The 'Fab Five' Revisited on Lifetime...

[bliss_eternal]

SOCIETY
The 'Fab Five' Revisited
Lifetime TV drama opens an old wound in Texas cheerleaders' town.


By Gretel C. Kovach | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Aug 5, 2008 | Updated: 12:34 p.m. ET Aug 5, 2008


The tale of the Fab Five always seemed like a drama made for TV. A group of senior varsity cheerleaders in a Texas exurb, led by the principal's daughter, provoke a local scandal with their rowdy and randy behavior, culminating when they post sexy photos of themselves online that get passed around the internet. Now, not surprisingly, the real-life story has hit the small screen two years later—or at least the version that is told by the girls' former cheerleading coach.

The coach, Michaela Ward, says she was ostracized and faced financial ruin as she fought school administrators over the clique of misbehaving cheerleaders at McKinney North High School. Ward eventually cashed in on the scandal—to much dismay in McKinney—when she told her story to the media and the Lifetime Television channel. "Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal," a two-hour movie loosely based on the true story, premiered Saturday.

For those who missed the frenzy of news coverage that began in January 2007, when Newsweek.com broke the story in the national press, the movie version is an entertaining morality tale with Ward styled as the brave but naïve crusader for school discipline. In the film, Ward's character continues to hit her teen charges with demerits even when their parents threaten to sue, while actress Tatum O'Neal plays the school principal – a single mom trying to win her daughter's affection by bending the rules. With its preachy romp through the dark side of teen tribalism, the Fab Five movie is in the tradition of other cinematic displays of fanatic Texan athleticism like "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom."


--------------------snip---------------------------

excerpted from:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/150884?GT1=43002

[ismnotwasm]

1. Wow

What a complete catch-22 for those young women. As neat an example of the Virgin/Whore dichotomy as I've ever seen.

"Stalked by on-line perverts" God. Probably the same type that defends all porn all the time. Asswipes.

(I worked security for various games at a university at one time, and it was there that I saw what athletes cheerleaders really can be, just amazing)