Hey, it's Melody. So my husband Bobby is a huge fan of the show. He listens to every episode, even the ones that he thinks he's not going to have any interest in. He's also just a huge podcast listener in general. So I was very surprised when he recently told me that he didn't know you can get the paid version of the episode in the podcast app in which you listen to all of your other podcasts. And I know I'm not going to go and
anywhere else try a new system when I have something I like. So if he didn't know this, I want to make sure that all of you know this, that if you become a paid subscriber to the Culture Study Podcast, you don't have to listen on sub stack, although you can, you can get a special link that you plug into the podcast app that you already use.
So it fits right in with all of your other podcasts listening, everything is there in one place. So if that is understandably something that has been keeping you from subscribing that excuse is now gone. So head to culture study pod dot sub stack.com sign up to be a paid subscriber. And then you can follow the instructions to get that special exclusive paid feed in your favorite podcast app. Right. Thank you. On with the show.
Okay. I want you to take a second closer eyes. And when you think of the cheerleaders, who's the one cheerleader whose face comes into your mind? And can you just reach that was going to be my team. And can you describe their face? So I jumped right in. Um, dark brunette hair. I believe blue eyes really welcoming face only the only type of face that like a Southern Christian family could raise.
It's like hardship. It's hard to trade right? That's like the right word for that. Like Reese Witherspoon. Yes. Oh, that's so interesting. I'd never even connected those two. But yes, the voice that comes out of her body matches with that face. Sam, who do you think of? I think of and help me with the name. The one who's about to go into her fourth or fifth year is the daughter of a cowboy cheerleader Victoria.
Victoria. And no matter what she does and no matter how hard she tries. The mean coaches kind of just haze her and never give her any shine. Yeah. And she is having to walk through and suffered through a multitude of maladies and neuroses, trying to make it work. And it just never works for her. It breaks my heart and I go to sleep thinking about her after I watch that show that poor baby.
This is the Culture Study podcast and I'm Anne Helen Peterson. I'm Sam Sanders and I'm Zach Safard and we are the host of Vibe Check. Today we are talking about the Netflix show America's Sweethearts Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, which I think of as just like the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders show. That's how I've been talking about it in shorthand. We're trying to make this episode welcoming to people who have not seen the show.
But no, a few things about what a cheerleader for a football team for a professional football team is right in the placement of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders in particular in the American zeitgeist. So can either of you, this is a huge challenge. I'll give you a present. I don't know. Like I'll give you some of the 60 degree weather that we have here right now.
If you can summarize what the show is about America's Sweethearts follows the journey of one crop of Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders for one season from auditions to the end of the football season. You see many different types of women, some returning cheerleaders, some doing it for the first time ever. But in watching their journey, you begin to understand over the course of the seven or eight episodes that the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders is a beautiful, smiling, heavily made up cult.
That's my description of this show. Yes, it is a cult. There's like a cult like behavior to this entity that is the Dallas Cowboys themselves and how these women do speak of working their jobs as if they are part of a religion that has to be respected and that they have to fit within in order to to survive in it.
So it does feel like a cult in many ways. Yeah. Can I read the description of a DCC? So my dear friend, Caitlin Dickerson who covers immigration. She took some time to write about this show for the Atlantic because she was obsessed with it as a former high school cheerleader. And she paused the show when they show the handbook and they show the screen on the screen, the page of the handbook that has the mission statement for what a DCC is. Can I just read it and it'll tell you everyone?
Yeah, yeah. It says, quote, what am I? I am a little thing with a big meaning. I help everybody. I unlock doors, open hearts, do away with prejudices. I create friendship and goodwill. I inspire respect and confidence. Everybody loves me. I bore nobody. I violate no law. I cost nothing. Many have praised me. None have condemned me. I am pleasing to everyone. I am useful every moment of the day.
Oh my god. Whoa. Wow. That's a dystopian handbook. That's like, yes. Yeah. I was listening to this. I don't want to get this wrong. I was listening to a podcast this morning before we all talked. It's a podcast hosted by Janine. I'm a pola. She had Claire Wallfort on who was the Dallas cheerleader in the show.
And in it, she's talked a lot about that mission statement and said, whenever I walked into the locker room and felt myself being too critical of my body, feeling too critical of like all the stress I was feeling from the Dallas cheerleaders, I would say, well, who can I serve to make me forget about this? And she was like, they're being forced to go take care of someone else instead of taking care of themselves, which is just so dark.
They say the last line, I am useful every moment of the day. Yeah. Oh. Well, they're useful because they have to have jobs outside of this other job in order to make a living wage. And they can't like start dating the football players because fraternization is strictly prohibited. Which then why join this team? That would be my own reason for this. Like I'm married. Rich. Like what?
