The Ultimate Performance

“Gender is not something that one is, it is something one does, an act, a ‘doing’ rather than a ‘being.”

- Judith Butler

Christophe Casiño’s hair was a mess. I could see it, even from the stands. Every thick, jet black strand was pushed in a different direction. 

The girls had full faces of makeup and impeccably styled hair. When they appeared on screen, they’d flash a pearly white smile at the crowd. Noah Roberson had not only done a full face, but also kept announcing on the elevator ride down to the hotel lobby that he needed more mascara. 

Noah and Christophe stood across from each other on the court. They tossed their blue and gold pom-poms to the side and hoisted a flyer into the air. The Jumbotron shifted from one of the many segments on school spirit and basketball records to the flyer as she stood, beaming. The cameraman panned down and for a mere second, I caught a glimpse of Noah’s muscular biceps and Christophe’s wild hair. 

Then, the Jumbotron shifted once again. This time, the camera panned over the crowd. For the rest of the game, the cheerleaders would come onscreen during free throws or timeouts, in different combinations, performing different stunts. But the camera never lingered on Noah or Christophe for longer than three seconds. 

***

The day before, I met with Christophe and Noah in my hotel room. They had dressed down from that morning’s game. GW had won in a tense victory against Fordham.

Noah wore a tie dye shirt and jeans. He had washed the mascara and blush from his face. Christophe’s hair was, as signature, unruly. He had changed into bone-white sweats and a paper-white t-shirt with a racecar graphic. 

After exchanging pleasantries, we settled in the hallway of my hotel room. Christophe stood against the wall and Noah and I across from him, closer to the microwave. 

To break the ice, I asked them when they started doing cheer. Both Noah and Christophe joined cheer in high school, at the insistence of their friends. Unlike the girls, who I had talked to the night before, neither had previous cheer or gymnastics experience although both had played other sports. 

“The reason I got in is because they were in such desperate need of boys specifically, so I was like, ‘alright, why not?’” Christophe said. 

They explained to me that in cheer, men are in high demand because of their strength. They’re often bases, or the people who support the flyers and toss them in the air. There was another boy on Christophe’s team, but he was smaller and a flyer. 

I then asked them about the experience of trying out at GW. When Noah tried out, one of the girls on the team told him to say yes to everything the coaches asked him, even if he didn’t know what they were asking of him.

“We’re always so nice to the boys at tryouts.” Noah told me. He mentioned they were currently trying to convince one of the girls’ boyfriend’s roommate, who had cheered in high school, to join.

“Why didn’t he want to?” I asked. 

“I don’t know,” Noah’s grin turned sheepish, “I think he didn’t want people to think he was gay.” 

Despite this, Noah noted that this year they’d had the most men who had shown interest in cheer. Out of all four, however, only two chose to join the team. Noah explained that men usually leave the team or drop out of tryouts due to the time commitment interfering with their academics or professional lives. 

There was one time, however, when a guy who was barely proficient in the sport showed up to the open practices. 

Noah giggled as he recounted, “He was having so much trouble with the actual, physical jump.” 

Noah insisted that the guy would have made the team, regardless. When I asked him what the standard was for guys to join, the answer I got was “nothing.”

***

A couple of months later, I was going over my notes and I read what Christophe and Noah had said about tryouts. I was curious what the experience was like for a woman, so I texted Gabrianna Berry, or Gabbie for short, about her experience trying out for GW Cheer

. 

“Kinda depends on what part you’re talking about.” She responded. 

She explained that the trying out process was a long one that required time to prepare and a lot of waiting. Prospective cheerleaders are judged on their presentation, as in their appearance and confidence, and their abilities in five different skills: jumps, cheers, the fight song, tumbling, and stunts. 

“For me tryouts weren’t really hard like difficulty wise, but they were really stressful, which made it hard to perform.” She clarified. 

I sent back a question, “Do you know how many girls usually don’t make the cut?”

I knew from previous conversations with the team, around 35-45 people tried out every year. A few moments later, my phone dinged.

“Usually around twenty to thirty, but it depends on how many people tryout.” She sent. 

“Wow, that’s a lot.” I typed out. 

I almost sent it, but I reread the words. Then I did so once again. I pressed the backspace button on my keyboard. 

Obviously. 

***

When I think back to the hotel room now, the conversation had already moved on. Noah and Christophe had started talking about that day’s game and what GW could have done better. 

“Their freethrow average is so bad.” Noah said, in a way that was reminiscent of my coworkers who become glued to their phones during every Celtics game. 

“We definitely could have lost if they missed a couple more free throws.” Christophe blurted out. 

“I’m actually glad we won.”

“You know, I do want us to stay longer and I do want us to play against the first seed. That would be so entertaining!” 

Noah smirked, then added, “And also, if we do win tomorrow, Christophe is doing a full face.” 

“Yeah, that’s true.” Christophe’s mouth hung open slightly.

“Yeah, he’s put a lot of stake in this game.” Noah teased.

“Do you ever do a full face?” I asked Christophe.

“I don’t think I’ve ever worn makeup. I’ve had my friends do it, like twice.” Christophe responded, shyly. 

“I said mascara for the club.” Noah inflected his voice as if he was filming a tutorial for his Instagram account. 

“Nah, nah…” Christophe muttered. 

“I could give you gay eyeliner and then we could go to a gay club.” Noah proposed. 

“I- I like my eyelashes!” Christophe stammered, eyes wide. 

