Film
British TV
US TV
In the US: Wednesdays, 9/8c, The CW
In the UK: Not yet acquired
It’s easy to stereotype cheerleaders. Take your pick: blonde Barbies? Bubble heads? Sluts in flesh-expositng outfits? Cliquey? Agents of patriarchy, doing nothing more than standing there and looking pretty while cheering on men? Nothing more than pom pom twirlers?
This is, of course, bollocks.
Apart from the fact that there are male cheerleaders, top-level cheerleading is an incredibly demanding athletic sport – it’s responsible for 2/3 of sports injuries among women at college and requires hours and hours of dedication, training and practice. As with football, its associated scholarships can also be the only way some American women (and men) can afford to go to college and it’s enabled people from the likes of Katie Couric and Meryl Streep through to supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and even Ronald Reagan to get to the upper echelons of society.
These and other stereotype crushing facts are what you’ll learn if you watch The CW’s new dramedy, Hellcats, based on Cheer: Inside the Secret World of College Cheerleaders by journalist Kate Torgovnick. Oh, and you’ll get to see lots of buff young men and women in skimpy outfits – including Ashley Tisdale from High School Musical! Woo!
Here’s the extended trailer:
Infernal office politics: don’t you just hate it?
You can, incidentally, get the whole of Big Train on DVD.
Film
Theatre
US TV
In the US: Thursdays, 9.30/8.30c, NBC
In the UK: Not yet acquired
We’re going to have to tread lightly here. So…
Outsourcing is a phenomenon which sees businesses transfer some of the things they do to other countries, most famously call centres. Someone has to run those call centres, and sometimes it’s a local, sometimes it’s someone sent over from the home country. One of the biggest countries for providing outsourcing services is India.
There. I made it through an entire paragraph without being too controversial. Because Outsourced, NBC’s new comedy show is a great big hot potato that sees an American company fire its call centre and blackmail the centre’s manager into going over to India to run the outsourced call centre. There he meets a motley collection of misfits as well as another American call centre manager who’s been there a few years and a cute Australian call centre manager he’d like to get to know better (Pippa Black from Neighbours).
Still not too controversial?
Well, let’s just say there are a few cultural clashes and a few stereotypes in the mix as well.
Cue the trailer:
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