Named as one of the ten greatest documentaries made in Texas, the film captures the gruelling training and selection ordeal of the Kilgore College Rangerettes, the world’s best known collegiate drill team. Their training is a delirious exercise in psychological and physical torture. As they do splits, kick their legs over their heads, snap their necks to the relentless rhythms of football fight songs, their drill mistress exhorts them to keep smiling and “get those wrinkles out of your brow”. They wear belts two inches smaller than their waists and they keep smiling. Pain is normalised, and the performance of cheerful femininity is enforced rigorously. The film is a study of group dynamics and the stereotypical interpretation of female identity. The subjects do not recognise the critique because they inhabit it completely. That is precisely Erwitt’s point. Fifty years on, the film’s underlying message remains as sharp and as current as the day it was made.