I will never be one of “America’s Sweethearts,” and thank my bedazzled stars
I remember watching Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making The Team (DCCs: MTT) on CMT when I was a young tween-aged girl. At the time, I was a high-level, competitive gymnast, so watching potential Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (DCCs) vying for their spot on the 36-membered kick-line, enduring strict training regimes under merciless, tyrannical authority was familiar to me. I related to the women on the screen, presuming everything they faced was customary for high-level athletes.
I came back to DCCs: MTT as an adult, having randomly scrolled past the show as I perused Paramount+ desperately trying to find something to watch, eager to put it on recalling my youthful fascination with it. Watching what would have been the most recent season aired at the time, I was shocked by what I saw. Though, when I thought back to when I watched the show as a young gymnast, it made sense why I found the show so appealing at that point in my life. Returning to the show as a young adult, having just started my first semester of graduate school–in Physical Cultural Studies (PCS), nonetheless–I still found the show wildly appealing, but this time for an entirely different reason. I no longer related to the women. Rather, I was bewildered by them.
In the opening episode of that first season I watched–what I colloquially refer to as the #MeToo season, filmed and aired following the fall 2017 outbreak of the movement–I laughed when I heard DCC director, Kelli McGonagill Finglass, proudly declare that the squad stands to empower women, then over the course of 13, 41-minute long episodes, resume to regularly scheduled programming. That is, relentlessly verbally assault and instill eating disorders in young women, transform their natural appearances to better align with the preposterous beauty standards of a humanesque Barbie doll, situating them in the presence of men in authority and applauding coquettish behavior, rendering them vulnerable to sexual harassment, all the while propagandizing these conventions on their “hit” reality TV show. I was stuck on the notion of “America’s Sweethearts,” and the implication that idyllic American women, as the moniker suggests, should submit themselves to these principles.
When it came time to write my first graduate level, PCS-focused manuscript, I was keen to dive into the DCCs as subject of critique. Learning for the first time about gendered hegemonies, sporting neoliberalism, sport governance, etc., I saw each of those institutionally embedded within the squad. As I was writing and researching, I was dumbfounded to come across next to no scholarship that critically analyzed the DCCs, and very little beyond that which focused upon professional cheerleading. Learning and writing more that first semester, I was convinced I struck gold, and practically jumped for joy when my advisor thought an analysis of the DCCs’ reality TV show would make a suitable Master’s Thesis topic. Over the following year and a half, I watched enough DCCs: MTT to practically make the team myself. I knew everything they were looking for like the back of my hand; high kicks, a beaming white smile, bouncy voluminous long hair, formal technical dance training, a curvy yet mannequinly thin physique, coy manners and a seductive allure, and utter submission to authority. None of which, might I add, I boasted, nor was willing, or interested for that matter, to consent to. What was the most perplexing to me was the amount of women who were so abruptly acquiescent to obey the coveted tenets, who would have done whatever it took to one day wear the now Smithsonian archived uniform. I still, to this day, struggle to comprehend what makes it all worth it.
Now two years following the defense of my Thesis, which was evidently light years ahead of its time, and two years since the squad’s DCCs: MTT contract with CMT expired, the squad has come back on screen, Hollywood style. The DCCs upgraded to a globally phenomed Netflix docuseries to match their world-premier status in sporting entertainment. Since Netflix’s release of America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (Whiteley et al., 2024) in late June of 2024, DCC and Dallas Cowboys fans and alumni, the dance community, reality TV fiends, and the common Netflix subscriber alike have all been, for lack of a better term, thunderstruck. For the last month, I have witnessed my personal social media feeds, popular press outlets, and broadcast media become enthralled by the DCCs; the squad’s popular dances, personal narratives of particular candidates featured on the show, and the resurfacing of longstanding narratives about professional cheerleaders (i.e., wage discrepancies, harsh rulebooks, the prevalence of mental health issues among professional cheerleaders, etc.). Popular video social media app, TikTok, has been taken over by users attempting the DCCs famous game-commencing Thunderstruck dance choreography (Thornfelt, 2024). Netflix reset their marquee billboard in mid-July overlooking Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California writing, “Please stretch before attempting Thunderstruck” (Bitran, 2024). Twitter users, on the other hand, are writing in wanting to unionize the cheerleaders, up in arms about the ghastly working conditions for the women who, according to DCC alumnus, Katherine Puryear, earn a wage equivalent to that of a substitute teacher or Chik-Fil-A worker (Whiteley et al., 2024).
