INTRODUCTION
It seems probable that the broad consensus regarding the figure of the cheerleader is one of exaggerated femininity and this is possibly in large part explained by the predominant representation of the cheerleader in popular American culture. The cheerleader is, as a cultural icon, laden with loaded fantasies and contradictory beliefs about her character. As Mary Ellen Hanson writes in her book Go! Fight! Win!, the cheerleader is ”an instantly recognized symbol of youthful prestige, wholesome attractiveness, peer leadership, and popularity”. Yet, simultaneously, she stands for ”mindless enthusiasm, shallow boosterism, objectified sexuality, and promiscuous availability” (2). What might not be familiar to the majority is the fact that the fist cheerleader was male. The phenomenon originated in American colleges in the nineteenth century and by the 1920s the cheerleader was an undisputed presence, considered the peak of masculinity and athletic excellence (3, 9). To be appointed cheerleader was considered to be a great privilege as well as responsibility seeing that ”[the] heroic image of the male cheerleader stressed aesthetics as well as skill” (3, 13).
When the cheerleader became feminized, this attitude changed. Her worth was minimized, she was not seen as truly capable, and isolated body parts were accentuated to downplay her craft and accentuate her sexuality. The feminization of cheerleading did not entail a change in its form or function, but rather how that role was perceived. As Hanson affirms, this difference in attitude conveys how America, and the West in general, views gender. She elucidates her claim by continuing with the statement that from being considered an elite activity for males only in the 1920s, in the 1970s cheerleading was ”prevalent in public schools at all socioeconomic levels and it was done primarily by females.” This lead to cheerleading being seen as an activity devoid of true merit (3).
The sexualisation of cheerleaders as an accepted concept is deeply connected to the professionalization of the same. This correlation, as Hanson clarifies, can be explained by the fact that ”[the] development of professional cheerleading was shaped by the mass entertainment and promotional demands of professional sport”. That is to say that in order to maximize the entertainment value and marketability of professional sport in the United States, the use of the sexualized cheerleader was clearly successful. Regarding this highly deliberate way of utilizing and commodifying the cheerleader's perceived overt sexuality, “team management” had to be very careful not to overstep the line between respectable and 'improper' sexual expression (49). To a great extent, this conflict between hypersexualization and ”appropriate” sexuality is what the cultural image of the cheerleader hinges on. At this fundamental junction of the two opposites and how they relate to each other is where the contemporary archetype of the cheerleader issues from.
Starting in the 1990s, the situation for the cheerleader and the perception of her achievements began to change and is now quite complex. The professional cheerleader, who performs at professional games and is more an entertainer than anything else, is, as Hanson explains, ”feminized and eroticized, and, therefore, devalued.” School and college cheerleading, on the other hand, is ”coeducational and has become increasingly athletic and competitive”. Such attributes are as a rule respected in our society (3). This actuality, along with the observation made above, is the starting point for the discussion about the cheerleader as an icon and a symbol for gender restrictions enforced on women.
Dare Me by Megan Abbott is essentially a novel about girlhood, about how gender roles and norms influence and construct limitations upon women. This fact is emphasized by the figure of the cheerleader, as she as a symbol, contains attributes for both ”good” and ”bad” femininity. The novel explores the trivialization and sexualization that is attached to the cultural figure of the cheerleader and seeks to confront the contemporary image of superficiality and promiscuity (Hanson, 2). This essay aspires to determine what function cheerleading has in Dare Me. In essence, is it a liberating and subversive force or does it perpetuate and enforce gender roles?
In order to properly analyse this charged symbol in relation to Dare Me this essay will presuppose theories about gender posed by various feminist thinkers. Firstly, it is generally agreed that Western patriarchy heavily relies on the assumption that humans are biologically divided into two groups, that is, a binary; male and female. It is also believed that this ”fact” is indisputable, that nothing exists between 'male' and 'female' and that this binary demonstrates itself through genitals. Furthermore, it is claimed that this perceived binary extends itself to gender and gender roles. These terms are applied to, among other things, the behaviour and characteristics that in our society are considered appropriate for men and women respectively. These traits are specifically connected to sex and/or gender. Additionally, these attributes are graded in a hierarchy where those that are coded as masculine are considered superior in Western society. Aspects of these theories will be discussed in this essay in connection to the analysis of the function of cheerleading and the cheerleader in Dare Me.
