs and strained muscles in endless ice baths. And on the way we learn a little more about what makes these remarkable cheerleaders tick: the impoverishment, abuse, or neglect which has often brought the participants to Corsicana.

“Everything that we work for comes down to two minutes and 15 seconds,” says Monica, referring to the Daytona competition. “After that, there’s no professional cheer organisation to aspire to; there’s no career path.” Which makes you wonder why – given the lack of a future, constant agonies, and single goal – these young men and women do what they do?

Watch just 10 minutes (thrilling to the gravity-defying feats of athleticism, bonds of friendship, and reckless dreams of these young hopefuls) and you’ll have your answer. Cheer is a plunge into a breath-taking world beyond your wildest imaginings.