I, of course, have watched the new series. Twice now, to be exact. Upon first watching, I was by no means taken aback by what was on display, unlike many viewers watching the DCCs on screen for the first time. Practically everything I had inferred from the analysis conducted for my Thesis, in addition to that which has been unceasingly probed for the purposes of pursuing a journal publication from that study, was reaffirmed by Whiteley et al.’s (2024) docuseries. I was, however, thunderstruck by the shamelessness exhibited on behalf of DCC authorities and Dallas Cowboys executive personnel, whom are featured wholly dehumanizing the young women and, furthermore, are remarkably unapologetic in doing so. In some sick, twisted fashion, they retain a sense of pride in the way they treat the (potential) cheerleaders, as if they should be rewarded for remaining faithful to the longtime legacy standardized in the 1970s. Squad director and alumnus, Finglass, vainly proclaims, “It’s not pressure, it’s just a way of life,” absolving DCC authorities from any responsibility, excusing the autocracy because that’s just the way it is (Whiteley et al., 2024). When asked about the wage discrepancies suffered by the cheerleaders, Dallas Cowboys Executive Vice President and Chief Brand Officer, Charlotte Jones (daughter of Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones), dodges the issue at hand, instead asserting:
They actually don’t come here for the money…It is about being a part of something bigger than themselves. It is about a sisterhood that they were able to form, about relationships that they have for the rest of their life. They have a chance to feel like they’re valued, that they’re special, and that they are making a difference. (Whiteley et al., 2024)
Just because the (potential) cheerleaders are not necessarily interested in the revenue generated by shaking pom-poms, does not mean that they do not deserve an equitable wage. After all, sisterhood and the “America’s Sweetheart” title alone do not cover living expenses. Moreover, Jones flabbergasts me by saying that the women “have a chance to feel like they’re valued, that they’re special…” (Whitely et al., 2024). In the very same episode, cheerleaders themselves are quoted saying, “You don’t make the cheerleading team for being yourself,” and, “I don’t think anybody leaves unscathed” (Whitley et al., 2024). How exactly, then, do these two universes coexist? How is one made to feel special when they have to embody someone or something they are not? How is one valued, while at the same time left physically and/or mentally damaged? Evidently, all that glitters is most certainly not Cowboys’ blue and silver.
Disclaimer: I am not at all familiar with Southern United States, especially Texas, culture. From what I have gathered over the years, young Texas girls, and many girls from the South nationwide, have a lifelong dream of becoming a DCC. For some, it is a rite of passage, following in the legacied footsteps of their mothers, aunts, sisters, or friends and other loved ones. Many, on the other hand, are technically trained dancers starting by the time they learn how to walk, who oftentimes dance and/or cheer on their collegiate squads, yearning to prolong their dance careers following graduation. I by no means intend to come off as disparaging to the young women whom, by whatever means, find themselves situated in the DCCs sorority-style sisterhood. Their talent, hard work, endurance, high kicks, jump splits, hours on end of uninterrupted dancing of over 50 memorized choreographed numbers, all the while maintaining a smile on their face without a drip of sweat running down, smudging their dazzling makeup, or de-voluminizing their big and bouncy Texas hair amazes me. Let’s face it, I, and most of us for that matter, could never. Dare I say, they are working harder on the sidelines than their pigskin tossing counterparts on the field? I would love to see any of the Cowboys players walk in the cheerleaders’ boots one day and keep up with the kicks, maintain their beauty and charm while doing so, and make it all look effortless. Cheerleading at all levels get a bad rap, but let’s not be so quick to judge the cheerleaders themselves. Perhaps it is time we turn our attention to the context(s) out of which contemporary cheerleading emerged and set such maniacal precedents, as well as the systems that perpetuate these legacies. Go Team!
References:
Bitran, T. (2024, July 19). Every Netflix Billboard on Sunset Boulevard — Ever. Tudum by Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/netflix-billboard-sunset-boulevard-list
Thornfelt, S. (2024, July 12). Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' Thunderstruck Routine Takes Over TikTok. Dallas Observer. https://www.dallasobserver.com/arts/dallas-cowboys-cheerleaders-routine-takes-off-on-tiktok-19845017
Whiteley, G., Fried, A., Lillegard, D., Dinerstien, R.M., Evans, R., & Leibowitz, A. (Executive Producers). (2024). America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders [TV series]. One Potato Productions and Boardwalk Pictures.
