Tag: Cheerleader

Categories
Health

Cheerleader Movies Are Big Business for Lifetime


I realized five minutes into Lifetime‘s Identity Theft of a Cheerleader, which premiered September 7, that it was going to be a journey. Is the made-for-TV movie good? Not in the Oscar-bait sense, of course, but it is unquestionably enjoyable. Partially-based on a real-life story, it follows Vicky (Maiara Walsh), a 30-year-old woman who steals a teen’s identity in order to re-enter high school and become a cheerleader. Her motivation? To win the affection of her mother, a former cheerleader herself, who berated Vicky as a child for not following in her footsteps.

Vicky becomes obsessed with living out this cheerleader fantasy—so much so that she kills anyone who threatens to expose her secret. “My mother always said I lacked ambition,” Vicky says right before her first kill, her eyes wide and terrifying. “That was the old Vicky. I’m Caitlin now, and Caitlin makes mommy proud.”

Maiara Walsh in Identity Theft of a Cheerleader.

Courtesy of Lifetime

The scene is creepy, but in a campy, I-can’t-believe-this-is-actually-happening way. That’s how Identity Theft of a Cheerleader hooked me. It’s no secret that Lifetime’s bread and butter are movies like this: far-fetched, head-scratching plots with lies, murder, and sex sprinkled in. What is surprising: Movies about cheerleaders are particularly successful for the network.

“Any time we had movies with a cheerleader theme, they just worked,” says Meghan Hooper, Lifetime’s SVP of original movies, co-productions, and acquisitions. “They would out-deliver and outperform.”

So Lifetime is leaning in with a month-long stunt aptly called “Cheer, Rally, Kill.” It started on September 2 with The Secret Lives of Cheerleaders, in which a high school’s new girl takes on the maniacal head cheerleader. The aforementioned Identity Theft of a Cheerleader followed soon after. This coming weekend the stunt will end with The Cheerleader Escort (September 14), about—you guessed it—a college cheerleader who moonlights as an escort, and the equally dramatic Undercover Cheerleader (September 15). These films vary as far as plot goes, but thematically they’re similar: They involve real or fake cheerleaders doing an assortment of sneaky, evil, and bonkers things.

It’s an interesting conceit. In their own bizarre way, these movies subvert the image of the Queen Bee cheerleader so often found in pop-culture. (Think Brooke Davis in One Tree Hill or Cheryl Blossom in Riverdale.) It’s a heightened, at times hilarious, look behind that “popular kid” curtain—a space I never occupied in high school. After watching a few of these Lifetime movies, I’m not too upset about that.



Source link

Categories
Health

Alex Rodriguez Was J.Lo's Biggest Cheerleader After a Show Mishap in Vegas


Alex Rodriguez has already shown he’s one of the world’s best Instagram boyfriends for Jennifer Lopez on the red carpet. But he’s also a constant cheerleader who’s been known to sing his fiancé’s praises in interviews and on social media posts. It turns out, he’s just as supportive backstage, too: At a recent concert, he was there to cheer J.Lo up after she had a tough time during a performance.

J.Lo released a video diary on Saturday that offers intimate, behind-the-scenes footage from her work-intensive “It’s My Party” tour. There’s one moment in the recording where she has some slight malfunctions onstage—she forgets a few dance moves and hits herself in the face with her microphone, drawing blood. She’s emotional when it all ends, but A-Rod meets up with her and her team and tells them how great they did: “It was the best show I’ve seen so far,” he says, turning to J.Lo a few moment later and adding, “And you showed why you’re a champion, baby.”

J. Lo is still pretty shaken up and tells him she’s not happy with herself, leading A-Rod to go full stage mom. He goes through each part of the performance and comforts her, insisting that she killed it. He also shares how he saw members of the audience loving every second of what was happening.

“I don’t even know what I’m doing,” J.Lo says tearfully. “And I would miss things, and I’m like, ‘Why am I messing them up?’…Like one step here or things that I never forget. I don’t forget anything!”

“Baby, nobody’s looking at steps. People are looking at how beautiful you look and how great you sound—and by the way, when you held that note, that was the longest you’ve held it so far. It was unbelievable,” he assures her.

Watch it here:

[embedded content]

The whole exchange is pretty sweet, but not a total surprise—after all, A-Rod has been talking about J.Lo being his “dream date” for 20 years.

J.Lo seems pretty happy, too. In a scene later in the video, she gushes, “That’s why I love him, and I’m going to marry him. Whether he wants to or not, we’re getting married. We’re getting married forever and ever.”



Source link

Categories
Health

Lifetime's Remake of *Death of a Cheerleader* Has a Very Familiar Face from the Original Movie


America’s always had a fascination with true crime stories, but there’s been a resurgence in recent years with Netflix documentaries like Making a Murderer. Lifetime is no stranger to the genre, either, and it continues its winter slate of female-led true crime movies with a remake of the cult classic Death of a Cheerleader.

The original movie, called A Friend to Die For, aired in 1994 and starred nineties icons Kellie Martin and Tori Spelling. This time around, Aubrey Peeples (Nashville) steps into the Kellie Martin role as Bridget Moretti, a high-schooler desperate to fit in and bond with popular cheerleader Kelly Locke (played by Sarah Dugdale). And thanks to some brilliant stunt casting, Martin also stars in the remake—time as the FBI agent who cracks the case.

Peeples and Dugdale didn’t have much knowledge of the previous film prior to their casting, but Peeples admits they eventually watched most of the original. “We didn’t want to get too much into our heads, but we definitely did our research,” she says. One thing they were extra conscious of was steering clear of eighties stereotypes. “It was all sort of ‘wannabe cheerleader murders popular girl’, and that really struck me immediately,” Peeples says. “I wanted to figure out as much as I could so I could play this role respectfully and with justice.”

Here, Peeples and Dugdale explain why they hope the movie will not just entertain, but also inspire a bigger conversation about fitting in and impossible expectations. “We live in a competitive world that pits people against each other,” Peeples says. Read on.

Lifetime

Glamour: The film is set in the eighties, but there’s plenty to relate to in terms of confidence, bullying, and where you belong. How did you relate to the material?

Sarah Dugdale: There’s a lot of pressure on young women and young people, especially in high school. You feel like everything is the biggest deal and the end of the world. I really related to my character in that she was such a perfectionist and felt a lot of pressure. I’m a perfectionist and I put that pressure on myself, so I related in that way.

Aubrey Peeples: I definitely experienced a lot of anxiety and insecurities and [put] pressure on myself in high school, and I think that’s relevant to a lot of people—no matter how old you are. When I was reading a lot of the case notes [about this story], a lot of people mentioned that Bernadette, the real girl, had a lot of body issues and would talk about her body in a really negative way. She was very insecure, and that was definitely something I experienced as a young actress. So that’s really relevant.

Sarah: [This industry] is a very visual medium, so you have to make sure not tie your self worth to the business. It’s a mentality that has to be practiced.

Aubrey: It’s a very competitive industry and we also live in a very competitive society, which is something I hope that the film reveals a little bit, and something I hope we can address.

What inspires you about the stories Lifetime is telling about real-life women?

Aubrey: It’s very relevant today, and I think the industry is hopefully leading towards empowering women. People also have a fascination with true crime, and I think everyone is just trying to understand our psychology a little bit more and understand why we do the things we do. We’re trying to attempt to understand our own humanity.



Source link