Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

Catch Sounds Like A Cult host Amanda on tour this weekend in Chicago & Minneapolis!!! July 13: Minneapolis, MN — The Big Magical Cult Show at Cedar Cultural Center (buy tickets here!) July 14: Chicago, IL — The Big Magical Cult Show at the DEN (buy tickets here!) *DATE & VENUE CHANGE* You culties preyed and preyed for us to analyze the cult of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, and at long last, host Amanda Montell and coordinator Reese Oliver are blessing you with one of our favorite episodes in a very long time 🥲 To the undiscerning eye, Netflix’s new “America’s Sweethearts” series may look like an innocent little feature on the NFL’s most treasured cheerleading squad… but to us, this was a true crime documentary about a profoundly conformist, exploitative, isolating, hyper-patriarchal, physically perilous, but also inspirational and glamorous CULT. The question is not if the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading team is culty—I mean, hello, duh—the question is how bad is it??? Tighten your Kelli knots and spritz another coat of hairspray, because we are not holding back this week 📣  Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod @amanda_montell To order Amanda's new book, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, click here. To subscribe to Amanda's new Magical Overthinkers podcast and/or watch full episodes on YouTube, click here :) Thank you to our sponsors, who make this show possible: Go to the App Store or Google Play store and download the FREE Ibotta app to start earning cash back and use code CULT. Shop the SKIMS Soft Lounge Collection at SKIMS.com. After you place your order, select "Sounds Like A Cult" in the survey and select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. Earn points by paying rent right now when you go to joinbilt.com/cult.

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That's I-B-O-T-T-A in the Google Play or App Store and use code COLT. The Skims Soft Lounge Collection offers loungewear that I can actually wear out of the house. And it is so soft. Shop the Skims Soft Lounge Collection at skims.com now available in sizes XXS to 4X. If you haven't yet, be sure to let them know I sent you. After you place your order, select sounds like a Colt in the survey and select our show in the drop down menu that follows. Listen up renters. Do you ever feel like you're stuck in this loop of rent payments

just watching your money vanish into thin air? That's where built rewards comes in. Earn points by paying rent right now when you go to joinbuilt.com slash cult. That's join, B-I-L-T, dot com slash cult. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Joinbuilt.com slash cult to start earning points with your rent payments today. The views expressed on this this episode as with all episodes of sounds like a cult are solely host opinions and quoted allegations

The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only Hey culties. It is your host Amanda here with an invitation If you end up liking today's episode and generally enjoy pop culture deep dives and spectacle and you live in the Midwest, I hope you join me this weekend on July 13th in Minneapolis and July 14th in Chicago for my live tour. I am putting on this over-the-top, wacky, ridiculous, very fun live show called The Big Magical Cult Show involving drag and burlesque and merch and custom drinks and a meet and greet and a powerpoint presentation on parasocial relationships. It is such a blast. There are still tickets available. There have been a couple of snafus with the ticket

link over the past few weeks, but I swear it works. If you've tried to buy tickets in the past and there was an issue, try again. If you would, The ticket link is in our show notes or at amandamontel.com. It is going to be such a fun, cult-tastic event. Unlike any live podcast or book tour event you've seen before, I can tell you that. So if you like this episode and you live in one of those towns, I would love to see you there. Reece, I have a little question for you. Yes. Would you rather have to go through the entire recruitment, audition, and training process to become a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader or get the phrase, God loves Dallas branded onto your hip bone nexium style? Are you kidding me? Have to or get to?

That's so like, I want that ironically. No, I'm going brand all the way. I'm getting a Godloved Dallas Tramp stamp. I need it. Okay. I guess a brand on your hip bone is physically forever, but the stain of that traumatic training and audition process is permanent in a way that could follow you, I would say, even into the afterlife. That's how I feel too. A brand compared to like a lifetime of hip issues from jump splits, I feel like the brand is nicer to your hips. Weirdly, yeah, you're right.

The cult of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. All right, let's get motherfucking into it. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host, Amanda Montell, author of the books Cultish and the Age of Magical Overthinking. And I am Reese Oliver, Sounds Like a Cult's coordinator. Every week on the show, we pick a different fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist, from Catholic school to Starbucks, to try and answer the big question.

This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? Oh my god, I truly love your interpretation of the Sounds Like a Cult ultimate question. It is so unique. It is so uniquely you. The trick is to genuinely ask yourself every time. I think it's the theater school in me kicking in where I'm like, no, ask the question. Acting is reacting. And if the group does sound like a cult, actually the real question we should be asking ourselves

is which of our cult categories does it fall into? A live your life, a watch your back, or a get the fuck out level cult? After all, cultish influence can show up even in places where you might not think to look these days. It could even show up, it could even, it could especially show up in Texas, in a sports stadium. On your TV screens. On your TV screens. Look, today we're talking about the goddamn Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. And I have to say, thus far in 2024, I have been recording Sounds Like a Cold episodes

way in advance. So typically what you hear every week is something that was recorded months and months ago, which is like necessary for organization, but not necessarily conducive to like jumping on the zeitgeistiest cult a la mode, cult au corolles. Why am I speaking French? But every time over the past couple weeks that I logged into the Sounds Like A Cult email account or checked our DMs, checked even my personal DMs, Someone was begging me with the passion. Are you going to talk about the cheerleaders? Yeah. Are you going to talk about America's Sweethearts, the Netflix docu-series that just dropped about the cult of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, AKA the DCC. And we hear you, we hear you culties. And here we are jumping

on the mic less than a week before this episode is supposed to go live, which is not our style. But here we are Reese, when I approached you and was like, okay, we got to do it. We got to do the cult of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and I want to host it together. What was your sort of initial reaction? My initial reaction was, okay, I remember my almond mom watching the DCC reality show when I was a kid. And anything that falls into that category is probably something I can expect to make a good Sounds Like a Cult episode.

