Ready, okay!

I hate cheerleaders. It’s not my fault, but the result of coming of age in the era of Grrrrl power and alternative vision that was the 90’s. Throughout my childhood, I was taught (as a brunette, I was NEVER going to be a cheerleader, regardless of athletic ability or personality) to despise those pep-monsters and expect them to be hateful blonde happy peppy bitches who lacked both empathy and split ends.

Of course, as I grew older (and stopped shopping at Hot Topic, thank God) I realized that cheerleaders can be nice, normal well adjusted people who probably foster no ill will towards me simply because of the color of my hair. However, while watching Buffy I was reminded of the cultural phenomenon that is cheerleader hatred.

In Living Conditions, Buffy (despite her flowing blonde locks) does not fill the cheerleader stereotype. Buffy is more my type of girl: a little snarky, a little messy and good at holding onto a grudge. Kathy, the OCD demon with a predilection for Cher, evolves into the cheerleader stereotype that we as generation have been told to hate. The qualities Kathy possess, however, are merely exaggerated values we have been programmed to strive for since childhood. She’s happy, idealistic (“We’re like sisters, right Buffy?” Adorable) and neat to a fault. Yet somehow I identify with Buffy, the bad roommate who leaves her gum on the table and hides creepy bags of crossbows in the closet. It’s easier to hate a person who possesses the qualities we admire but lack. Isn’t that why everyone hates the cheerleader?

This cheerleader/Kathy hatred seems to be the inversion of Gothic stereotypes we see in Carmilla. Laura is kind, blonde, and beautiful and we are expected to accept retelling of the story because she is the embodiment of Aryan values. When Carmilla exhibits passion and fits of anger, we tsk at her poor behavior and praise poor Laura for being so understanding. Yet Carmilla’s behavior is merely the actions of a (albeit undead) vampire teenager getting some angst out. Isn’t that normal behavior? I know I sure had my fair share of temper tantrums back in the day.

In Living Conditions, it seems Joss Whedon is preying on our mistrust of perfection and happiness in order to create a gothic drama. But in doing so, he is using a creation of the 20^th century—the proven phenomenon of cheerleader hatred—to make the gothic storyline ring true to the modern audience.

No cheerleaders were harmed in the making of this blog post.