Yeah. I mean, I it also seems to borrow so heavily from evangelical culture in terms of like the place of the woman in the home and like, oh, if you're if you're questioning your faithfulness in some way, who do you go serve? Right? Like how do you serve God in that moment? How do you serve the Dallas Cowboys and the greater world in that moment?
And usually, at least as we see in the show, that means like you go to a home for for the elderly or I don't know, you sign an autograph while the men involved have to hold the football so that they don't accidentally touch you in an appropriate way. Don't tempt your Christian brother.
Yeah. And there's so much of it that feels so church because it's all so top down. You know, the two, I was called him head coaches, leaders of the team, these are older women who were cheerleaders back in the day. They embody the patriarchy is wonderfully dressed, heavily made up, older women, but they embody it. And what I notice about the way that they do things, you know, nothing is ever an assault on anyone's character.
They just you, domestically tell you they don't like you and they can't stand you by saying, I don't know if those high kicks are high enough or I don't know if you were looking happy enough today. There's this round about bless your heartway of in grouping and out grouping without ever saying it. And that is so church. That is so church. The pastor's never going to say, I just don't like you. I'm going to find some rule to say that you violated and that's how you know. You're too short. Yes.
Like that poor girl who gets cut for being like, how tall. I think she was probably like five two or something like that, which is usually prized in most types of cheerleading, but not in this one. But like, so like with Victoria, this was the one who keeps trying to keep trying and she never kind of makes it. They do all these things to tell her they find her annoying without saying they find her annoying.
Yeah, that's all their feedback. And they just mask it in this other language, the masking of the real feedback, the mask enough how you feel that is so church to me that's so cult to me. 100% and like, we learn over the course of the show that like she has gone through so much and has been a main figure in like the previous Dallas Cowboys cheerleader shows.
But here she is trying to figure out her way. We're not going to do any spoilers into like, is she going to try out for another year? She's going to make it this year like what's going on? What how would you describe her look? Her look is in every way begging for acceptance. She's begging for these coaches to love her. She's begging for the crowds to love her. And all of her beauty and energy and light is hidden behind that anxiety. It breaks my heart.
Yes, and also can we this won't spoil anything, but her interview set up in her bedroom. How was that? The entire width of the room and what type of bed is it like it also it like blocks her shelving. There's like a lot of questions I have around design there too.
The mezzan son, the way that they shoot all of these different characters, you can tell like it's not a villain at it right? It's a sympathy at it almost the way that the way that her bed becomes the entire room and she looks around by like stuffed animals almost right like incredibly childlike and she's living in her mom's home like we get that message as well.
Well, and it's funny that you speak to this sympathetic edit all of the reviews of this show compare these filmmakers work to previous shows they've done like cheer and what's the junior college football one was it last chance you which one is yeah. This show has gotten these creatives their worst reviews ever because critics think that they sympathize too much with the subjects and I see it wow I see it that I like that I like that because I sympathize with them to these poor things.
Yes, these poor underpaid women we should sympathize with them but what are we doing yeah. It's also like very you know I grew up in the south like Sam I grew up in Tennessee watching the show felt like a really problematic warm blanket for me because it reminded me all the passive aggressive ways the white women in my life would speak to me in this loving and caring way but it was all about controlling my my daughter is controlling my role in our community controlling how I operate it inside the church that we're part of.
It was never really about me but the things they were saying were about me but no one was willing to just pass up and be like I have this feeling about you and this is why you should change or whatever is all mass in God religion the organization all these things which makes you feel kind of gaslit the whole time and these women often like they're super gaslit through this whole process.
You know they use a voice I think resex uses it more than anyone else but you can see it in the coaches as well and even in Charlotte Jones the daughter.
Christian baby girl it's Christian baby Christian funny voice right and we just we just recorded an episode with a former tradwife who does this incredible breakdown of Fonday baby voice about how it's how you get what you want while still like being pleasing to everyone right so you incorporate this idea that like I'm not going to piss off any dudes but I'm going to wield my power. It would I want yeah through this like be sweet right.
Okay this is a good this is a good jumping off point to start our question so this first one comes from Allison the show cheer gave me the sense that cheerleaders are really athletes America sweethearts talked about the athleticism of the women a ton but I never really thought displayed in a way the made sense. Why are these incredibly talented dancers gymnasts etc so enamored with being a cheerleader for this football team future career prospects cloud or something else and I'm get it.
Wow like why is it an orthodontist invested in becoming a Dallas Carbway cheerleader this is an interesting question I think okay so the orthodontist one of my favorite characters. Like what you are brilliant you are beautiful and also gorgeous I was like you have everything going for you.
And you're like begging these people for acceptance when you make more money than all these people anyway besides the point I think those are very particular type of southern femininity that these women are aspiring to be and it is very much like the barbie of vocation of these women that like you have to be beautiful you have to have a really incredible job it gives back to the community but you also have to be fit.
