20100616

goooobullshit!(omgtits)

I saw Penn and Teller's "Bullshit!" today; a series I don't catch often, not having cable.

Though their defining best episodes generally came early in the series (esp. profanity in season 2), this one was pretty good. It managed to stop me a couple times when I was standing up to turn off the TV and do something else, I'll give it that.

Cheer. The problem the show addresses is that cheerleaders suffer far more injuries of all types than other common school athletic programs combined, and there aren't enough safety measures, spotters, and proper health and safety training among cheer instructors. This is related to the fact that cheer is not counted among 'competitive sports' in the Title IX program.

Here, P&T spend some time railing against feminism and government programs being the problem (before they've got around to detailing the safety issues) and then they spend the entire rest of the episode showing that in fact much of the problem comes from the involvement of the Varsity corporation, which through a long list of company initializations (not acronyms, fellow citizens) is involved in just about every part of every cheer program in the country, and is raking in tons of money from that.

The early vitriol against "feminism" seems out of place, but seeing as the rest of the program is filled with refreshing anti-corporatism, they probably felt it necessary. Otherwise they'd have had to denounce themselves as bleeding Bolsheviks or something. Also in that early part, they talked to someone from the Cato Institute in order to... talk to the Cato Institute? Really, for all the guy actually contributed to the topic, the only reason for including him seems to be to name-drop Cato. (Underwriting involved?)

Anyway, girls and young women across the country are suffering serious, sometimes crippling, occasionally lethal injuries at a rate much higher than even in ice hockey and soccer, while engaged in acts of athleticism that are more or less a mix of gymnastics, track, and dance. Things Penn and Teller don't quite get around to asking or explaining include pretty much anything related to what to do about it.

Is the one "grandmother-(or-whatever)-to-Title-IX" they briefly talked to the biggest obstacle? Just what would it take to get cheer included in Title IX? How exactly would that improve safety? Although they show Varsity stands to gain from cutting corners around the safety issue, and they say Varsity is involved with the decision to keep cheer out of Title IX, they leave many details of that involvement vague. Just what can people do to get better safety training, safe practice, spotters, etc. in school cheer programs? Will it require people to write Congress? To contact Title IX? Can it be improved State by State? Through school boards? Could improved awareness, organization, and involvement by parents at the local level bring schools together to form rival cheer programs with real safety and sports health measures in place that are not beholden to the Varsity corporation?

On all these things Penn and Teller both remain silent.
 
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