Did you say almond mom? Yes. Are you unfamiliar with the term? I'm so sorry. Everyone listening, okay, so Reese is Sounds Like a Cult's once intern promoted to coordinator. She is like the bread and butter from this brand. And it's been so helpful to have you

because you give me a cultural education due to the fact that you're 21. And like, every time you say something to me, I mean, I actually do think you're the cleverest person in the world, but every time you like say a slang term to me that I don't know because I'm not on TikTok, I think you've invented it. And I like cackle laughing because I think Reese is truly the voice of her generation. Like you said, I had never heard the phrase like microdosing on XYZ. Like right now I'm microdosing

on coastal grandma style because I'm wearing this floral silk shirt. I thought you invented that. And I was like, that's the funniest thing I've ever heard. But you didn't invent it. You just implemented it really well. Oh, I feel like Warren Jeffs tapping the phone lines and then saying that God told me you were talking to a boy on the phone. I feel so powerful right now. Oh my God, that's the perfect cult analogy. Bless you. Bless you for the callback. Okay, but what the fuck is an almond mother? Oh, yes. An almond mom is, I'm sure many of us, born, I guess, just anytime within the general heroin chic craze, probably had or knew an almond mom, just very weight concerned mom, has all the biggest loser DVDs, you know, puts water in your juice, makes comments about people's bodies on the street.

Sure. All the stuff that's like not super overtly attempting to give you body image issues, but like definitely is. Which is just everything DCC is. 100%. It is just like a battalion of almond mommies and almond daughters. I watched that Dallas Cowboys cheerleader reality show. I watched it in a fever dream of my adolescence. When was that? In 2006. Yes, when I was 14, AKA prime almond daughter years. See?

Yes, exactly. You're getting it. When I got all these requests to do this topic, I was like, I know, I know, I know, I know. It's the perfect Sounds Like a Cult topic. I can already tell just from the Netflix poster. I was like, but we've already done the cult of cheerleading on Sounds Like a Cult. And I'm the first to admit that we went way too easy on it. I was just excited because the Netflix series Cheer had just premiered and we interviewed someone from Cheer on the show. And I

was like, oh, this will just be a lighthearted episode. But we were too easy on the cult of cheerleading. I was like, that's behind us. We've already done the cult of sororities. What more is there really to say? Am I actually sick of the cults we all follow? And then the answer is invariably always no, because I was like, okay, you know what? The culties have spoken. We need to give them what they want.

And I started watching the show. I mean, you and I immediately started texting feverishly about it, because the truth of the matter is, is that I will never get sick of this shit. No, it's just something about all of these cults coming together. That's how I feel about MLM's too, is that they become something cultier than the sum of their cults. This is what all of the coaches say about the girls is that there's an unspoken it quality to every DCC cheerleader.

And I think that quality is just a predisposition to belong to multiple cults. It's so true. It's so true, especially these contemporary cultish groups that surround just girly things, the ones that make the adolescent inside of us all want to be a part of it. And yet we see how problematic and damaging it is, that cognitive dissonance keeps me at least fascinated endlessly. And so it's not like I watched all seven episodes of this Dallas Cowboys cheerleader series begrudgingly. I was all in, like I binged it. And we started texting about it right away. I knew that we were going to be putting together so many notes.

I was like, we got to come up with a way to condense this. I was like, okay, I think we can divide the culty analysis into just like a few general categories of influence. Conformity is one. It's manifest destiny slash Christian transcendence. God loves Dallas type shit. It's the labor exploitation. It's the physical torture slash deprivation slash almond mommy shame. And then of course it's the white supremacist patriarchy of it all. All of these categories kind of come together

to form this spider web of glorifying the suffering and making all of your trauma look beautiful. And like we were saying, they're also some really compelling, good culty aspects of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Like they have mastered a sense of ritual. They have so many mantras, so many special buzzwords that really bond them together. Well, it's all the reasons you want to join a sorority. I honestly, I think this is more alluring than a sorority because what they're doing is like elite kind of, you know, like they are such talented dancers. Yeah. I mean, they keep saying

the phrase world-class organization. I'm like, all right, relax. But that I think does make it even more appealing as a cultish community than a sorority because of the achievement and the glory. The prestige. Yes. The girls involved with the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders truly establish a sense of belonging as if they were born to do this and they're all in this together.

That's a feeling that I've never known and that most people never know. It is so engrossing and so intense. But then you back up and like get a bird's eye view and you're like, to what end? It's so strange because their careers feel so all consuming for five years where you get paid essentially minimum wage to, I don't know, just be representative of everything that's wrong with society, but also a feminist icon because you're like obviously doing super badass shit. So like, what is it?

Exactly, exactly. And like, this is why it's going to be so interesting to come to the verdict at the end of this episode, because I experienced this feeling and I know that you did too because we were texting about it. Where like within the course of one single scene watching this series, I would be like, Victoria, get the fuck out. This is destroying your self-esteem. You're in a cult girlfriend, GTFO. And at the same time, I was rooting for her to stay.