Noah eventually bartered him down to black or brown eyeliner after a minute or so of convincing. 

“I’d like, make it messy. And then you’d give a little rockstar.” Noah assured Christophe. 

“Make it messy?!” Christophe yelped. 

“I was gonna give you the tightline that I do. Like the glitter I do under my eye, but just in black.” 

“I don’t know what this would look like, like I can’t-“

“But we can see it.” Noah turned to me; I didn’t say anything. 

“I actually have to have it happen to me first.” Christophe said. 

“I could do a brown and make it more normal, like natural.” Noah offered. 

“Brown’s a little softer.” I noted.

“Brown? A dark brown? Are you seeing the vision?” Noah asked.  

Christophe shook his head and leaned against the wall.

“I’m trying to, but it’s not clicking yet,” Christophe admitted. 

***

I had interviewed Gabbie about a month later. I met her in the University Student Center after she picked up some food from an on-campus restaurant. We ended up in an empty amphitheater, sitting at a table behind the dimly lit rows of black seats. The stage, despite being empty and quite far from where we sat, it loomed over us as we spoke. 

“How do you feel about broader cultural stereotypes regarding cheerleaders?” I asked Gabbie. 

Gabbie answered almost every question immediately. At some point, she told me she had taken a gender studies class. 

“The broader stereotypes are really just about cheerleaders being ditzy and popular and all very attractive and only caring about their looks. It is not accurate, I will say.” She answered. 

One of the biggest strengths of GW Cheer that all the cheerleaders touted was the lack of a clique. Everyone comes from different social circles and backgrounds. The team still hangs out, but they don’t shut themselves off from the rest of campus. 

When we were talking about the perceptions of women on the team versus the perceptions of men on the team, there were three major ones Gabbie pointed out. First, there’s more pressure on women to “present” themselves. 

“Being a girl on the team, we're told that, like, our facial expressions need to be seen on the other side of the court.” 

Gabbie mentioned that in previous years, the coaches had required all the women to apply a red lip and wear fake lashes, but rolled it back after many complaints. Still, the women are expected to style their hair and apply a lot of make up.

Gabbie picked up the pacing of her words, “But there's really no guidelines for the guys, even though they also need to be seen from the other side of the court. So maybe they should put on some foundation or eyeliner, but who knows?”

“I think our coach prefers if their hair looks nice. We’ve made fun of Christophe for that because sometimes he shows up and his hair is spiky. We’re like come on, man, we’re cheerleaders.” 

When I told Gabbie I was including Christophe’s hair as a detail in my article, she briefly continued her rant, before stopping.

“Sorry, no, it’s silly.” She apologized. 

“Why do you feel like that’s silly?” I asked her. 

“It feels like I'm getting a little bit annoyed over a small thing. The deeper reason is I spent, like, an hour and a half making myself look ready for cheer. And if you can't do the littlest thing, which is the only thing that you're required to do, which is have your hair look nice, then why? You know?” 

She acknowledged that Juan, another man on the team, styles his hair for every game as expected. She also brought up Noah, who styles his hair, but also does a full face before every game. 

“It just makes it makes it a lot more fun because you're like, oh, he's doing it too, and he looks cute on game day.” She smiled.

I recalled Noah’s makeup the day I’d watched him and Christophe on the big screen. He wore silver eyeshadow, a copious amount of blush, and according to him, not nearly enough mascara. Christophe, meanwhile, was timid at the thought of brown eyeliner. 

Gabbie also pointed out that the men on the team often don’t have the correct technique as bases. 

“As a base, I've noticed that the guys tend to be treated as the default and the strongest without having the strongest technique.” Gabbie remarked. 

She recounted a time that she and two other girls were replaced by the three guys on the team for a stunt. Initially, the coaches explained that they were going to “upgrade the stunt” but they never upgraded the stunt. It took the guys longer to figure out the stunt and even after they learned it, they continued to use the wrong grip. 

“Because they have the extra muscle mass to begin with, they don’t think too much about how we have to work so much harder for the technique and it might, like, technically be better when we do it.” She explained. 

The last difference in perception between men and women on the team Gabbie told me about was paradoxically, also a similarity. 

“Everyone I know assumes all female cheerleaders are straight and all male cheerleaders are gay. Yeah, we do have a majority of straight women and gay men, but there’s several of us who are bi or queer women. So, not quite accurate.” 

Gabbie herself identifies as a queer woman. However, since she’s started cheering, she’s had more men ask her out, especially the ones who’ve seen her in her uniform like members of the school band, the Foghorns, and even some of the basketball players. 

A bit further in the conversation, she brought up Christophe, who’s also bisexual. One time, she overheard some of the girls say something along the lines of: 

“Oh, well, it's only a matter of time till he, like, tries to hit on one of us because he’s touching girl’s butts all day. I’m also attracted to women and doing the same thing all day. So, I’m like, do you feel that way about me secretly or is it just like a guy thing?” Gabbie asked. 

She paused for a moment, one of the few and only pauses she took during the interview. I looked into her eyes. I’d seen that same look in Christophe’s eyes when Noah had pestered him about the makeup. 

Gabbie then resumed and continued at the same fast pace. When it was over, we walked down to the food court, where the exit was. 

“I’ll see you. Thank you for letting me interview you.” I said.

However, Gabbie had started walking away halfway through my sentence.
“Bye,” She darted out of the food court and out of the double doors.

All I could do was watch.