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By Lisa D. Welsh
www.CHEERMaD.com
Former "Toddlers and Tiaras" mom Alisha Dunlap owns the gym and runs the program on TLC's new reality show "Cheer Perfection."
Here we go again.
The screams and jeers you’ll hear in a few hours with the premiere of the first episode from the new full season of ”Cheer Perfection” will commence almost as soon as the show starts at 10 p.m. EST.
Everyone associated with a good Allstar program knows that the depiction of our beloved sport, and the moms who support it, as TLC shows the world is misleading. Those who don’t know better (the rest of the world outside of Allstars) will get their “Ah ha! I knew it” moment that everything bad they’ve heard about Allstars is true.
Today’s headline from New York Daily News already sets up the show to cream the cheer moms:
*Sis, boom, blah: TLC’s ‘Cheer Perfection’ is a sad look at the mental games adults play in their drive to get daughters to succeed
Cheerleading parents not an endearing bunch, but focus TV cares about in an effort to stir up drama
BY DAVID HINCKLEY / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Reviewers and professional television critics have dissed the new series already but even more disheartening was the reaction from the cheer world last summer after the one hour “pilot” of Cheer Perfection debuted. After reading the posts and Tweets, Amber Jensen, a CHEERMaD from the “Cheer Perfection” gym in Arkansas contacted me:
CHEERMaD Amber Jansen and her daughter Kaitlyn
Hi Lisa, I enjoy reading your blog and was compelled to write you after reading “The Real Cheer Perfection.” It disheartens me to read so many negative comments about these cheerleaders and their gym, especially when coming from other cheerleaders and their parents. I have read posts implying that these children are not hardworking or that all the parents at the gym are unsupportive, pushy, drama-seekers.
See, I am a very dedicated mom to a young cheerleader at this gym. I saw the show and was equally shocked at what some of these parents said and their behavior. It doesn’t necessarily represent all of us. We have been with CTR for many years – since my daughter was a Tiny – and the coaches have been very supportive. They have never pushed her beyond her limits and she knows they care. She just made flyer and couldn’t be happier.
Kaitlyn proudly wearing her WSA champion jacket
Our children work just as hard as everyone else and are equally dedicated. My daughter has had much hardship in the last few years with her daddy’s brain cancer and my ongoing battle with hereditary pancreatitis. Our neighborhood burned down two weeks ago. Yet I am in that gym every single week encouraging her to continue working hard and telling her “great job.” I do this because she loves the sport. We have many parents at CTR who are just as supportive.
I guess the show will focus on these particular moms who don’t mind being vilified in the media. I can’t help that. Sorry for rambling on about this, but I guess my point is that it’s okay to not like the show and “the cast,” but to trash the entire gym and its children is unfortunate. My daughter hears the insults and the negativity and I am ashamed at some of the comments coming from girls at other well-known and respected gyms. She wonders how other cheerleaders can be so cruel. Hopefully the show will go in a more positive direction and really show what our teams can do and a little less focus on the drama moms….but it is “reality” television, so probably unlikely.
It is hard to read all the negative stuff about our gym, since we have been part of it for so long and she has formed great relationships with these coaches and girls. I think I just needed to vent after reading the direct insults from other cheerleaders about our girls. Things like “Oh maybe next episode they will perfect the cart-wheel lol.” She saw that and began to question herself. Nobody wakes up a L5. They have to start with the basics and work their way up. We have various levels and great talent at our gym and I hope that future episodes demonstrate this.
I think perhaps people aren’t really understanding that this is what TLC wanted with the show. They focused on younger girls with a lower skill level so that kids who do not participate in cheer may think “hey I could do that” making it more relatable. It will show how the kids work their way up and advance their skills. It is of course heavily edited and we do have the scripted momma drama that took up most of the episode. Personally, I wish they had toned that way down.
Cheerleading has been one of the only steady constants in Kaitlyn’s life with her dad and I both in and out of hospitals the last several years. She knows she can count on the positive encouragement from the coaches and it gives her something healthy and rewarding to focus on.
Thanks again for your kind response.
Tonight, when the Tweeting begins remember it’s all for television.