Like I wanted her to hang up her uniform on the I'm coming back to audition. Yes. I was like, no girl, you can prove them wrong. You can, but like why do their standards, even though I'm watching this objectively acknowledging that their standards are bullshit, but why do I still feel the need to adhere to them?

Exactly. So then like, as we continued to watch it, I realized you cannot just break down the cultish aspects of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders into five clean categories. There's also the sense of physical isolation. Yeah, you're moving to a state for a lot of these girls for something that like you could be kind of any moment. When what's her nuts from Weehawken dyed her hair and then immediately got cut. When Kelly from Weehawken went burn. The exit cost, just like you're saying, where like even if in the best case

scenario, you're on the team for five years, you pour your entire sense of purpose into this role, it is pitched to you as the glory days of your life, your peak. And then you graduate and you're left feeling totally lost. Yes, no, you're like totally left to flounder. So the only real thing to do is to have a daughter and raise her to be a DCC or trimmer 25 years later when it's five times harder than it was for you.

Literally, yeah, it really does beg like a very deep and existential question about cults, which is like, we are meant for intense community and in a way that is becoming harder and harder to access, at least in the United States. So if you get an opportunity to experience that, even for a short period of time, even under the physical pain and incredible manipulation and exploitation and the rest, should you even decline? Or should you take that opportunity? Watching them all cry when the beds get cut

just gave me this huge, like the same catharsis I felt watching Midsummer, where all of those women are sobbing together. I got the same feeling where I'm like, now I'm having misgivings about judging these women for partaking in this because this is what they're wanting from it. 100%.

Like I was reading this Atlantic article about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders that mentioned that the most commonly heard phrase throughout the show is, I love you so much. Oh, I mean, it reminded me so much of the key interview that I did for cultish about Jonestown, which was with this Jonestown survivor named Laura Johnston Cole, who's since passed away.

She said that she did not regret her time in Jonestown, that those were like, honestly some of the best days of her life, even after everything. And I'm just like, is that deranged delusional optimism or like, okay, Jonestown's too extreme an example, but water down Jonestown like an almond mommy diluting juice. And do you get an experience that is still worth it even though it's cultish in all these different ways? I don't know. I guess that's what this episode is all about finding out. Yeah, like I can watch these women and feel bad for them and admire them all I want. And

they have felt a feeling that I will never feel, which is not only that sense of community, but also you are constantly being told that you are like an elite class of women. Yes. And yet they all seem so genuinely humble. Well, and some of that has to do with the conformity. The emotional manipulation. And the lack of ability to express one's full range of emotions, which is represented most extremely in the character of Reese, LOL, Reese with a C, not

Reese like an S, our sweet girly pop here at Sounds of the Cult spells it with an S, very different. Think Reese spelled with a C, C for Christ, because you can imagine that there's a lot of overlap between evangelical Christians, megachurch type Christians, and the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, just because those organizations are very aligned in terms of standards for femin Christians and the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders just because those organizations are very aligned in terms of standards for femininity and the like. But there's even a moment in the show when the two coaches, Kelly and Judy, are like, does she ever cry because Christian femininity doesn't let her? No.

Okay. We got into it so fast. I feel like we got to back the fuck up and introduce those listening to the cult of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, why this docu-series on Netflix right now called America's Sweethearts has us all in a goddamn chokehold, and be a little more surgical about what makes this a cult. Exposition time. The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders were technically established in 1961. They're currently owned by Jerry Jones, the man, the myth, the legend, owner of the Dallas Cowboys.

His net worth is currently $8.5 million. Wait, that's it? I'm actually going to double check that number live because we fact check here it sounds like a goal. Yeah, we fact check it live on the spot. $8.5 billion. That makes more sense. I was about to say. 8.5 billion. That makes more sense. I was about to say 8.5 billion. What?

Yeah no no no. He's in the NFL business like we're talking B's not M's. I'm just a baby excuse me. Anywho the thing that kind of apparently put the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders on the map which I was surprised not to hear them touch on in the documentary was that at a 1967 Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders on the map, which I was surprised not to hear them touch on in the documentary, was that at a 1967 Dallas Cowboys game, a adult entertainer, a stripper, if you will, by the name of Bubbles Cash, which like, cutest name ever, need that as a drag name. She was walking through the stands with these cute little things of cotton candy and everybody was like, whoa. The GM of the Dallas Cowboys at the time, Tex Schramm, yeah, was like, oh, I see if I dress my cheerleaders like her and I make them a big spectacle. And if I get everybody to look at these girls like the way that they're looking at

her right now, I can make me a lot. It's funny that you mentioned Bubbles Cash as your drag name. It is so drag. As I was watching the show, and we're in a cultural moment right now where Chapel Rhone is skyrocketing. I mean, the cult of Chapel Rhone, holy shit. But as I was watching these Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, I was like, they are in drag. I think paventry is just drag for straight people. Like paventry cheerleading, like all of these.

There have to be closeted or even out gay Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. They didn't go into those storylines. No, we did not see those. Who was the girl who was like, I'm not far enough in my life. I'm a hot mess. But she seemed like really fun. I don't know. She seemed bi, whatever. Was she bi or did you think she was hot?

Oh, that's always the question. That's always the question. Anyway, moving on, I also want to just as a note, Jerry Jones is the billionaire at the top of this organization that is powered by women. His second in commands are women. Obviously, every Dallas Cowboys cheerleader is a woman. This is the power hierarchy of every classic cult from the Children of God to Wild Wild Country, the Rajneesh Param to the Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. There is a man like Jerry Jones, who sits comfortably at the top, and then he surrounds himself with a gaggle of white women.

