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By Emilia Hwang

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Torrance Shipman may not be old enough to vote, but she knows that it takes more than just good looks and a short skirt to be the captain of the Rancho Carne High cheerleading squad.

“This is not a democracy,” she declares with a power akin to that of the leader of the free world. “It’s a cheerocracy.”

Goodbye DNC. Welcome to the competitive world of cheerleading

“This is her life, cheerleading,” said actor Kirsten Dunst, who plays the spirited Shipman. “This is what she loves.”

In “Bring it On,” rival cheerleading squads go head-to-head to compete for the national championship trophy. Director Peyton Reed and writer Jessica Bendinger create characters that venture to break the stereotypes associated with cheerleading.

“There’s never been a movie where it really shows cheerleading as a sport,” Dunst said at a recent press event.

In the film, Missy Pantonte (Eliza Dushku) mirrors the attitude of an audience that may enter the theater despising cheerleaders. Initially, the cynical Missy joins the squad with ambivalence and even scorns her cheery teammates as airheads with unabashed enthusiasm for pompoms.

When in school, Dushku said that she and her friends made oaths that they would never become cheerleaders.

“I grew up with three older brothers and so I thought I was a boy until I was 10,” she said.

Though Dushku played her fair share of football as a kid, she came to the film with no gymnastics, dancing or cheerleading experience.

In order to play cheerleaders who take their athletics seriously, the cast went through several weeks of intensive cheerleading camp in order to be able to perform the difficult and demanding routines required by the script.

“It’s such hard work,” Dunst said. “You learn to appreciate what (cheerleaders) go through.”

At the boot camp and throughout filming, the actors worked with cheer and dance choreographers as well as professional cheerleaders.

Gabrielle Union, who plays the captain of the Clovers, said that she learned how cheerleaders are more than just peppy and cheery cliches.

“The girls are very diversified in personalities and life experiences,” she said of the cheerleaders she worked with.

Cheerleaders from cheer squads around the country were cast in the movie. The eight actors and 12 actual cheerleaders who compose the cheerleading squad in the film worked together to make sure all their moves were synchronized and to ultimately deliver seamless routines.

“We were sweaty beasts for most of the shooting,” said Union, who was a cheerleader in the eighth grade. She admits that the squads in the movie are a whole different caliber from her squad, who did more hair flips than back flips.

During filming, cheerleading was the focus and there was no touching up of makeup. The cast learned to appreciate cheerleading as an artful combination of dance and gymnastics, instead of merely an exercise in looking good.

“All of the ego, pride and vanity is out the window because you get so involved with hitting your routine and not being the weak link,” Union said.

At the camp, the actors learned more than just cheer rules, regulations and moves.

“Not only were we learning the dancing and choreography,” Dushku said. “We’d also play trust games.”

In addition to all the physically demanding work, the cast had to learn to be emotionally supportive of each other in order to order to make the final outcome believable.

“When we saw the final footage of that final routine, we were all practically in tears,” Dushku said.

Though cheerleading camp proved to be demanding for the actors, they worked through filming the routines with the spirit and enthusiasm of true cheerleaders.

“You feed off of everybody’s energy,” Dunst said.

The level of physical and mental discipline exercised to make the movie taught Brandi Williams of Blaque to take the sport more seriously.

“I’ve never really seen how competitive it really is,” said Williams, who plays a cheerleader. “Now when I see those competitions on TV, I know that those girls really worked for that.”

While the movie attempts to alter cheerleading stereotypes among its audiences, many of the first converts were the actors themselves, who learned that there’s more to the perfect cheer than meets the eye.

“This movie taught me so much, not just about cheerleading, but about girls bonding together, caring more about the girl next to you, rooting for another woman, (and) being supportive of each other,” Dushku said. “That’s more than I thought I could get out of a movie.”

FILM: “Bring It On” is now playing in theaters nationwide.

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