The Cheer Reader: Inside an American Institution

"From its inception in 1869 as an all-male activity to its feminization in the 1950s, its sexualization in the 1970s, and the turn to competitive All-Star teams in the 1990s, cheerleading has evoked criticism and celebration. In that time, its popularity, cultural role, and respectability has waxed and waned, but in 2025 it is clearly a major player in world athletics, as the International Cheer Union boasts 114 nations and more than 7 million athletes as members, and cheer may even debut at the 2028 Summer Olympics. Cheer Matters collects 14 interdisciplinary essays on the subject that provide a nuanced, multifaceted look at the sport. These essays bring the perspectives of history, sociology, cultural studies, law, film and media studies, and critical sports studies to bear on cheer. They are broken into four sections; the first looks at gender and race in cheer, uncovering its role in civil rights movements, reflecting on masculinity in the sport's first century and now in mixed-gender competitions, and how identity impacts whether cheer is considered a sport. The next section focuses on other forms of cheer that are clearly not a sport, looking at the labor conditions of NBA and NFL cheerleaders, the standards of femininity highlighted by the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders' audition process, local queer cheer teams, and the satirical Radical Cheerleaders of the early 2000s. The third section looks at representations of cheerleaders in popular culture, such as queer cheerleaders in film and TV, how "cheerlebrities" build their audiences, and their association with eating disorders. The last section grapples with conflict in cheerleading, from a recent Supreme Court free speech ruling involving a high school cheerleader to the creation of the Varsity Sports empire and whether it holds a monopoly in the industry and governance of cheer. Together, these essays fulfill editor Natalie Adams's goal to "undo the simplicity with which cheerleading has been approached in popu