That's his inner circle, who exchange their beauty and whiteness for a grain more power. And then there are the sort of worker bees at the bottom of this pyramid of power. Jerry Jones is the wizard behind the curtain of this organization, but you barely see him at all in the documentary. They don't want you to think about Jerry. They don't want you to think about Jerry. They don't want you to think about the power that Jerry ultimately holds. And I think the

reason why all of these women, even the coaches, Kelly and Judy, who will analyze shortly, I think one of the reasons why they probably do behave so sort of fascistically is because they have Jerry invisibly looming above their heads and that is such a privilege to be able to wield your power behind closed doors like that or to be able to be visible or invisible depending on what you desire. Yeah. If we're thinking about Jerry, we're thinking about the ethical implications and everything that happens under his control.

And that's, especially when it comes to the Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, is something people don't want to do. There was actually a lawsuit. One of the DCC girls, like semi recently, was suing for not being paid enough. And it's like, you don't want to think about the fact that there are people making those decisions. It's easier just to be like, oh, well, you know, that's the way it's

been and that's the way it's, it'll be and whatever. But no, that's Jerry Jones. And now a quick word from our Cult Follow sponsors who make sounds like a cult possible. It is summertime, which means sometimes a spendy time, aka time to earn cash back on every purchase when you use Ibotta. Ibotta is a free app that lets you earn cash back every time you shop. Earn on hundreds of items from groceries to beauty supplies, even toys. The average Ibotta user earns $256 per year. That is free money. That could cover the cost of an entire shopping trip, that flight that you've been eyeing or the fancy dinner you've been craving.

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for lounge wear give it a try. Shop the skims soft lounge collection at skims.com now available in sizes xxs to 4x. If you haven yet, be sure to let them know I sent you. After you place your order, select Sounds like a Cult in the survey and select our show in the drop down menu that follows. Okay, this is a message for my renters. I rent and there's a lot of sort of conventional wisdom about how renting is bad. It's not a good investment. I'm not a financial scholar or an economist, but with the way that interest rates are renting, not such a bad deal, especially because of Built Rewards. Built Rewards is breaking ground as the first rewards program that hooks you up with points on your rent. Even if

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Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Joinbuilt.com slash Colts to start earning points with your rent payments today. Reese, give us some more fast facts, would you? Okay. So 36 girls make the team every season, but 500 on average will send in video auditions for the first round. Throughout the process of auditions and training, they get cut notoriously at any point over

this training process. And rookies and veterans alike audition, meaning both new and returning members. The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, as the performers we know them to be today, were kind of assembled by a team of people. Choreographer Texi Waterman, we have Tex and Texi, love that. In 1972, who hand selected and trained a whole bunch of new 18 plus cheerleaders prior to this. They were like some high school girls, but no more. Now they're all adults so they can wear the sexy, sexy uniform designed by Paula Van Wagner. It is now in the Smithsonian, which is awesome. She also has a nepo niece

who was a DCC, which I thought is an extra fun fact. Her requirements were to make them sexy and western and the girls had to be able to move in them and that is exactly what she did. This uniform is not to be underestimated in terms of the power that it holds. Like this is the satanic robe of the DCC and those with power use it as a tool of manipulation. One of the first culty things that I clocked while watching the series was that as a veteran, you have to give your uniform back every year, even though it was custom fitted to your body. It's a privilege, not a right. It's a privilege, not a right.

As a symbol to show how disposable you are, how like you have to go through this liturgical and very stressful mind fuck and body fuck of a process every single year. There is just something so like deeply depersonalizing about that, which is a trend that I noticed throughout watching the show is how analytical these women are of each other's appearances, which is a trend that I noticed throughout watching the show, is how analytical these women are of each other's appearances, which obviously is nothing new. We all do it, I do it, but I feel the brain rot

goes so deep. It gets into the psyche of even the viewer. When I was putting on makeup this morning, I was like, I'm not putting on bottom mascara because there's a scene in the show. Because Victoria's looked messy. Yeah mascara because there's a scene in the show. Because Victoria's looked messy. Yeah, because Victoria's looked too much.

And that was in my head. The dehumanization aspect on the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders while, as you mentioned, not unique, I think it creates a level of confusion because not like to jump to the most extreme example, but there is a moment that is captured by the docu-series where one of the cheerleaders is inappropriately touched, assaulted by a photographer. The cheerleader immediately identifies it as inappropriate, approaches law enforcement, has them intervene. Ultimately, there was not enough evidence to press charges, but the photographer was

banned from that particular stadium. And they have a discussion that I thought was important to portray on television. And I really respected all the voices that were in the conversation in the locker room between the cheerleaders about dehumanization and how just because I'm wearing this uniform, I am not an object. And I was like, hell yeah. And yet I couldn't help notice like a queasy feeling in my stomach because in a different way that is a little more psychological and less explicit, their coaches are dehumanizing them and objectifying them by holding them to these doll-like standards.

