Basic Trope: Cheerleaders are either beautiful but stupid and shallow or complete and utter bitches.
- Straight: The cheerleaders at Troperville HS tend to fall into one of 3 categories: mean, stupid, or both.
- Exagerated: Almost every single member of the school's cheer squad engages in mass murder on a regular basis. The only ones who don't are absolutely oblivious that their fellow students are being killed.
- Downplayed:
- The cheerleaders aren't very stupid or mean, but they have their moments.
- The cheerleaders there are Genius Ditzes, Ditzy Geniuses, suffer from Ping Pong Naïveté, Poke the Poodle, or are passive aggressive.
- All the cheerleaders either are prone to catching the Idiot Ball or are the Cruel to Be Kind Good Is Not Nice types or both.
- All the cheerleaders at THS are mildly irritating Wrong Genre Savvy Sitcom Arch Nemeses.
- Justified: The competitive, elitist and athletic nature of the Troperville HS cheerleading team appeals to mean girls who lack scholastic talent.
- Inverted: The cheerleaders at THS are nicer and smarter than the rest of the student body.
- Subverted: It turns out that the cheerleaders each have a Hidden Heart of Gold or are Obfuscating Stupidity, and are actually both nice and articulate whenever anyone gets them to lower their guard.
- Double Subverted: The ones who were playing dumb are secretly Insufferable Genius Chessmasters. The ones with the Jerkass Facades are rather dim-witted and were pretending to be jerks because the means ones told them to, despite their Hidden Heart of Gold.
- Parodied:
- Sweet Alice joins the cheer squad. The moment she puts on her uniform, she instantly becomes an evil, drooling idiot.
- A bunch of cheerleaders constantly try to Take Over the World, only for the dumb ones to ruin everything each and every time. When asked why they want to take over the world, no other reason is given than the fact they're cheerleaders, that or everyone else in their school wears crappy shoes.
- The cheer-leading uniforms look like they were all modeled after super villains from Saturday morning cartoons.
- The cheerleaders brag about how evil they are, but all they manage to do is Poke the Poodle because they're too stupid to comprehend what evil is in the first place.
- One of the lessons in cheer-leading is how to do an Evil Laugh and/or on what 1+1 equals.
- Zig Zagged:
- Mean: Sometimes it's hard to tell if the cheerleaders are Bitches In Sheep's Clothing who really like to engage in Passive-Aggressive Kombat and use Stealth Insults or are genuinely trying to be nice.
- Stupid: There are a couple of scenes that make the cheerleaders look like they're either Genius Ditzes or Obfuscating Stupidity.
- It turns out that the cheerleaders each have a Hidden Heart of Gold or are Obfuscating Stupidity, and are actually both nice and articulate whenever anyone gets them to lower their guard. Then it turns out the one pretending to be stupid are a bunch of Anti Heroes and Villains. While the ones pretending to jerks are Genius Ditzes, Ditzy Geniuses, or have Ping Pong Naïveté.
- There are cheerleaders with Hidden Hearts of Gold and ones pretending to be of lower intelligence though "jerks" catch the Villain Ball or Jerkass Ball every once in a while and the "idiots" catch the Idiot Ball every now-and-then.
- The cheerleaders are usually mean and stupid, but sometimes they end up with the Hero Ball or the Smart Ball and have some Pet the Dog moments which may or may not lead to Alternative Character Interpretations.
- Averted: None of the cheerleaders are known for being meaner or dumber than anybody else.
- Enforced: The writer was bullied by cheerleaders when they were in high school and this is their way of relating to audience members who have had similar experiences...or their way of wangsting about it.
- Lampshaded: "Of course she humiliated you. She's a cheerleader. Need I say more?"
- Invoked:
- Alice starts acting meaner and stops doing her homework because she thinks that will increase her odds of making the squad.
- The whole squad of cheerleaders start acting meaner to avoid unwanted attention from men.
- Exploited: Brittany points to the cruelty and poor grades of the cheerleaders to convince her school to shut down the cheerleading club.
- Defied: The cheerleading team only hires girls that have proven themselves smart and compassionate in order to protect their image.
- Discussed: "You thought the cheerleaders here would be smart and nice? Shows what you know about high school."
- Conversed: "What is it about dancing and waving around pom-poms that attracts sociopaths?"
- Deconstructed:
- Mean: The cheerleaders actions have alienated a good number of their classmates. Hardly anyone ever shows up at the sporting events anymore and the school eventually loses its funding for extracurricular activities due to this.
- Stupid: The school gets rid of its squad because every single member is getting failing grades.
- Reconstructed:
- Mean: The cheerleaders don't like their fellow students, but know that it's a bad idea to alienate people who might otherwise attend the games. Each member is pleasant, or at least polite, towards their fellow students, but secretly harbors a sense of disdain which they usually, but not always, manage to conceal.
- Stupid: The cheerleaders each regularly see a tutor, who has something of a Butt-Monkey status because they are frustrated by the girls constantly saying and doing stupid things during each session.
- Played For Laughs:
- The cheerleaders try to be mean, but their low intelligence makes their insults and scheming rather ineffectual and funny.
- The cheerleaders are Asshole Victims of The Nudifier, which strikes them in the middle of the big game. They obliviously continue with their formations nude and photos and videos of them go viral.
- Played For Drama:
- The cheerleaders take explicit photos of Alice and spread them around.
- Alice is raped by Psycho Lesbian cheerleader(s) in the locker room.
- The cheerleaders at her school are so mean that Alice tearfully begs her parents to send her to a different school.
- Played For Horror: The cheerleading team is the bunch of uncontrollably Serial Killers who are ready to brutally torture everyone else For the Evulz.
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