It's "Nazi bitch" flip-off time: McKinney North High's "Fab Five" cheerleader scandal goes under assumed name in cheesy Lifetime movie
08/01/08 12:38 PM
By ED BARK
Lifetime's latest movie about slutty teens and the chicken-hearted parents who enable them includes a big hoot of a scene at a ribald backyard pool party.
Momma comes home to see scads of bikini-clad high schoolers and attendant horn dogs swilling booze and posing suggestively. Damn right she's pissed.
"There had better be some tequila left in that bottle for my margaritas, or you are in big trouble!" she informs her daughter.
It likely didn't happen quite like that, but you get the picture. And Lifetime's Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal has plenty more where that came from before the music swells in the service of a tacked-on fairytale ending.
Premiering Saturday, Aug. 2nd at 8 p.m. (central), Fab Five puts Texas in the title but otherwise is neutered of all real-life names and locations. Most denizens of McKinney will know what it's all about, though.
In 2006, McKinney North High School was home to a juicy scandal surrounding five bawdy, bullying cheerleaders whose most infamous escapade originated from a Condoms to Go store. While in their school colors, they happily posed suggestively with various paraphernalia. Adding to the scandal: one of the girls was the daughter of school principal Linda Theret, who finally resigned in December of that year.
Fab Five casts Tatum O'Neal as cowed "Jackson High" principal Lorene Tippit. Her nickname is "BLT," short for "Blazin' Lorene Tippit," she informs new cheerleading coach Emma Carr (Jenna Dewan). That's an alias for real-life whistleblower Michaela Ward, who eventually went to the media with her allegations of girls gone wild while their ineffectual parents and educators basically went AWOL.
O'Neal since has had her own problems after being busted in late spring for allegedly trying to purchase crack cocaine. In Fab Five she's under the thumb of willful daughter, Brooke (Ashley Benson), a spoiled super-tart who makes Paris Hilton seem like Motel 6.
Brooke's posse is made up of Lisa (Aimee Fortier; Jeri (Jessica Heap); Tabitha (Ashlynn Ross) and Ashley (Stephanie Honore), who's later banished from the Fab Five in the interest of facilitating the movie's forced, redemptive climax.
The girls wear their cheerleader outfits just about everywhere, even to class. There's a notable exception, though. A principled but basically powerless young tennis coach/history teacher (Dameon Clarke as Adam Reeve) is made to endure the girls' arrival in his classroom as provocatively dressed "sluts."
"Are you looking at my boobs, you perv?" he's asked. What's a guy to do but throw his hands up before later telling Coach Carr, "Screw it. I'm done fighting. I don't care anymore."
It's all supposed to be a cautionary tale, but goofing on Fab Five is far preferable to taking it seriously. As when a Fab Fiver carps, "I've gotta finish my stupid paper on stupid McCarthyism." Or when Brooke vows, "We were here before that bitch. And you know what? We're going to be here after she's gone."
Much of the acting is of the stick-figure variety, with the raised-in-Grapevine Dewan doing her level best to look shocked and dismayed in the face of repeated indignities and disappointments.
You'll also get a strobe-lit cheerleader performance at a fall pep rally. "Jackson. Don't mess with us," they keep chanting. The resultant ovation from parents and students alike has Coach Carr all aglow for at least a few minutes. But her squad's bee-yatch brigade is soon plotting anew.
All of this and more likely will give Lifetime a nice ratings boost on another mostly barren Saturday night.
Fab Five, which starts with a sultry cheerleader routine to the tune of American Woman, is a dumb but enticing enterprise that's sure to inspire numerous viewing parties in and around McKinney.
The rest of the country will watch because it also has Texas and Cheerleader in the title. It's hard to go wrong with that.
Grade: C-minus