You have to be part of a woman's like a girls group you have to be a strong person of faith in the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders are kind of the epitome of all of the southern qualities into one and it's also like the most incredible way for you to have power but not too much power.
And then you are the end of the day you are cheerleader on the sidelines to football players who are the only people allowed on that field just to do one job you have to one day have kids you have to be a nurse you have to look a certain way and act a certain way and also be able to do a high kick into a split like that is in booze in booze.
So that's where I think it's rooted in is this idea of what being a woman should be because that's how these women talk they say like you know when people look at me they should see Jesus and that's what recess and that to me was so profound because that I never thought of Jesus in that outfit and Jesus looks like a thing of that as Jesus.
Well, and it's part that you know what Sam was saying about like evangelical culture like that idea that you will be a messenger for Christ word by being somehow being like a public Christian on the field. The thing that I mix me think about like I think you are absolutely ideologically correct the other thing that I think these women have some of them is they they fucking love to cheer and like I loved it when I was a high school cheerleader junior high in high school like there is.
It's bad. But there is a high there and the reason I became a cheerleader was because there were so few options available to do something anything in my high school you know we didn't we have like two sports for girls at that time so it's like be a cheerleader or be in the band and I think that a lot of these women have taken the position or the avenue of power that is available to them and then they actually really like dancing.
Totally and you can see that and I think some of them like that fire for dancing has been dampened by like I mean they don't get it improvised most of them don't get to do any choreography that dance for the DC song has been the dance for 30 years. I know and there was another question that we didn't use that they're like this dance like the dances and seem that difficult and really they're not they're not and I've seen.
When they're showing their own freeform dancing that was intricate and good and I was like do that on the field they can't they can't and what the ideal is and they even talk about this too with people's looks is it's not the best it's the most in line with the understanding of the style of dance that Cowboys cheerleaders do and and the Cowboys cheerleader look.
You actually can't beat to pretty in a certain way that will be distracting your beauty cannot distract from the cowboy of it all I was it into that point like I mean that is to me the most material way of thinking of the patriarchy itself it's saying hey you're an individual you're part of your own story community way of being but when you were with us you have to lose all of that you have to get literally in line and perform as one and lose all sense of individuality.
That's a call for you are and that is also a call. I will say the one I think about this question from the listener why are these talented dancers so whenever with this one I'm careful about how I ask why questions because that's sometimes assumed that these people don't have agency they do have agents you know they know exactly what they're doing but to I think they're aware of something that all women are aware of and that is time there's a clock on these bodies there is a clock on these bodies and given the
nature of the physicality of the job they can only do it for a few years and given the beauty standards that these people require to be a cheerleader their bodies will have aged out otherwise by like 30 so if they wanted they have to do it now that's why you have an orthodontist dentists you know putting a dentistry career on the back burner to do this because she can be a dentist at 40 or 50 she cannot be a DCC at 28 they're aware of time yeah I was just going to say that she
used the only character that I felt I was like she's going to be fine fine fine fine and it's because she had a whole life that was not DCC right and that's why there's so much sadness for Victoria because she has no life no life yeah and like also Victoria knows that if she doesn't get to be team leader this last year it'll never happen for
because she is aging out and what I love how you're talking about clock because as I was doing research for today and listening to some of the does like a whole genre of Christian influencer podcasts which I didn't know existed till today and a lot of these women are on it and they were all talking about that clock and that the reason why they're okay having other jobs while being in DCC is because the clock is ticking and this will not always be like this and they need to be prepared for what happens afterwards which is such a wild burden to care
for you on yourself to rationalize your the way in which this is like subjectifying you and like not giving you really any like power in the world like it's so limiting in many ways and yet they're just saying more and more and control me more and yes I'll carry more burden on me it's a pretty incredible system they built for them isn't there one who like has to take a year off to have hip surgery and then she wants to come back after the hip surgery she though it's the one who's she's the older sister Anna
yes and she so she does her five years and kind of ignores a bunch of pain and then has to have to search a reason and it's this incredibly common injury amongst those cheerleaders for the landing in the splits and we should describe this move because it is like it is a centerpiece of the work they do and the showpiece for the main song and they work like dogs to get to it
they're in their cowboy boots in their outfits on the field they're high kicking but then they do a jumping split so they jump into the air and are in full split in the air then they fall down to the national turf in a split and you see the feet hit in the boots hit and it slides even further and they scissor themselves on the turf from a jumping split I it is I saw it and my hips hurt just watching it I when I saw it I was
with a friend that's a performing drag queen in New York and he said I'm so mad at this show exists now every queen in New York is going to have to learn the split yeah so right like all these records are now at home like working on their thunder jobs well and the thing that it makes me think of and the way that they talk about this move because they spend a whole period of time
talking about it in the show is that we have to do it because it's tradition we have to do it because it is spectacle like they're like it does look really cool right and yeah sure but they're like it doesn't matter if we're tearing up the hips of people right which is in kind of in line with football like it doesn't matter if the type of hits that we allow are giving
incredible amounts of brain damage that have these repercussions for the rest of these players lives it's it's what we do so that's what we do and this is so much a part of like evangelical Christian theology it is the subjugation and punishment of the body for the greater good one of the central ideas of evangelical Christianity is that our bodies are