Sport in Culture
In order to understand the nature of cheerleading, as a sport, and its effects on the girls in the novel, one must first understand how sport in general has bearing on human life and interaction. To do so one can examine how it is written about in fiction, and how it is perceived in different cultures. When one first considers the blanket term “sport”, it might not seem that the concept necessitates much explaining, appearing to be a simple enterprise with no depth or significance beyond the realm of the particular sport in question. Provided that one looks a little bit further, this kind of statement requires some adjustment. In fact, the phenomenon of sport can provide a relevant and beneficial setting for a discussion about human existence. The function of sport in society has been, with some differences, quite uniform throughout the world since its inception. It has almost invariably attempted to answer the same questions concerning human existence. In her book Sport as Symbol, Mari Womack articulates how sports in a particular society, figuratively, can
express complex ideas dramatically and succinctly. They engage private emotions in the service of public expressions of values. They have an effective way to communicate social values because they reason from the simple to the complex and from the known to the unknown. (6)
The sport symbol encompasses the playing area, the ordinary life, the surpassing of the same and the “continual conceptual flow” between all of the above. These instances of life are adjoined and feed each other in the symbolic space and language of sports. As Womack claims: “In the multivocal language of symbols, the “game” takes place on several levels at once” (6-7). In other words, in the state of competition, the commonplace and the spiritual exist together and communicate with each other.
Sport, as we know it today, may have developed from a ritualized form of warfare. As such, it stands as a symbol for bravery, conflict, male sexuality and spiritual endeavour (6). Womack states that “sport reflects society” (10). However, regarded as a subclass of “play”, that is, a make believe version of culture, sport is ultimately divorced from reality. The athletes play at society, its structures and conflicts. The performance of sport assures that while you examine your culture, its societal values can still be maintained. The athletic endeavour is the perfect setting for contest between opponents “without threatening the social fabric.” However, whereas other modes of play may be impulsive, and instinctive, sport is a slightly different animal. It is a more formal arrangement, it is determined by rules that need to the obeyed in order to make the principle of sport functioning. As Womack observes: “There is a hierarchy in sports just as there is a hierarchy in contemporary society” (10).
As a formalised kind of battle, sport can thus be defined as war without weapons, as “conflict resolution” that does not end in death (122). Hence, “in the drama of sports”, it is possible to enact the issues and conflicts of the human condition in a safe space (226). The darker facets of life confronted in the sporting arena have historically served as vast inspiration for artists, poets and writers (25). As Don Johnson writes in his book on sport poems The Sporting Muse:
The earliest sport “literature” most certainly was poetry, whether in the form of tribal victory chants intoned around a camp fire, or pre-homeric narratives of commemorative games and races declaimed at public forums. The recorded literature of antiquity is replete with celebratory odes, descriptive accounts of sporting contests, and satiric portraits of athletes”. (19)
Likewise, as Womack states, many ancient heroes such as the Celt Cú Chulainn, the Sumerian king Gilgamesh and the founder of Buddhism Siddhartha Gautama were skilled sportsmen (14). This certain kind of ability in connection to heroic narratives is used to convey favourable attributes, to establish the hero's virtue and strength, both physical and moral (15). Modern history is similarly affected by sporting events and its participants. In the U.S. in particular, sport plays a very important role, both in every day life and in art. According to Christian K. Messenger, the “sports world is the American environment” (Sport and the Spirit of Play, 1). American authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Norman Mailer, John Updike and Don DeLillo have all dealt with how sport influences our lives (2). This more current sport hero nevertheless has to tackle the same issues concerning challenging his bodily limits and the authority of society. The protagonist in these narratives has to apply his abilities within prescribed rules to measure his own individual person against a sameness that he also wants to be merged with (8, 15, 30).
