Ready? OK! The Trailer for the Sapphic Cheerleading Movie Backspot Is Here

XYZ Films

The trailer for the Elliot Page-produced movie Backspot just dropped, offering our first look at Reservation Dogs star Devery Jacobs as a queer cheerleader under pressure.

LevelFILM posted the two-minute-long preview to YouTube on Thursday, and it looks like Backspot is going to be a powerful addition to the growing canon of sapphic cheer movies.

According to the official description, Jacobs plays Riley, the “formidable backspot on her mid-level cheerleading squad,” a position that the blog Cheerleading Daily describes as “the quarterbacks of stunts.” Professional coach Eileen McNamara (Evan Rachel Wood) offers Riley the opportunity to join a prestigious squad called the Thunderhawks. It turns out that McNamara has a Sue Sylvester-esque coaching style, which is perhaps best encapsulated by her blunt statement to Riley: “If you want to survive in this world, you can’t show pain or fear. This world is not kind to weak people.” On top of her new, high-pressure assignment, Riley is also dating one of her teammates, Amanda (Kudakwashe Rutendo).

Though there are plenty of cheerleading movies out there, Backspot seems as though it’s going to take a very different approach to depicting the sport — first of all, by treating it like a sport in the first place. Don’t get us wrong, we love the campiness and the iconic uniforms that cheer movies have given us over the years, but in the trailer, Riley makes it clear that that’s not what Backspot is about. “We’re athletes, it’s not about what we look like, it’s about what we do,” she says.

Backspot is the feature-length directorial debut of nonbinary filmmaker D.W. Waterson, who previously created, wrote, and directed the webseries That’s My DJ. Page’s production company, Pageboy Productions, is producing the film, with Page serving as an executive producer.

According to an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Jacobs and Waterson have been brainstorming Backspot for years now. Jacobs told the magazine that the two were inspired by a 2017 viral video that showed a coach forcing a cheerleader into a split.

*Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution* features several generations of queer comedy royalty.

"I really believe that I’d never be cast in a role like this if I hadn’t created it for myself with D.W.," Jacobs told EW. The actor also said that she did most of her own stunts for the movie, as she is a former regional champion gymnast herself, and that Backspot shines a light on the actual athleticism that cheerleaders possess.

In addition to providing representation for a sport that is often “underestimated and not taken seriously,” in Jacobs’ words, Waterson told Entertainment Weekly, that “[t]here hasn’t been a queer, female, and non-binary take on competitive cheerleading that also explores the nuance of being a young person who has a ton of energy with nowhere to put it." (Obviously, there is But I’m a Cheerleader, but we’re guessing that’s not a super accurate representation of cheerleading as a competitive sport.)

Backspot comes to theaters on May 31.

Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.

Originally Appeared on them.