MORE ON CHEER PERFECTION:
NEWSDAY Review from Dec. 17, 2012
SHOW ”Cheer Perfection”
WHEN | WHERE Wednesday night at 10 on TLC
WHAT IT’S ABOUT In the town of Sherwood, Ark., there’s an elite cheerleading team called “Youth Silver,” composed of young girls working hard to get an invite to a big national tournament. But enough about the girls — what about the commandant who leads them through their daily routines en route to glory?
She is Alisha Dunlap, who takes pride in perfection and is happy to bark at the kid who fails to achieve it.
And what about the cheerleader moms? You’ll get to know them very well, assuming you stick around for the eight episodes of this spinoff from a summer special. They are Bobbie and Ann and Michelle and Andrea and Mandy. They have a vested interest in their child’s success — primarily their own self-esteem.
MY SAY Ever since HBO‘s 1993 film “The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom,” cheerleader moms have gotten a very bad rap, whether they’re alleged murderers or not. List of presumed attributes: backbiting, pathologically ambitious, prone to disparaging children not their own . . . (and then there’s the really bad stuff).
Why is this so? Who knows, and if you really stop to think about it, who cares — other than TLC, which hopes it has found in this clattering catty courtside claque the perfect counterpart to mothers on hits such as “Toddlers & Tiaras” and “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.” (“Cheer Perfection,” by the way, shares parentage with both of those shows.) But what those two have in abundance, this one does not — notably a freak show aspect that makes viewers rub their eyes in disbelief while proudly declaiming that they would never do that to their own kid.
“Cheer Perfection” is numbing in its ordinariness — dull, trivial and never, ever outrageous. One kid’s mom doesn’t want another mom’s kid on the squad? How dare she! Zzzzz.
BOTTOM LINE The positively true adventures of Arkansas cheerleader moms who endlessly titter among themselves about the talents of their offspring while putting viewers to sleep.
GRADE C-
‘Cheer Perfection’ on TLC review: It’s ordinary
Originally published: December 17, 2012 5:36 PM
Updated: December 18, 2012 10:29 AM
By VERNE GAY [email protected]
*To read the whole New York Daily News review go to:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/jeering-cheer-perfection-article-1.1222964#ixzz2FXtoQ5ku
By Lisa D. Welsh
www.CHEERMaD.com
Former "Toddlers and Tiaras" mom Alisha Dunlap owns the gym and runs the program on TLC's new reality show "Cheer Perfection."
Here we go again.
The screams and jeers you’ll hear in a few hours with the premiere of the first episode from the new full season of ”Cheer Perfection” will commence almost as soon as the show starts at 10 p.m. EST.
Everyone associated with a good Allstar program knows that the depiction of our beloved sport, and the moms who support it, as TLC shows the world is misleading. Those who don’t know better (the rest of the world outside of Allstars) will get their “Ah ha! I knew it” moment that everything bad they’ve heard about Allstars is true.
Today’s headline from New York Daily News already sets up the show to cream the cheer moms:
*Sis, boom, blah: TLC’s ‘Cheer Perfection’ is a sad look at the mental games adults play in their drive to get daughters to succeed
Cheerleading parents not an endearing bunch, but focus TV cares about in an effort to stir up drama
BY DAVID HINCKLEY / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Reviewers and professional television critics have dissed the new series already but even more disheartening was the reaction from the cheer world last summer after the one hour “pilot” of Cheer Perfection debuted. After reading the posts and Tweets, Amber Jensen, a CHEERMaD from the “Cheer Perfection” gym in Arkansas contacted me:
CHEERMaD Amber Jansen and her daughter Kaitlyn
Hi Lisa, I enjoy reading your blog and was compelled to write you after reading “The Real Cheer Perfection.” It disheartens me to read so many negative comments about these cheerleaders and their gym, especially when coming from other cheerleaders and their parents. I have read posts implying that these children are not hardworking or that all the parents at the gym are unsupportive, pushy, drama-seekers.
See, I am a very dedicated mom to a young cheerleader at this gym. I saw the show and was equally shocked at what some of these parents said and their behavior. It doesn’t necessarily represent all of us. We have been with CTR for many years – since my daughter was a Tiny – and the coaches have been very supportive. They have never pushed her beyond her limits and she knows they care. She just made flyer and couldn’t be happier.