bad and in order to draw closer to God we must in some way punish our bodies whether we're fasting whether we're wearing circumspects clothing whether we're praying for hours until we're exhausted the way to pleasing God is by subjugating and punishing the body well Sam what you're also describing is the 2024 Republican platform to like this is how they are building
legislation around yes especially women's bodies are saying yes you should have literally no control over the care of your body and whatever happens to it doesn't matter as long as it's producing for the greater good for the greater God all for these babies yes yes yes okay so our next question points out another cultural through line of the show and this one comes from Jess the DCC embrace Christianity more thoroughly than either the directors preceding
document series cheer or Friday night lights my main cultural touch point for Texas football which seems like a liberal watch fantasy compared to America's sweet hearts how much of this shift was inherent to the subjects filmed versus new cultural positioning for evangelicalism it's not new it's just true it's not it's not new it's just true the Friday night lights of it all was hiding that truth but I grew up we did have we had like Lila went she went Christian and yes but like it wouldn't
it wouldn't even further they could have not even further yes I was in marching band growing up in five a south Texas high school the Juts and rockets they were state champs several times my freshman year I think we lost the state championship but I remember the fellowship of Christian athletes I remember them praying on the field I remember the language of God being present in all that we did I remember we would play some Christian songs in the marching band of the games like
the football field is a second church in some of these towns and it is clear and present all the time so I think this show a America's sweet hearts is not about a shift it is about a return to showing this for what it is and what it's always been
Southern football is a Christian endeavor and I would say the Dallas Cowboys themselves are always have always been perceived as a Christian vehicle within football Jerry Jones and that Jones family are deeply religious people who see the work they do as a gift from God and the more religious they get the wealthier they get so that organization itself has a pumping through that it's not a coincidence that they're having Bible study and when I did my
background research and listened to the non-famous ones in the season talking about their experiences many of these women said they join D.C.C because as dancers it's hard to find spaces where Christianity is supported at work and this is one of the places they can do that also remember the episode where a few of the cheerleaders go to the evangelical church yes beautiful chocolate drop of a pastor so fine I wanted to love that man up and down and then on the
pulpit he prays for the Cowboys didn't he said God bless Dallas and God bless the Dallas Cowboys yes and Sam your attraction to him is trauma so I sure is sure is listen he can pray away the gay any day I may not go away I can't hear my kid go that man was fun
you know we had a we had a question from someone who's very much not from Texas who was like you know I only saw a couple of curly-haired girls trying out who could have like been construed as maybe possibly Jewish in some way like where's the position of like Jewish girl be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader ostensibly yes right but she just say that yeah no I think it'd be it it's it's one of those things were like people in those cultures say of course we welcome everyone but like how suffocating
it would be well to be in that position where there's the black woman who just like asked to basically get new there because I like sure you can be black but yeah but even more stark was the moment in which they hand out barbie dolls and the women of color are assumed to just get a Bruno not even a person of color here's a Bruno that's like what yeah and like you'll notice now the Cowboys cheerleaders they always have a few black girls they'll do it
they'll have the teen as they really think they're doing the lower the work just by doing that but they're asking all of these women not from central casting yes to subjugate their bodies straighten their hair hide their features hide their dance moves to fit in so it's like you can be black you can be brown you can be Jewish but you still better look like these dolls yeah and you have to grow up in a dance tradition that is specifically like you know there's
very coded language that they use on our orthodontist character who is Indian American to say essentially in order to kick like we expect you to kick in the dance line you need to learn how to start kicking like this like a very like a bit when you are a very young girl so you have to be schooled in this style of kicking which is rocket style kicking incredibly young so other dancers are like girl your shits to ethnic sorry yeah yeah that's
what they're saying but they would never say that overtly exactly so they say you just you need to learn that yeah there this is a thing about this version of Christianity everyone who does it well is a master communicator you have to be very good at language and very good at euphemism and metaphor because you can never actually say what you want so I'm always interested in who they choose to actually follow right and make main
characters and just from my experience on documentaries I know that they often get a lot more footage like there are people that they interviewed at length who are not part of this final and that there's a I think she's a first share black woman who's in a ton she sits on the kitchen island a lot right no that's the one who's gone okay she kept it real she kept it real there yes she was like I'm done with this organization I'm going to talk
some stuff yeah she's like all these bitches getting married this is boring but there's another one who we don't even know her name maybe maybe we got it one time but she like she goes to the old folks home like she is in a ton of the footage but they don't include her as a main character I want to know what she has to say the entire time and they like don't I went back to watch the cmt version of this which came out in 2006 and ran for I think 16 seasons
and I'm not gone through the whole thing and maybe I should use shatchy bt to like analyze every second no quicker but I don't think there were any black protagonist in those episodes either like they were always in the background but it was always the same type of white woman who was allowed to speak where the women of color were silenced in the background and man you would never know their story but when they did make it you're like okay well there is diversity there
they're they're sitting there but they're not talking which feels like the experience of so many people of color right now in culture where they're like okay I've been cast but I don't really have a meaningful role here you're not letting me actually say what I want to say right now
yeah right yeah yeah or maybe you're like I don't want to be part of this show because I know it at it you're gonna give me yeah so we're gonna talk a little bit here about diaculture and upholding thin ideals which by the way is also the theme of the ask and anything segment today so be sure to stick around for that but this question comes from Makayla and Melody's gonna read it.
