“Cheer” sheds light behind the scenes
The Netflix documentary series, Cheer, released their second season on Jan. 12, 2022, as its success sheds light on how fame and COVID-19 affected Navarro College and Trinity Valley Community College (TVCC).
Leaving off from last season, Navarro won the Daytona 2019 NCA competition against their rivals TVCC. Now beginning the second season, both Navarro and TVCC are preparing for Daytona 2020. They were practicing in extreme measures to hit 51 full outs as they were going for their 15th consecutive win at Daytona. News spreads as warnings for COVID-19 flood the press but members of both teams express no concern as Daytona is just weeks away. Having this giant aspect and chain of events unravel due to the uprising Pandemic, I believe helped the audience connect with the show as everyone nationwide experienced the same hardships that you could see them battling.
Then, to the teams’ devastation, Daytona 2020 was shut down and Navarro College and TVCC released news of their school year moving online. From that point, the show paused and started filming again once Navarro and TVCC schools opened up and cheer was allowed to practice to prepare for Daytona 2021.
One of the past members on the Navarro team, Jerry Harris, was seen as the personality of the team from last season. But, to the audiences’ surprise, not everything in the show is as transparent as viewers expected. Two boys spoke up with sexual assualt allegations against Harris and he was put under FBI investigation and found guilty. Many more boys were experiencing the same situation with Harris all within the younger cheer community. This case opened up more investigation for sexual assault within the cheer community that had previously not been looked into. To the investigators’ surprise, many cases that had never been opened were able to come forward to get justice.
This season, the show focused on covering many serious topics as many of the team members experience them. Many individuals on both teams were able to tell their stories of how their success brought them to where they are on the team which in many cases broke viewers’ hearts. The effects of all the hate that both the coaches and cheerleaders had been experiencing was highlighted which really showed the faults of internet fame. The impact of having this new concept in the show really fostered connections to members on the show as it felt like you were having a conversation with them. With people being more transparent, you see a more human side of them which really pulled me into this season.
Going into Daytona 2021, with lots of practice both Navarro and TVCC felt completely prepared. On the first day of competition, Navarro hit a zero deduction routine and TVCC had a deduction due to a tumbler not landing a skill and a stunt falling. Now going into the second day, both teams were positive they would succeed, as their raw scores were not far off despite TVCC’s deduction.
On the second day, TVCC hit a zero deduction routine and Navarro had one stunt not hit. Heading into awards both teams were on edge as it could go either way but the team who came out on top, shocked the entire audience.
Overall this season really pulled me in and I thought it was actually better than the first season. I genuinely have nothing that I disliked or believed could change this season as the new concepts and perspectives that they added in became significant to the show now, for example the new rivalry shows between TVCC and Navarro College.