Kaitlyn proudly wearing her WSA champion jacket
Our children work just as hard as everyone else and are equally dedicated. My daughter has had much hardship in the last few years with her daddy’s brain cancer and my ongoing battle with hereditary pancreatitis. Our neighborhood burned down two weeks ago. Yet I am in that gym every single week encouraging her to continue working hard and telling her “great job.” I do this because she loves the sport. We have many parents at CTR who are just as supportive.
I guess the show will focus on these particular moms who don’t mind being vilified in the media. I can’t help that. Sorry for rambling on about this, but I guess my point is that it’s okay to not like the show and “the cast,” but to trash the entire gym and its children is unfortunate. My daughter hears the insults and the negativity and I am ashamed at some of the comments coming from girls at other well-known and respected gyms. She wonders how other cheerleaders can be so cruel. Hopefully the show will go in a more positive direction and really show what our teams can do and a little less focus on the drama moms….but it is “reality” television, so probably unlikely.
It is hard to read all the negative stuff about our gym, since we have been part of it for so long and she has formed great relationships with these coaches and girls. I think I just needed to vent after reading the direct insults from other cheerleaders about our girls. Things like “Oh maybe next episode they will perfect the cart-wheel lol.” She saw that and began to question herself. Nobody wakes up a L5. They have to start with the basics and work their way up. We have various levels and great talent at our gym and I hope that future episodes demonstrate this.I think perhaps people aren’t really understanding that this is what TLC wanted with the show. They focused on younger girls with a lower skill level so that kids who do not participate in cheer may think “hey I could do that” making it more relatable. It will show how the kids work their way up and advance their skills. It is of course heavily edited and we do have the scripted momma drama that took up most of the episode. Personally, I wish they had toned that way down.
Cheerleading has been one of the only steady constants in Kaitlyn’s life with her dad and I both in and out of hospitals the last several years. She knows she can count on the positive encouragement from the coaches and it gives her something healthy and rewarding to focus on.Thanks again for your kind response.
Tonight, when the Tweeting begins remember it’s all for television.
MORE ON CHEER PERFECTION:
NEWSDAY Review from Dec. 17, 2012
SHOW ”Cheer Perfection”
WHEN | WHERE Wednesday night at 10 on TLC
WHAT IT’S ABOUT In the town of Sherwood, Ark., there’s an elite cheerleading team called “Youth Silver,” composed of young girls working hard to get an invite to a big national tournament. But enough about the girls — what about the commandant who leads them through their daily routines en route to glory?
She is Alisha Dunlap, who takes pride in perfection and is happy to bark at the kid who fails to achieve it.
And what about the cheerleader moms? You’ll get to know them very well, assuming you stick around for the eight episodes of this spinoff from a summer special. They are Bobbie and Ann and Michelle and Andrea and Mandy. They have a vested interest in their child’s success — primarily their own self-esteem.
MY SAY Ever since HBO‘s 1993 film “The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom,” cheerleader moms have gotten a very bad rap, whether they’re alleged murderers or not. List of presumed attributes: backbiting, pathologically ambitious, prone to disparaging children not their own . . . (and then there’s the really bad stuff).
Why is this so? Who knows, and if you really stop to think about it, who cares — other than TLC, which hopes it has found in this clattering catty courtside claque the perfect counterpart to mothers on hits such as “Toddlers & Tiaras” and “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.” (“Cheer Perfection,” by the way, shares parentage with both of those shows.) But what those two have in abundance, this one does not — notably a freak show aspect that makes viewers rub their eyes in disbelief while proudly declaiming that they would never do that to their own kid.
“Cheer Perfection” is numbing in its ordinariness — dull, trivial and never, ever outrageous. One kid’s mom doesn’t want another mom’s kid on the squad? How dare she! Zzzzz.
BOTTOM LINE The positively true adventures of Arkansas cheerleader moms who endlessly titter among themselves about the talents of their offspring while putting viewers to sleep.
GRADE C-
‘Cheer Perfection’ on TLC review: It’s ordinary
Originally published: December 17, 2012 5:36 PM
Updated: December 18, 2012 10:29 AM
By VERNE GAY [email protected]
*To read the whole New York Daily News review go to:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/jeering-cheer-perfection-article-1.1222964#ixzz2FXtoQ5ku