I think in Judy use the word fueling a lot it's clearly code for not engaging in disordered eating behaviors but is this antithetical to the image they require girls to have like is this just an attempt to not get cancelled for how they talk about the cheerleader's bodies?
I love this question when they said fuel or fuel make sure you're fueled I like every red flag went off in my body whoa what is this coming from like why was that so intentional that they're saying that and then I went back and watch the old footage in the first few seasons of the CMT version all they focus on is that these girls have gained weight like literally they will not bring girls back who there's a in the very first episode of the first season one of the judges says
we should not bring her back because during break she gained weight and that shows that she doesn't care about herself and it's like what is going on so the whole culture is deeply rooted in a body dysmorphia and they have been actively trying to change it
and in this interview I listened to this morning with one of the current cheerleaders or current all stars she defended it by saying that DCC is more body inclusive than ever before right now which was the most telling statement that this new version is the biggest they've ever been allowed to be
which is still not by any standards it's probably healthy from most of them to upkeep forever what I notice about all of it is the ways in which their adherence to tradition kept them from being kinder to human bodies have you noticed how old that Cowboys cheerleaders outfit looks?
the look of it feels like it's still stuck in the 1970s and it's not all forgiving it's a blouse and it's not forgiving but like if they really wanted to be in any way progressive or kind to women they could find a new uniform type that still feels very Cowboys but allows bodies to more just be bodies they don't want to do that they don't want to do that right and that doesn't mean that it has to be like a full length major at all like outfit I don't know like it's the higher waist even
like what Taylor Swift wears right yeah which is like a body suit type of a body suit you know high-waisted crop top type situation but again it's like similar to the kicks we always did it we always do it is what we do yeah I think that they got media training
specifically on how to talk about that because of the feedback that they probably have received from the first the other show I mean I think they all were trained in various ways especially like Charlotte Jones on how to talk about the compensation
and how this is why we don't pay them anything it's because like this is the chance of a lifetime it's essentially like a ship passion job but I think the fueling thing also reflects shifts in the way that culture at large talks like it's no longer cool to have like to skip meals
unless you're a 10-row when you call it intermittent fasting and biohates right right the norms of the 2000s and 2010s are no longer the norms and so you have to talk about it like within this realm of wellness where something like fueling becomes appropriate
yeah yeah it definitely it made me think about well actually I heard one of them talk about this and they interview after the show where they were talking about counting their macros and their macronutrients and so there's all this new language that has been propped up in an era in which we're very aware of disordered eating and how eating just want to culture permeates everywhere so fitness culture has found new ways for you to police your body that is coded in
well you're eating something but it's still not even what you want maybe or what your body actually needs it's about upkeeping an athleticism that is really just a veil for body dysmorphia and other issues you may be facing well yep I also find how juxtaposed all of the food culture of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders is when compared to the aesthetic of the Dallas Cowboys and Texas culture itself Texas culture is big food, greasy food, fatty food, ginormous beef ribs
so the product these cheerleaders are selling is one of excess including food excess and yet they have to starve themselves to be symbols of it what is everyone else at these games eating? this is like the classic like if you are a baitriarch in one of these families like you need to make a giant feast and then eat none of these exactly exactly you can make the casserole don't have a bite do you know one bite just a little bite while you're standing up and then you got to get started
ok we have another question about women's bodies this is from Emily and Melody's going to read it I would love a deep analysis and discussion of the specific brand of Texan feminine politeness on display in America's sweethearts
of all the fascinating and at some points were pulses behavior shown throughout what I kept being captivated by was the way all of the women just stood there and took critiques about their bodies their facial structures their hip joints and just said thank you through the tears I guess this wasn't really a question but I would love someone from Texas Sam Sanders to unpack this for me as a Northeast coordinator oh my goodness I mean it all just felt like it was par for the course
I think about growing up in church part of the way that you prove that you can be a good member of the church and a good member of this community is to allow people at a higher rank than you to talk to you however they want to
because you enduring that shows that you won't leave it is a test of loyalty so when these women take all the verbal blows and smile through it they know what they're doing they're proving their loyalty and it's a choice and the older coaches doing it to them know this as well
so like it's not just an endurance test it's a loyalty test and I think that all of it made sense it's like it's funny like I watch the show and none of this dynamic surprised me at all because that's just the way it works that is how they teach you to get in line because it's obedience
it's obedience training it is obedience training and they're going to do it and what's masterful about the way the coaches on this Julian Squad do it is like they do the world's harshest obedience training without ever raising their voice isn't that scary isn't that scary