However, the sporting narrative likewise conveys another story, where the struggle instead becomes about the longing for transcendence and immortality. This enterprise is, in fact, according to Messenger and Womack, what sport is about, at heart. About how matter, that is the body, in the physical struggle of sports, transforms into divine energy (Messenger, 25). It is about spirituality, about the human soul and how the body and mind long to surpass death. Womack illustrates this phenomenon with the history of Jesus Christ and the legend of Icarus. Both these stories of the self/soul trying to conquer the material existence describe the feat of going past the constraints of time and space to master the natural world. To do so one must first be able to command oneself, one's own body (Womack, 159). In sport the aim is similar: the athlete must, in order to enhance his ability and perfect his art, strive to challenge and exceed his bodily limits. The corporeal and the spiritual world are always connected, but perhaps most sharply in sport.
This belief has been, as stated above, common in ideas about what sport signifies probably since its birth. As Guttman writes in his book The Erotics in Sports, it is disputed whether Greek sport evolved from hunting rituals but what is certain is that sacred rituals was essential to the athletic games of the archaic, classical, and Hellenistic epochs (16). Additionally, in ” the earliest literary representation of Greek athletics”, that is, ”the funeral games for the slain Patroclus in Book XXIII of Homer's Iliad”, sport and religious beliefs are associated with war. Guttman explains that ”[for] the Greeks, the warrior's role and the athlete's were necessarily related because both required considerable physical prowess.” Furthermore, the merging of soldiers and athletes in Greek culture warranted that masculinity was affiliated with ”active physicality” (17). Just like the ancient hero and the modern sportsman, the archaic athlete contained more than himself, he embodied values, norms and societal doctrines.
Sport is deeply connected to the human condition and all its elements, both high and low, vulgar and divine. Once one begins to articulate these ideas about sport, one comes to realise that it can reveal our flaws, our aspirations and tell us something about the darkness within us and the wish for light. Sport contains many things and can crystallize the enigmatic dimensions of human existence.
Cheerleading
As stated in the introduction, cheerleading has often been perceived as a pastime associated with superficiality, lacking any real competition or achievement. The worth of the cheerleader, according to this belief, lies in her support of and loyalty to the male athletes, in her commitment to the game (Guice Adams, Bettis, 10). She encourages, she is a supporter. She inspires but is always secondary to the male athlete (66). The function as booster is fundamentally, as Hanson confirms, therefore a feminine one (96). Nevertheless, cheerleading has recently been reported as one of the most physically challenging and dangerous sports and is nowadays less about being an accessory and supporting a team, and more about serious athletic competition and achievement (Hanson, 5). This reveals the actuality of cheerleading's own intrinsic value, regardless of the male athletes and their potential success or failure. Cheerleading has developed into a contest, and in a sense, does no longer occupy the position of the ”spirit booster and supporter of the athletes” (Guice Adams, Bettis, 66).
These two sets of differentiating perspectives – the cheerleader as supporter or independent agent – and how they clash, are crucial when it comes to the widespread image of the cheerleader. Dare Me deals with exactly this conflict between these viewpoints. The following extract crystallizes a reoccurring discussion in the novel: the contrariety between the exterior and the interior, or rather; the mask as opposed to the “essence” of a the cheerleader persona. Abbott presents the classic perception of cheerleaders: “girls frolicking in locker rooms, pom-poms sprawling over bare bud breasts” and immediately shows the disparity between those images and reality: “Mostly, it's hard, it's sweaty, it's the roughness of bruised and dented girl bodies … elbows skinned red” (4). This demonstrates the contrast between the popular understanding and the more factual experience of the cheerleader: the hard training, the broken bones. The prevalent sexualized image of a submissive girl is framed in stark contrast to the aggressive counter part who is fearless in all her endeavours.