Backspot (2024), by D.W. Waterson
Cheerleading is a thing that practically doesn’t exist in the place I come from. That’s why watching movies about the theme feels like exploring a new culture to me — but not an exotic culture, as movies and cartoons about it are commonplace in my life since childhood. I enjoyed Diane Keaton’s turn as an elder cheerleader in her movie “Poms”, from 2019, and recently another film about the hardships in the life of a cheerleader caught my attention: the indie “Backspot”.
Riley (Devery Jacobs) is a cheeleader who has just been accepted in an elite squad. Not only her: her girlfriend Amanda (Kudakwashe Rutendo) and their mutual friend Rachel (Noa DiBerto) were also selected from the local group of cheerleaders. The girls now will start training under the new coaches Devon (Thomas Antony Olajide) and Eileen McNamara (Evan Rachel Wood). Riley first idolizes Eileen, and then has to deal with her way of always pushing the cheerleaders to their limits. Riley, who plucks her eyebrows when she’s anxious, will start having panic attacks and arguing with Amanda over the practice.
Eileen is a strict coach, but not evil. Sure, she reminds the girls that all of them are replaceable, but sometimes there is the need for someone to tell the ugly truth. Riley defends the coach when Amanda criticizes her and seems to idolize and even understand Eileen, but their relationship of mentor / mentee is a rocky one.
Riley’s position in the squad is that of a backspot. In cheerleading, a backspot is someone who is the leader of the group, responsible for catching the flyer’s head and for adjusting the choreography. Another coveted position in cheerleading is of the “center-fly” — a position that Amanda refuses because it’s too risky, and she can’t hurt herself because she has a side job at a movie theater.
Bleeding feet and blisters — just like the ones the ballerinas have — are also part of the routine for the cheerleaders. There is also vomit and bruises all over the body. Because of this, “Backspot” reminded me of another sports’ movie in which the characters go extreme ways to excel: “The Novice”. In my review of “The Novice” I compared it to “Whiplash”, and the same can be done to “Backspot”: Evan Rachel Wood’s character in the movie is somewhat similar to J.K. Simmons’s in the Damien Chazelle movie.
Eileen is described by the girls as “your middle-aged lesbian coach”, although not in a pejorative way. She says that Riley can’t demonstrate fear because the world is not easy “for people like us”. Does she mean “us women” or “us lesbians”? Both, unfortunately, would be correct interpretations.
The secret to have effective queer representation on screen is to have queer people behind the screen. Director D.W. Waterson, a non-binary filmmaker whose preferred pronouns are they/them, wrote the story the movie is based on and also edited the film, that is her feature directorial debut. As executive producer we have Elliott Page, under his production company Pageboy Productions.
In a scene, a character says that cheerleading was invented to keep women out of “real sports”. The movie is different from the others about the same subject because it treats cheerleading as a real sport — that’s why the comparison with “The Novice” makes sense… if cheerleading was treated here as an art the comparison could be made with “Black Swam” (2010). Back to the case brought by the aforementioned character: cheerleading started as a male-dominated sport in the 1900s and was only “invaded” by females during World War II. Today, according to Statista, only 3% of high school cheerleaders are male, and the sport is not old-fashioned, but the stereotype surrounding it certainly is.
Although with an uneven pace, “Backspot” is one of these rare but rewarding films that lacks a villain and the story does not suffer from it. The conflict is there, and it acknowledges that, for teenagers, “conflict” may be smaller and with darker consequences than it is for adults. Above all, it shows the glitter and glamour of cheerleading while also saying that a lot of effort is used to make the choreography look easy so we can enjoy it.