and they're also just every time they said yes ma'am yes ma'am I felt my heart would break because they just were given such awful mean feedback about something and these things like I would rewatch certain moments and I'm like there's no way they're actually picking up what they're saying
like when one of the coaches from across the football field was like you're twitching your nose too much and I was like no I think you have an issue with Victoria and you're using this place to weigh your war with them so a lot of the body comments it's like you've already been thinking about this
you don't want them here you already know who's being cast so now you're just beating them up in public as a way to not only beat them down but to also keep the other people in line which feels really you know abusive in many ways
and that's where my heart just breaks for these women so much as they're going through it and still smiling each time and what undergirds all of it then this is directed tied to the church as well the underlying assumption of a hierarchical structure like the DCC or like the evangelical church
is that if they're in charge of you they must be right and they must know best and they know better than you so you have to trust them you have to trust them so even if you know she's only picking on me because she hates me
if she says it's a nose twitch how can I bowtalks my nose and make it stop twitching I must assume that they are right because they have a higher rank and there's no place for rage or anger of any sort in this vision of femininity so they sublimated like you can see it in Victoria's face
oh my god yeah she's so mad she's gonna have I hope she goes to therapy she's gonna have so much child pack I want to come to California I want to I want to give her some magic mushrooms I want to like have like a water healing where she just is on the beach screaming into the void like I want release for her so badly I also think there's something interesting happening like if I could psychoanalyze Kelly I think Kelly and the other the choreographer the second in command
I think they hate her because they think that the second generation doesn't work just hard it's like it's like a disciplining nobody wants to work or like that somehow like they're resting on their laurels or that sort of thing
but then you also see it turned on themselves I loved how much footage we had of them of the older women getting like putting on their faces yeah right like there is no end like you are always this was the saddest this is one of the saddest things I noticed in those scenes
where the older women are getting dolled up their hair was so fried their hair had been through so much and like I wasn't even looking at it to like make my mind I felt bad for them it's like oh you've been dying or frying your hair for decades and if your hair looks that bad how bad must you just feel inside of all this do white women have gray hair in Texas I'm trying to remember not really in my and when I lived there I didn't see that I don't really do that
yeah yeah yeah yeah just blonde until you're in the grave just set you know like just an old yeah broad and big oh yeah oh you know it just always reminds me of like people who tell me about like how culture like infuse their grandmother's lives like they'd be dying of cancer their body is just
absolutely like taken down to nothing and they're like at least I've lost some weight yeah yeah well and then just like going back to like the way that these older women would use language and they would read these kids were filled with that ever like being quote unquote mean yeah that is all Texas Southern hospitality culture I think a lot the one of the biggest things I noticed when I finally left Texas was this trait we all have in Texas where you always say hi to someone if you make eye
contact no one else does that anywhere else and I would get lost in my little island but yeah yeah no you do but other places yeah you get look that like total weird I used to think oh well I'm just being nice because I'm talking to strangers asking who they are where they're from no that's how Texans do in group out group out group are you allowed to be here I'm I'm being kind to a stranger to assess who the fuck you are and why you're here it's it's it's like this little really
nice bless your heart version of surveillance culture down down okay our last questions are about pay let's hear this question from Stacy let's talk about pay and how DCC uses passion work to help justify low wages but then layers female friendship and camaraderie to keep people connected
in a way working for life all the while their bodies get destroyed and they hold down multiple jobs I guess my question is how do you overcome all of that to get these women a union sounds like journalism sounds like journalism well first of all Texas is a right to work states
so it might not happen but I've done some research that involves some weird reddit threads and junky sports illustrated dot com articles and they are the highest paid of all of the NFL spots but that means very little so they still get like I mean it seems like ultimately most cheerleaders make between 30 maybe 50 60 thousand dollars a year and that's why they have to work outside of this what I'm astonished by is the ways in which they like work a full
job as a nurse is aid and then turn around and at 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. you go to practice right and all of the other appearances that they do yeah it feels very like the conditioning that they've been through their whole life as women in this particular part of the country where you've been told you're never going to make as much as your male counterpart you should ever even aspire to make as much you should be dependent on other people I mean a lot of them are at the
prime of their life and growing up in football culture at Dallas Cowboys cheerleader was the most desired form of the minute so it's assumed this woman will marry well immediately and you see that with Reese like Reese has already engaged to a man she shouldn't be with honestly there are other fish in the sea that's a whole other episode of something else but I think it just embodies like a feminine way of being in Texas especially where you're going to do a
lot of labor and not be compensated for at all and you better do it with a smile so I just see this practice of underpaying them as just part of a larger thing they're going through in all parts of their lives where they should just bear it and take it and deal with it never probably I was most