Yeah. And I don't want, again, I don't want to, it's very easy to villainize people like Kelly when again, this is Jerry Jones. But for you to say like, oh, she made the right choice and that should never happen to her. Like, this is not something that we want. I find that hard to believe. Yeah. Because this is not the only example of how objectification makes this sisterhood, this cult inherently dangerous for its members. There was also this one example

of one of their head cheerleaders of the DCC, this girl named Kelsey being stalked by a fan. Yeah, Kelsey had an air tag put on her car and you are creating the conditions that lead to these circumstances. Yeah. And what are you going to do the next day? You're going to wake up and you're going to tie another Kelly Knot tighter.

Exactly. That just reflects like the lack of protections that this organization has for their dancers from every angle. Let's finish summarizing some of the sort of like history and background of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Then we'll identify some characters and further get into the culti analysis. So since the 70s, these girlies have been iconic. They have their new uniforms, they're doing dance here, choreography that leans further away from cheer and more into dance. And at this point, they are America's sweethearts.

They're getting tons of TV promo thanks to their current director at this time, Suzanne Mitchell. She's referred to as somewhat of a legend. She's the Kelly before the Kelly. She basically skyrocketed these girls to TV stardom, having them appear in ABC and NBC specials. Since then, there has been Don Quijote's ad nauseam,

like the one that we are talking about today and the iconic reality show, DCC making the team that my very own almond bomb watched. Yeah, it is interesting that, I mean, I can't name a single other NFL cheerleading squad, but there were a lot of extremely ambitious, highly capitalistic, aesthetic minded, PR driven folks involved with this team that made it what it is today. We've been mentioning these names, Kelly and Judy, so far throughout this conversation.

Can you identify exactly who they are within the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders? I can. So we'll begin with Kelly, I guess. Kelly Finglass, formerly known as Kelly McGonigal, I believe. She's related to Professor McGonigal? Lore Drop, never seen her read very far. Oh, okay, cool.

See, when you say Lore Drop, I think you made that up. No, Lore Drop is just fun fact about me. That's what I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get what it means, but like I've never heard it. And now I've come to understand that when you say something that I've never heard before, you probably didn't invent it, but it feels better to think that you did. By no means. Yeah. Oh, okay. So when I said we should give some fast facts about Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, I should

have said, give some lore drop. We're about to lore drop. Okay. We're about to lore drop. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it.

This is so fun for me. I love learning new language. Okay. So- Who said our show's not educational? Who said that? We've got Kelly. She's the director. She's the flesh and blood of DCC. She kind of runs the whole shebang.

She is also an ex cheerleader, just like our next head honcho, Judy Trammell, also ex DCC Obby. And she is the head choreographer of the current DCC squad. And then our last head honcho, who wasn't super present. She was more of just like a looming, scary lady in the back who makes business decisions, Ms. Charlotte Anderson, DC executive VP and chief brand officer. She's terrible. That's all I'll say. These ladies work together to maintain

the first main ingredient of culte influence in the DCC, which is conformity. Reese, would you please tell us about The Binder? So throughout the course of America's Sweethearts, we are shown several times some little shots of this iconic DCC binder, which contains all of these answers that answer the question, what is a DCC? And here is what one of these pages of the binder says if you pause to read it.

What am I? I am a little thing with big meaning. I help everybody. I unlock doors, open hearts, do away with prejudices. I create friendship and goodwill. Everybody loves me. I cost nothing. I am pleasing to everyone. I am useful every moment of the day. And if that is not giving some Michelle Dugger meat transformed wife. It is. It is. Like that's the cultiest shit I've ever fucking heard.

I know. The fact that this document exists as a sort of 10 commandments, Berg letters, burg letters, you know, whatever culty reference you want to make. The existence of this document is culty. It is so beyond a sort of like employee handbook. And it connects to something that I think makes this a cult more than anything else is the way that it follows you outside of the stadium. One of the most noteworthy sound bites from the docu-series that I can recall is when someone was talking about how when you get cut from the audition process, what makes it especially painful is not that you

weren't a skilled enough dancer. It's that you get the feeling that you have failed to meet the standard for the perfect American woman. These are America's sweethearts, as they've been dubbed, not because they look pretty and can kick high. It's because they're expected to embody this extremely male gazey ideal for a well-behaved, patriotic, I'm going to give you this girlfriend experience but without going too far that sort of like early Britney Spears kind of

vibe. Everything you want to be, want to sleep with, want to marry. Exactly. The ideal American Texas woman. And that too, I think creates the conditions for some of those boundary breaches and that dehumanization and at sometimes physical abuse, they have certain measures in place when they take pictures. Not football!

Dude, I know that like, that haunted me. Even the delivery of the way that it was explained. Let's everybody hold hands! Yeah. So like, if a male fan wants to take a picture with a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, they know that there's a high chance this dude is probably going to want to get handsy. So they give fans who want to pose for a picture a football to hold, to give them somewhere to put their hands other than, you know, the buttock of an orthodontist. So, I mean, the conformity also connects to the sense of hierarchy and charismatic leader position that Kelly and Judy hold because they do have their favorites

who get chosen for positions up the hierarchy, like first leader or second leader, which are sort of like head cheerleader type roles and their favorites embody this look, proportions that make the uniform look pitch perfect, you know, like flawless makeup, hair and that sort of dry bar blowout style, blonde, white. The Victoria's Secret bombshell, the Carl's Jr. girl on the car, the Hooters girl.

There's one for every type of man, but yet they're all somehow universal. It just depends on your tax bracket and your hobbies. There's a woman being sold for you somewhere. It's hard because there's this effortlessness you have to maintain where you can't have enough interest in other things that it distracts from your ability to be the perfect cheerleader, but you can't care about it so much that your care is transparent.

