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The current situation of the top cheerleaders in the United States was exposed and caused controversy: the girl was touched, stalked, and the salary was extremely low! The reality is even worse
Cheerleading culture in the United States has been around for more than 100 years, and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (DCC) in Dallas, Texas are one of the most famous cheerleaders in the country.
The cheerleading team is known throughout the United States for its difficult movements and the infectious energy of its members, and all the girls on the team have solid dancing skills and star-like beauty and figures, and every time they appear at AT&T Stadium in Arlington in their iconic blue and white jerseys, they become a beautiful sight to behold.
They are affectionately known as America's sweethearts by fans, and becoming one of them is also the dream of countless little girls across the United States.
However, this is only the surface of the glamour, behind the stage there are countless sadness of these girls: strict weight control, fierce competition, injuries caused by high-intensity performances, meager salaries, and constantly having to accept the 360 pickiness of the management, some of which are stalked by perverted fans, and some of them are touched by photographers in the field...
Neflix 最新上映的纪录片《America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys》拍摄了2023年DCC选拔的全过程，一经上映，轰动全美。
The cheerleading industry is not just about blonde hair, hips and long legs.
"We have both the body of a model and the skill of an athlete"
DCC is known for its difficult moves, especially the iconic high kicks and jumping splits, which must not only be uniform overall, but also be of very high quality to look good, and simply cannot be done without years of dance skills:
Doing these actions regularly will lead to injuries, and every girl, especially the veteran players, will be scarred: thighs, buttocks, waist, and back will have different degrees of damage.
A retired former cheerleader, who suffered injuries at a young age after years of cheerleading career:
The DCC has 36 official players, and the competition is fierce every year, with thousands of girls from all over the United States PK these dozens of places, usually fill out an online application form to submit a solo and introductory video, and must also pass a written test to assess their knowledge of rugby. After a few rounds of selection, the finalists fly to Dallas for the final selection.
DCC现任总监Kelli Finglass
DCC首席编舞Judy Trammell
The film records the selection process in 2023, the girls have to perform a solo prepared by themselves on the spot, and then perform a DCC choreography, regardless of how many times they have been selected as an official member of DCC before, every year, everyone has to choose again.
The finalists are like a forest:
But it's not just dance skills that compete.
Because they are cheerleaders who are directly facing the public, their easy-going and friendly personality and infectious smile are also very important, and not only the team members, but also the management cannot explain what the specific mark is that determines whether a girl is selected or not in addition to her dancing skills, so everyone calls it the mysterious "It" factor.
A few days of training camp ended, the final 36-man roster was confirmed, and the finalists cried with joy, but the devil's schedule officially began.
DCC will recreate their makeup and hair according to each person's facial features, and will also tailor the famous blue and white uniform and white boots. Each outfit is unique and will be adjusted according to the girls' body shape, and their names will be engraved on the clothes.
But...
The outfit will not be given to them at the end of their season-long cheerleading work, and will remain at DCC headquarters.
Many veteran players are also helpless: because these clothes are tailor-made, only we can wear them, why don't we just let us take them back as a souvenir...
If a girl is selected for several years in a row, then her uniform will be fixed in this set, and there will be no adjustments, which means that the girl's weight and waist can't be out of shape, otherwise she can't wear it, so everyone must control her weight very strictly, and she doesn't dare to relax on days when there is no performance.
Practicing in 100 degrees of heat, injuries are constant, but the salary is incredibly low
Dallas Cowboys competitions are usually held from September to January of the following year, which means that these girls have to rehearse all the routines before the season begins. Because it is all an outdoor performance, in order to achieve the best training effect, the training must also be outdoors....
In Dallas in July and August, the outdoor temperature can reach a maximum of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and these girls have to practice outdoors over and over again in the heat, from dawn to dark. And because everyone has to get used to shaking their heads and other actions, their hair must not be tied up during training.
When it comes to the game, they have to stand for as long as the game lasts, and every time they take a break, they rush back to the locker room and take a hair dryer to blow off the sweat on their bodies, because they are soaked with sweat inside and out. It's also the norm to get home/dorm home on game day at one or two in the morning.
Such a high-intensity purely manual work pays a pitiful low.
After a lawsuit filed by a former DCC team member in 2017, DCC's salary increased from $8 to $12 an hour, and game-day fees doubled from $200 to $400.
According to the girls in this latest documentary, their current salaries are about the same as those earned by Chick-fil-A's fast food workers. (This is still after 17 years of increases)
chick-fil-a员工在德州的平均工资：
Charlotte Jones, DCC's chief brand officer, said he wasn't asking for a raise: "I'm not going to pay them a lot of money because I know they're going to come back again, and the stage we're offering is unbeatable." ”
She is the daughter of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and earns about $15 billion a year.
Charlotte 和Jerry
Because of this, these girls will have their own official jobs, because cheerleading alone can't support themselves. Some people are nurses in hospitals, some people work in sales, and some girls from other states have temporarily found jobs in flower shops.
In their busy lives, they still have to find time to rush to the stadium after work to train, and they are busy until they sleep for a few hours late at night, and the sky is bright again.
Being stalked by perverts, being touched on the field, and signing an agreement not to date players
There will always be plots of handsome players and sexy cheerleaders falling in love in American school movies, but in reality, this is almost impossible.
The DCC has a rule that these players must not date or associate with players as part of their signing of a joining agreement.
The young and beautiful girl can't avoid being harassed, and this is truthfully recorded in the documentary.