surprised when thinking about the money of it all when you get to the point in one of the episodes where they're picking which photos of which girls will go into the Dallas cheerleaders calendar and these women have to pose for the calendar they might be picked they might not then I think they go
and do signings of the calendars in front of fans that have bought them never not once does one of them ask can I share in these profits if this calendar makes money do I get some they are taught and they have internalized so deeply to not just accept the low wages but to accept
the exploitation of their physical IP yeah that was sad to me well and there's two things I think that one they know that women can have a career but that that career often ends with marriage right so if that they can have a career for now and this career also heightens
their chances of getting married which also is so similar to like at a school like Baylor where there's an understanding that you should have a ring by spring of your senior year and so they all of them are like by the end of your senior year of cheerleading essentially you need to
have yeah you need to have been engaged or already married and then there's so much cognitive dissonance even going on with someone like Charlotte Jones like she she gets paid money which one is Charlotte she's the she's Jerry Jones's daughter yes but maybe it's like I get
paid money because I'm part of this legacy like I don't know what I noticed about the positioning of Jerry Jones's daughter what was her name Charlotte Jones it was in the C suite like on the level of the male executives but in charge of the cheerleaders whenever she would
talk if you listen she was saying nothing of substance and you know that she wasn't doing the day-to-day running of the cheerleaders her existence in this show and in that structure is to prove that a woman could be in the C suite next to the man that's all she's there to do it seems and her
entire purpose is to soothe the rough edges of the overriding male patriarchy that runs a cowboys but she's still one of the boys but that's why they're paying her and that's why she's there she doesn't actually do anything oh and it's also a mixed sense that like oh her
purview is the cheerleaders you're the lady go on down to them yeah yeah you're the latest right do you think a professional cheerleader union is possible again not in Texas but I do think that it's one of those things that we're seeing more unionized like we're seeing people advocate for pay
standards yeah in these sorts of professional yeah especially we've become more aware of the structures because I think we move move through the world assuming that they're making a lot of money or assuming that they've made like before I watch the show I thought they probably get paid six
figures for being a part of the organization they're probably all married to a football player I'm not worried about them now that I know I'm worried about them and ask him more questions about other kind of effective labor that you see pop up around really wealthy industries because I just like many people just I'm like oh everyone's getting paid they must be and that's usually not the case yeah you know one thing I was thinking about and they don't address
season in any capacity is similar to Bama Rush I wonder if someone came in and had like a huge influencer following and was like making tick-tocks of the process if they would be wary of her because she has too much power I think so right yeah even in like an interview I was listening to today one of the cheerleader said she was asked on this season of the show to have a first date filmed and the interviewer was like that would be so awkward to have a guy
get a camera on him for the first date and her concern was that the guy may not be DCC approved enough to be on camera it wasn't about like her own desires or love but it was about the brand identity of the Cowboys it does he fit into it and that just tells you everything about what about the like
hallmark movie fiance that's engaged to the woman who just finished off her final year to remember this guy yes yes the actor the he was an actor and he's been in a couple of home movies like move to Dallas for her yeah he quit but then they're now they're moving to LA so that he can chase his dreams and she's like I it's now his time to have his dreams filled like I had my and I was like I'll never be married because I'll be God damn it if I take a year
on myself this guy is like I will be on this show I am thrilled to be on this show whereas Reese's fiance I feel like it's like if Reese wants me to be like if she thinks it's a good idea for the camera people to come to my power washing job it's a good idea yeah bless that kid bless all their hearts those babies those babies last question this is again about passion work and this comes from Kelly after watching the docu series I perceive DCC as a pseudo cult devoted
to upholding a particular kind of outdated feminine ideal my question is is there a masculine equivalent in what context do men compete for a demanding job that pays very little in exchange for belonging to an in group that grants them a coveted status if there isn't one why doesn't this kind of
thing appeal to men the way it does to women I love this question and two things jump to mind immediately the first the only equivalent I can think of in the most like literal way are the chip and a says those men make a similar
salary their objectified in similar ways they're kind of cultish they have a very interesting cultural experience that has been documented that Hulu show which wasn't that terrible but I enjoyed it and that's like the first that comes to mind like body gendered obsessed people but the one that
really is floating underneath the surface for me that feels very similar in a surprising way are RuPaul's drag race I was gonna say drag yeah I was gonna say drag drag drag yes we'll say why do you think drag because I have my thoughts so drag is extremely demanding not just physically but like as an expense it's very expensive to get the make up right get the clothing right you're constantly traveling you may not get paid and for the most part most