Yeah. That impossible feminine standard for your looks and your attitude is, I think, perfectly embodied in this one cheerleader on the show named Victoria, who we've referenced a few times. Her mom was a DCC as well, and her storyline was pretty devastating. The way that DCC became her whole identity and informed her entire sense of self-worth and her relationship with her mother,

but also never made her feel truly accepted. It made for such good TV because she was an underdog and she like was really pursuing something that was just beyond her capacity to achieve. The multi-generational trauma of it all, because hearing Victoria's mom, like Victoria's mom, I think is an unintentional almond mom, which is so heartbreaking because the experience for her is not at all what it seems to have turned out to be for Victoria.

So she is trying to encourage her to follow her dreams, but also like you're watching that destroy your child's psyche in real time. And their emotional enmeshment and just how isolated the two of them were with one another felt extremely culty. It did. It felt like a fucking Samuel Beckett play.

I was like, I did. Can someone do Waiting for Godot but like everybody's in the Dallas Cowboys cheerleader uniform. I still have a year in theater school left. There's time. Okay.

Now that whole aspect, the conformity, that is culty. But for me, my kink is roasting the manifest destiny Christian nationalism aspect here. I hope they see God. I know my favorite thing. So the character Reese is one of the gals that they follow more in depth on the show. And she is this very wholesome Christian girl. I would watch a million YouTube vlogs of her. on the show and she is this very wholesome Christian girl. I would watch a million YouTube vlogs of her.

Miss Universe team Florida. Yes, she like, you know, got engaged to her first ever boyfriend. I hope their first night together went okay. They're married now, but she, I mean, look, I don't wanna, she seems darling. Like I- Oh, I want the world for her. Listen. She works at a

flower shop. I want to know if she was a Bama Rush girlie because she did go to U of A. We'll do some investigating, but I really, I don't want to say a single negative thing about this gal. However, one of the first things she says as she's introducing herself is, when I'm dancing, I do so for my Heavenly Father, my Creator, that's why I do this. And when I'm doing my moves, when I'm up there on stage, I hope that no one sees me. I hope they see him. And I'm like, babe, the way that you're dancing, so impressive. I mean, she's captivating. She's so talented, but I'm like, I ain't seeing Jesus, honey. They're looking at you.

They are looking at you. And that's okay. Oh my God, that makes me think of that scene in Hacks. Are you watching Hacks? No. There's a funny scene when the older washed up comedian who's gunning for a comeback on Hacks is being canceled because she's visiting a college

and the college students are finding old footage of her delivering problematic jokes. And she has like a Gen Z writing assistant who is kind of helping her navigate this ongoing cancellation. And the assistant is like, you called so-and-so a slut back in the day. And the older comedian who's so funny, played by Jean Smart, is like, she was a slut.

And Hannah Einbinder, the assistant is like, and that's fine. And that's how I feel about race. My issue is not that you're being slutty. My issue is that ironically enough, you're not saying it with your chest. All that chest and you're not using it. Yeah. And like something that was so clear to me about Reese and something that The Atlantic also pointed out. I'm just going to read the poem directly from The Atlantic because I think they did it so well. Caitlin Dickerson wrote this amazing write up on America's Sweethearts for The Atlantic

called I am pleasing to everyone which is a lovely little quote from that page that we read earlier and in it she says this thing about Reese she says the shows characters are soothed by the strict hierarchy of their world they hate to disappoint but when they do their path back into their coaches good graces is clear perform better and you will be absolved." Which is exactly how Reese seems to view religion and cheerleading, which I think is what makes her such a successful DCC. 100%.

The masochism. For sure, for sure. The Protestant ethic lives within her. I have to say too, this was just like fucking non-scripted television, cotton candy for me, the episode that opens up at the mega church that some of the DCC cheerleaders attend. There's this amazing scene that's interspersed

with like training sequences and stuff, where this pastor is up there preaching at one of these giant mega churches, and he just keeps repeating this phrase, God loves Dallas. Like God is going to bless Dallas through the Dallas Cowboys, through the cheerleaders. God wants the Dallas Cowboys to win. He wants Dallas to make money. He wants the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders to be hot. This is the messaging underlying this God Loves Dallas mentality that does not explicitly get echoed within the DCC, but it aligns perfectly.

Yeah. I was looking into God Loves Dallas because I was like, that's a really strange thing to harp on. There is a God Loves Every City Now, it seems. If you go to their website, it does the branding thing where it cycles through them all and it originates with Dallas. And that just made me think about all of these women coming from not only all over the country, but at this point, all over the world to participate in the DCC, which is so interesting to me because they are so emblematic of white, southern American cultures. So I find it so fascinating that it is that glittery of a cult. That people who know nothing about this lifestyle are like, I want to be symbolic of this culture.

Yeah, the whole Dallas Cowboys cheerleader thing is giving like holy land. Come pilgrimage to the holy land and you will become a disciple of this place that God loves. He will dance through you. I guess that's the logic that plays out. For five years and then good luck. Yeah, and then fuck you. And then like God hates you because you're old. This brings me to why it is so easy for the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders to exploit the labor of their recruits.

