An ode to Tarantino’s cheerleading uniforms

Trust Quentin Tarantino to know what you are doing. In the hands of the majority, it may seem cheap and vulgar, but in the hands of Tarantino, it always symbolizes something. About saying something; say it well and say it in a classic way. All of this is amplified when it comes to his women. From Uma Thurman and her iconic yellow tracksuit in the Kill Bill movies, to Mary Elizabeth Winstead and her equally yellow cheerleader uniform in Death Proof, Tarantino knows what to wear for his women to make them stand out.

When it comes to actresses in a movie, a cheerleader uniform often implies promiscuity, snobbery, and a somewhat antagonistic attitude. We’ve seen it in countless teen comedies and rom-coms. The high school vampire is almost always a cheerleader. And for almost the entirety of the movie, she is dressed in a cheerleader uniform. In her introductory scene, we will see her casually through the halls of the high school, usually with a gang of similarly dressed women. A grimace on the face! Nerds falling on her! The sportsman just stared with an equally flattering expression as the vampire approached him. Needless to say, we all know that the jock almost always shows up and ends up with the sweet, well-rounded girl next door at the end of the movie. While the vamp and her cheerleader uniform? Well, they mostly end up in the trash. Think Jaime Pressly in Not Another Teen Movie, or any of the countless cheerleading props in movie history.

Trust Tarantino and then turn this whole equation around. By the time we see Mary Elizabeth featured in Death Proof, we’ve already been through a full set of protagonists (who, quite anti-climatic, have been killed). By the time we see her and her tiny yellow cheerleader uniform, we no longer know what to expect. And really, when we see someone as sweet and innocent as Mrs. Winstead don the serial vampire costume, we really are all at sea.

It’s a testament, then, to the writing, the direction, and most importantly, to Tarantino’s quirky and counterintuitive tastes, that we can accept Ms. Winstead as the new lead in the film. And, most importantly, accept her as a protagonist worth supporting. Yes, Mrs. Winstead looks really sexy in her cheerleader uniform. Yes, in the hands of a mere mortal, this character might as well have become everyone’s eye candy. But he really does trust Tarantino to make the cheerleader uniform innocent. Trust him to remove all the negativity associated with this costume through years of on-screen misrepresentation, and simply restore it to what it should really mean: a visual shorthand for a high school girl.