For those of us whose first encounter with the Birds and Bees came from our uncles covertly sitting us down in front of an ancient VHS copy of Porkies, the release of the Cheerleaders set by Arrow Films is likely to produce a nostalgic lump in your throat as much as your trousers. The erotic offerings here will seem tame for a generation used to internet porn, but this only serves to give the films a sweet naivety. Imagine American Pie with ropier production values and a psychedelic soundtrack.

A little historical context: The 1970s saw the glorious culmination of the sixties dream of sexual liberation and free love. So how did the Hollywood execs see fit to immortalise this brave new world in film? The sex comedy of course! It made perfect sense, after all breasts make everything better and the humour serves to take the awkward edge off the sex, so that guys all over the civilised world could tell their complaining girlfriends ‘it’s not porn, it’s just a bit of fun’. The result was to draw sex away from the dirty mac brigade in ‘specialist’ cinemas and into the experience of the mainstream audiences, paving the way for films like American Pie, which is more than anything a homage to the 1970s films.

It might be a bit far fetched to say that Cheerleaders provides a female take on the quest to shed the protagonists virginity that also drove the Porkies plotline, as the flesh on offer here (wobbly breasts and buttocks) are clearly still aimed at the male viewer, however nothing says girl power like the sequences in which the girls sexually devour TWO football teams in one night, reducing them to physical wrecks at the league final. The high point of the film is a hilarious montage of them out on the hunt, bagging their victims. Go girls! The film revolves around aspiring cheerleader Jeannie, who’s desperate to have her cherry plucked and it aint going to happen with her boyfriend ‘Norm’, who, as the name suggests, represents everything frigid and backwards in American society. She is taken under the wings of the notorious cheerleaders, who for their part are keen to have a more chaste member of their ranks after the previous girl ended up in the maternity ward mid season.

In terms of direction it seems Paul Glickler knocked the first Cheerleaders out in a weekend and the acting is abominable, but this only serves to add to the period charm. For instance Jeannies ‘initiation’ sees her having to take a shower in the men’s changing rooms and when they inevitably come back early to find little goldilocks telling them in a nervous voice “I’m being initiated” they let out a shout of “Far out!” before proceeding to chase her around the shower block.

For the time it is surprising to see how frankly the characters speak about contraception (considering how even now the abstinence and pro life low-lifes still seem to influence American culture) and it’s worth noting that one of the main characters, Bonnie, is black. There’s clearly something progressive about the film, even if it aint the camera work.

Revenge of the Cheerleaders features more sex addled fun, this time directed by Richard Lerner, writer and producer of the first film (not that it matters a damn of course), and also features a brief appearance from the Hoff as ‘Boner’. This time the girls pit themselves against rival team Lincoln high, stealing drugs from their dorm to put in the school canteen food before a state school inspection – sexual anarchy ensues, but all in the best possible taste.

To stand a chance of winning a copy of this erotic masterpiece see our competition page here!

Words > Andrew Wensum