Guess, take five seconds to guess how much money you think a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader gets paid. In the 80s, they were paid $35 per game. The rumor is that now it's around $500. It's just $500 a game. They don't get paid for any of the training, no nothing. Training, practices, banquets, charity work. They don't get a stipend for the maintenance of their appearance. Most of these folks are working full time. Again, all of that is flattened and erased once they get to the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Arena,

which in a way, I can see how that is its own kind of allure. Like you have to deal with all, it's freeing, honestly. You just get to be this doll. I wanna cite that quote that one of the higher ups at DCC said about how they can justify the cheerleaders being paid next to nothing. You know, there's a lot of cynicism around pay for NFL cheerleaders and as it should be, they're not paid a lot. But the facts are is that they actually don't come here

for the money, they come here for something that's actually bigger than that to them. They have a passion for dance, there are not a lot of opportunities in the field of dance to get to perform at an elite level. 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. When the women come here, they find their passion and they find their purpose. Bro, if we're playing culty quotes right now and I read that. That was gonna be my game idea. If you hadn't watched the show super recently, was I was gonna pull cultier quotes and then quotes from those higher ups and have you get.

Dude, it's impossible. And if you watch the show, the piercing gaze with which she delivers this line into the camera, the calculation of the response is terrifying. We just got a few more cultish aspects to analyze and then we'll get to our verdict. We've got to talk about what these dancers go through physically and mentally with regard to their bodies.

I want to start by addressing one of these things that I absolutely had no clue. I kind of thought that throughout the course of a football game, whenever a certain thing happened in the game, that would signify a specific cheer that is to be done. And I think that is how it works in a lot of the cheerleading world. But in the world of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, the football things happen. The little football DJ man plays a song. The first leader will off the top of her head go through her roster of 50 or so memorized routines to find one that matches the pace of the song. Oh my god. Begin performing it and within seconds the other girls need to clue in and begin with her so it looks unled.

Their performances are essentially improv, which is insanity. It's like a murder of crows flying south for the winter. Exactly. It's like, oh, we're going, oh, we're going. Oh my God. I didn't even know that. That is a lore drop right there. Take a shot.

Deliver failure. Anyway, additionally, there are also the jump splits, which we talked about. If you don't know what we're referring to, they jump in the air, all in unison with their arms all around each other after that glorious little kickline we all love so much. And they land on the ground all in the splits,

which as you might imagine is absolutely terrible for your hips, results in so many injuries, which of course they're not going to pay for your medical care for. One former DCC girlie said that she had 12 orthopedic surgeries in six years, and she attributes most of that to the jump splits. Jump splits, which are like a trademark move. You can't get rid of them. Yeah, there was one gal in the show who was retired DCC. The word retired conjures the image of like a 75 year old. No, she's like 26. And she's been

bedridden for the past two years because of the number of surgeries that she's had to get due to her cheerleading career. She's like admits throughout the course of the series that she feels like her anxiety is terrible, that she's without purpose. Now that she feels like her anxiety is terrible, that she's without purpose. Now that she's not a cheerleader anymore, she doesn't know who she is and she's bedridden. Like these are the exit costs. She can't find a new life. She has to stay in bed like the fucking grandparents in Charlie and the Jogger Factory. And not to mention the last point we'll make about the sort of physical torture and shame

is just the sort of eating disorder coded language that is used. The coaches demand a very, very specific body type, but they also don't want you to starve yourself in order to achieve it. They want you to quote unquote fuel yourself. They want you to be getting enough quote unquote intake so that you have enough when really they're basically saying, be perfect, figure it out. Don't faint. I know we told you to lose weight last year, but now your routines look sloppy. So eat a granola bar.

Yeah. I mean it haunted the character of the character. She's a real person. Here I am dehumanizing her. The cultiest Freudian slith of the century. I know. That's the thing is that like, and that's the cult of reality TV is that, you know, inherently when you make a production like this, you are reducing someone's humanity. Anyway, yes, the character Victoria, the real person Victoria is kind of like fucked for life because of the critiques of her body levied by Kelly. And I see so much of myself in her, just so much of like the constant need to people please.

I very much really do. I'm sure very many of us watching did. Obviously, I think she still would have endured a lot of the issues that she had undergone as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader without the reality TV aspect added onto it. But when she says things like that she often goes back and watches the clip of her in 2018 getting cut from training, which she says is like one of the most traumatic moments of her life. And she goes back and rewatches it frequently to relive it, which in my opinion is a form of self-harm. 100%.

Like what a different place would she be in if all all the worst moments of her life weren't televised? And I think this is inherent to the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders ever since they started making PR a priority for them. They don't let their recruits, their veterans, whatever, escape their Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders persona. They are captured forever as almost like ghosts haunting them. And even if you had a really, really rough time, the way that Victoria seems to be having a rough time, they will convince you, no, these were your glory days. These are the best days of your life. Like they will be constantly revising your pain in real time and then your own nostalgia for that period will revise it even further such that the reputation

for the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders is so squeaky clean, even though like it's such a fucking cult. And that's one of the ways that Victoria, like one of the final things she says to kind of justify her decision not to return, which I think was absolutely the right decision for her. And I'm so proud of her. But she says the world already when they think of Victoria thinks of DCC.

I'm already in the eyes of the public, a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. And she implies that that's kind of enough for her. It breaks my heart to think of someone being so motivated in their choices by what the public thinks of them. Relatable. Okay, let's talk about one more aspect that I thought was so important to include in this discussion, which is just like the freaking white supremacist patriarchal cult that looms large over this. I mean, my first impression when I started watching this docu-series on Netflix was that I felt like it was from a different decade. Like I felt like I was looking back in time.

