In case you didn't know, dear reader, the Los Angeles theater scene has a very interesting resource at its disposal. This resource is bitter-lemons, a Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes type of website where reviews are aggregated and then a score (of bitter, sweet, or bittersweet) is assigned to the show (much like the "rotten" and "fresh" assignments on Rotten Tomatoes).

I like to look at the scores for shows I've seen and/or reviewed — I always find it interesting to see what other critics think. As I was looking through the reviews of "Bring It On" at the Ahmanson (which I enjoyed), I noticed something rather striking — almost all of the female critics (5 to 1) gave it a positive, or "sweet" review, while the vast majority of male critics (7 to 4) gave it a mixed or negative review ("bitter" or "bittersweet").

Aside from the fact that, as a woman, it saddens me that only just over a third of the critics (including myself) are female, I found this interesting. I suppose it makes some sense, as cheerleading in general tends to be a sport disdained by the majority of the masculine gender. I might mention that the character of Twig in the show raises a valid point: "What, are y'all scared, you think cheering is feminine? Well I'm a feminist swimming in women, gentlemen!"

However, regardless of the veracity of Twig's claim, it is true that there is still a male stigma against cheerleading. I remember the guys who joined the cheer squad at my high school were quickly labeled "gay" (don't even get me started on that, but I'm using it as an illustrative example) — and this was at a very liberal and tolerant high school, too!

Now, I'm not sure if the males who didn't enjoy "Bring It On" weren't fans because they harbor a secret hatred for cheerleaders (though weren't they supposed to be the most desirable girls in school? Or so Hollywood tells us. Then again, the types of people who go on to be theater critics probably weren't the star quarterbacks themselves. Though I'd be delighted to be corrected if I'm wrong!). It could just be they didn't like the musical, and that's their right.

But when there's such a distinct gender split, it's cause for me at least to wonder. Almost the entire creative team is made up of men, so they must have found something they could relate to and enjoy in making this musical, much like how many of the females found their evenings at the Ahmanson enjoyable.

Maybe this is all just me playing around with the numbers too much and overanalyzing things. That's totally possible. I heard somewhere that 137% of all statistics are made up, and that doesn't sound too far from the truth — though if you want to check my numbers, you can do so yourself here. (At time of writing, the last review aggregated was Obed Medina's.) Even if it is just random coincidence, though, it's still an interesting one.

Reach Katie here.