drag queens don't get rich doing it it's a side job but if you get it right you are beloved in every bar you walk into you're a part of a fraternity slash sorority you have friends for life and memories for life I think drag is a is a big one because like even though we see the successes from RuPaul's drag race that is like less than 1% right yeah less than 1% I also think in response to this question like is there a masculine equivalent it's actually football
most football players don't make it most football players don't make the NFL and those that do get two or three seasons and they're injured for life I know so many kids that I grew up with plan football thinking they were going to make it
they didn't they fucked up their bodies and now they have a job that is tied in no way to football but they would do it all again yeah who's legible glory to them right yeah I mean I think it also back to what we were talking about in the beginning to there are ways in which people who are
in our society they take what they can get right so like what is a place where you feel the most power that you can feel is it on the drag stage is it on the like on the sideline as a cheerleader where do you get that power and you will do it whatever the cost might be because it is like your one
chance to feel like a powerful white guy yeah yeah and I think and this is a thing that I felt the entirety of watching this show this like inherent trait within all of us whether we admit to it or not we all actually at least some of our lives we love to be part of systems
instructors that tell us exactly what to do there's something comforting and affirming about being an assistant like the Cowboys cheerleaders or professional football or high school football where there are scripts and there are roles and you do it and you can see someone who's done this before
and then you do it too I was in margin band so I was like the queer hangar on to the football industrial complex because the band kids were always just inherently queer coded but even that was a script they tell you not to do it you see how to do it and they teach you and the time of my life when I felt the most connected to other people ever was probably high school margin band these systems and structures give us something they give us belonging which
means a lot yeah I mean I the reason I wanted to be a cheerleader like most of it was that I wouldn't have to decide what to wear to school two to three days of the week that's real because you wear one of your cheerleading uniforms or you're like hideous warm-ups made out of like you know balloon
material just so gross purple and gold but yeah like that especially in times when you feel like you don't know what's next in your life right so that might be high school for these women like the period post college or in your early 20s like that is an incredible transitional period especially when
there are these expectations in a place like Texas around when you should be getting married and like what your relationship with your boyfriend should be like and all that sort of thing there's some structure where it's like the high kicks are always the high kicks the splits are always the splits that's it right do it right like you know exactly what you're doing on a Saturday you have no free time yes because you're always practicing or doing your hair or
maintaining your body in some other way and it doesn't give you a lot of time to be sad or to think about the world around you so this is church to this is church yeah yeah yeah yeah the bow on all of this is the reason why it keeps you so busy and keeps you so focused on the community is that if you were to take a moment to break free like Victoria is about to do hopefully you would then want to dismantle the whole thing so they have to keep you busy and that's why
DCC remains to be a very beautiful cult yes yes well that's the word that's the end there that's the benefit of the big yeah okay so tell our listeners where they can find each of you if they want to find more of you on the internet and your preferred way for people to listen to the to the pod you can find me on I think mostly just Instagram these days all the others have fallen off for me I have a joint blue sky in a real way yet so so don't find me there our co host like Jones is big on
blue sky loves it so go there if you're on blue sky and then a vibe check I don't know podcast app is the best wherever you get your podcast but I listen to it on the podcast app on Apple yeah it's two words five check you can find me on all socials at Sam Sanders and yeah I'm probably most active these days on Instagram and truth be told it's a bunch of photos of palm trees and dogs because I like that I like it just vibes Sam is vibes yeah yeah thank you so much for coming
on the show I cannot imagine better thank you for here and I have to before I leave have to clarify something when you had me on to talk about and half away because I love her so much and of craft that a hero's arc for her in
spite of what facts exist or don't I incorrectly said that part of her like Renaissance the last few years was having a good divorce she's never been divorced she just gives me she gives me impeccable survived a divorce energy so sorry for the error do you do you remember this melody I mean it was
in the Bradley Cooper episode I do remember you saying that as I'm going to be brought it up in the comments they're like what is he talking about I know I will put it to her mythology yeah I added to her mythology she must have one of the vores thank you so much for listening to the culture study podcast be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts we have so many great episodes in the works and I promise you don't want to miss any of them if you
want to suggest a topic ask a question about the culture that surrounds you or submit a question for our subscriber only advice time segment check the show notes for a link to our subs tag if you want to support the show and get bonus content head to culture study pod dot substack dot com it's five bucks a month or fifty dollars a year and you'll get ad free episodes an exclusive advice time segment weekly discussion threads for each episode and a link to
a special Google form so that your questions go to the front of the line the culture study podcast is produced by me and Helen Peterson and Melody Raoul our music is by pottington bear you can find me on Instagram and and Helen Peterson Melody at Melody is forty seven and the show at culture study pod thank you so much for your support