It feels very early 2000s trash TV. It does. Yeah. And so much of that has to do with the sort of shameless default whiteness that exists in the organization. Ooh, like I got the heebie-jeebies during that scene when they were handing out free Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders Barbies. The Barbies? To all of the auditionees and they were all white. Yeah. Anisha goes up to grab one and they're like, which one do you want? And she goes, the brunette one. Yeah, she's like, I guess I'll take a brunette girl.

I'm like, oh my God. Oh my God. Like, ay, ay, ay. And then- Like that's embarrassing for you. As an organization that has billions of dollars. It's so, it's so shameless. Yeah, and just watching the first two recruits

to training camp get cut, and they're both women of color and there are already so few women of color who've been elevated to that next step in the process. It was hard to watch. I was looking at the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders website and I noticed the amount of veterans and rookies alike of color that just got like, I was like, oh, don't remember, she didn't get very much screen time. I don't think she was ever referred to by name. And there are so many girls like that. There were so many like B-roll clips where I'm like, Oh, who is that? Never seen that before.

There are many organizations in this country that lack inclusiveness, that lack diversity, it is the inability to question it or to approach your leaders with any sense of transparency or vulnerability like, hey, this isn't okay. That is what makes it culty. It's like the hierarchy gives you worker bees. Second leader, first leader, coaches, Jerry Jones, where is there room to highlight injustices, you know? Nowhere. That said, still a really cute show. No, I'm kidding.

That said, go watch it if you want to feel a lot of mixed emotions. Yeah. I understand why we got four bajillion requests to do it because this shit is canonical, sounds like a cult. So now that we've talked about every, not even every, I mean, like we could go on and on about the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders all day, but now that we've given a fairly exhaustive overview,

I have to ask you, Reese, out of our three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out. Which cult category do you think the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders falls into? I kind of think it's a get the fuck out. I think the moment Kelsey's car got air tagged,

it became a get the fuck out, which you will in five years. Yeah, that is actually, we kind of just glazed over that when we brought it up because it's an honor and it's a privilege and it's a sisterhood. And of course people are watching you. That's what you wanted.

Oh, I was like so ready to call it a watch your back. I don't think it's the watch your back if your hips don't work. Yeah, okay. But then it's maybe a watch your hips. No, if you have to do those jump squats and they're wrecking people's bodies, but they love it. Do they love it? Does Victoria actually love it?

Do you think she actually loves it? She just relies on it. I think she thinks she loves it. She has Stockholm syndrome is what she has. I think they love that it makes them feel like successful women. Yeah, fuck. Can't blame them. Can't blame them.

Look at this plot twist. I feel like I'm normally you in my sensationalism. I'm normally the one being like, no, it's a good thing. With the red yarn and the bulletin board. Literally, but like maybe it's just me and my old age. I think Lord drop. It's because I was a cheerleader for like two, three years. Way to bury the fucking lead.

What in the world? Wait, I can see it. Not seriously. I was like a child and it was for like the city, but I don't know. Things are said to children. That should not be said to children. No, no. here I go again. I admitted it at the top of the episode.

I was too easy on cheerleading the first time. I can't fall into that trap again. It is low key, get the fuck out. And you know what? I have to remind myself of my own, of things I already know, because again, there were people who said Jonestown was the highlight of their life.

That's the get the fuckiest out cult that ever was. So just because you had a good time doesn't mean it didn't also ruin you for life. Can I still let women enjoy things if those things are hurting women? That's what I know. We were texting about it. I'm like, it is so hard to be a girl's girl and a pawn of the patriarchy at the same time. Girl, it's so confusing sometimes to be a girl's girl and a pawn of the patriarchy at the same time. Girl, it's so confusing sometimes to be a girl. It is. It really fucking is. Reese, thank you so much for joining me for another episode.

Y'all, stick around because Reese is going to be joining for more episodes later. Get excited. It's so nice to be able to have a conversation with someone instead of just talking to myself. I will binge watch anything, anytime with you. to be able to have a conversation with someone instead of just talking to myself. I will binge watch anything, anytime with you. I know. And I appreciate that about you. So, everybody, please, you were super nice to Reese the first time she appeared on Sounds Like a Cult for the Cult of Trad Wives episode, high performing episode, high performing episode. So, please continue to be sweetie pies to Miss Reese with an S, not Reese with a C. It's

Reese with a C for Christ. It's Reese with an S for Satan. For Satan. You know I mean that as a compliment. Of course. And wait, Reese, drop your IG handle. My IG handle is Reese Arone. That's R-E-E-S-A-R-O-N-I-I-2-I. Okay. Two I's are better than one. Keep both eyesoni. That's R-E-E-S-A-R-O-N-I-I-2-I. Okay, two I's are better than one. Keep both eyes open.

That is our show. Thank you so much for listening. Stick around for New Cult next week. And in the meantime, remember to stay culty. But not too culty. Sounds Like a Cult is hosted and produced by Amanda Montell and edited by Jordan Moore of the PodCabin. Our theme music is by Casey Colt.

This episode was made with production help from Katie Epperson and Rhys Oliver. Thank you as well to our partner All Things Comedy. And if you like the show, please feel free to check out my books, Word Slut, A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, and The Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality. If you're a fan of Sounds Like a Cult, I would really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. After years of fine print contracts and getting ripped off by overpriced wireless providers, if we've learned anything, it's that there's always a catch. So when I heard that for a limited time, all Mint Mobile wireless plans are $15 a month,

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