Class of 2023 C Girl Kelcey has been in the DCC team for five years, and because of her amazing beauty, strong leadership, and excellent dancing skills, she has always been the leader of the DCC team, which is very eye-catching, but it has also caused her trouble.
She herself said that she once drove home after a race, and when she got home, she accidentally found an AirTag in the car, which means that someone put this to track the location of her home. When she got home, she found out that the person probably already knew the exact address of her home.
In the days that followed, Kelcey noticed that a car was following her, and she was very frightened and immediately called the police, but the police said that the person was only following her and they could not arrest her, and that the person had to hurt her to do so...
Kelcey fell into endless fear, she didn't dare to go out alone at night, every time she drove to make sure there were no suspicious vehicles around, she fell into anxiety, sleep and life problems, this incident hit her hard, "I can't live in fear all the time. ”
Another girl, Sophy, was performing during a competition when she suddenly felt someone scratch her buttocks a few times and started to touch her. She couldn't stop because it was in the middle of the performance, but she immediately turned her head during the interlude and confirmed that it was a photographer in the arena. After he finished touching it, he walked away as if nothing had happened, and went to take pictures elsewhere.
Sophy called the police directly after asking the captain, but insisted on playing in order not to affect the performance, and the management quickly replaced her when they learned about it, and the police talked to her and left. Sophy said police said that although she had identified the photographer, she had no evidence, so the police could not file a case, and the photographer's punishment was only to be denied access to the stadium.
Sophy was very young and his hands were visibly shaking during the interview. It was the first time in her life that she had experienced such a thing, angry and scared, but there was nothing she could do.
The other team members thanked her for calling the police at the first time: "We are not objects, we are living people, please show due respect." ”
The seven-episode documentary is often not short, which not only contains the 2023 draft, but also intersperses the long history of DCC, the management philosophy of the management, the confusion of the old players, and the enthusiasm of the new players:
Victoria's mom is a former DCC cheerleader, and her mom passed on her dreams to her daughter, who continues to take over as an adult;
Anna Kate's sister Caroline, a cheerleader who just retired last year (the same girl above who couldn't continue due to a serious injury), is a mixed bag about her sister's successful selection;
Madeline lost her father in the acting season, her father was a cinematographer, and her wish was that her daughter could become a member of DCC, and in the season when she lost her father, she continued to perform in tears.
Or Victoria, who inherited her mother's mantle above, because of the DCC experience, she was once replaced with a serious eating disorder and heart disease, and she had to take a year off and start all over again. In 2023, she will be selected for the fourth time, but there is no counterattack of Phoenix Nirvana, and she will still be criticized for being incomplete;
There are also those newcomers who are selected for the first time in DCC, their faces are full of expectation and joy, and one of the newcomers named Reece feels that she is the main star of the DCC: excellent dancing skills, lively and cheerful, full of vitality, and her infectious smile even makes the two senior executives of the management a little envious: It's good to be young, has she never been angry in her life?
There is a heated discussion in the United States, and a former DCC member broke the news: This culture is simply toxic!
After the film aired, DCC attracted huge criticism, many people said that this is obviously a horror movie, the girls are built to be like a real Barbie in gorgeous clothes and squeezed out of value, and the capitalists pay such a low salary in the name of "dreams" Pua such a group of talented girls: You are fighting for honor.
A former DCC member anonymously broke the news to the media that the dancers were treated much worse than in the documentary, "It was very insulting to see a person in a high position (referring to Charlotte's remarks about not giving a pay rise) talking about us fighting for something greater than ourselves." ”
"We don't earn as much as the mascot." (Mascot salary: $65,000 per year)
The member said that the salary is only calculated when he is on the field, and he is not paid to attend other events such as calendar shooting. Once, she had to take 10 days off for a shooting task, but she didn't get a single point.
The cheerleaders also had to bear a long list of extra costs to maintain their image, "At one point, they asked the staff to come and tell us that we had to put on makeup when we went out in case we were recognized, and oh my god this wasn't the '60s!" ”
Although the weight problem is also mentioned in the documentary, the real situation is more serious according to the member, "You can't get fat at all." ”
The New York Times has also reported that former race director Suzanne Mitchell would even "circle the body parts of the cheerleaders in the photos to show where they need to lose weight." ”
"We are constantly criticized, not only for our dancing ability, but also for our appearance. The team did not provide us with any health insurance. ”
"DCC employs the most influential women who always represent the brand, who are kind-hearted and work hard. But people don't know the dark side of this, and they don't know what we're going through on this team. ”
"You work hard year after year for this job that yields nothing. Then at the end of the day, you are seen as dispensable, and they will quickly replace you.
"Whenever you leave, you feel worthless because it's kind of like 'goodbye, okay next'. I think that's why a lot of girls fall into depression after retirement. ”
She said she hopes that after the popularity of the Netflix series, at least some practical action can be taken to increase the salaries and benefits of cheerleaders.
"It's 2024, not 1982. The status of women is no longer the same, and we must be fairly paid for the work we do. ”
The season has come to an end, and it's time to say goodbye to this class of DCCs.
At the end of the film, the management asked each girl to choose, whether they will run again next year, hang their clothes on the left, hang their clothes on the right, the newcomers are firmly on the left, the old man is hesitant or calm, and many people choose the right.
The management turned on the computer to watch the solo that had just been uploaded, and it didn't matter if the viewers loved it or hated it, and the new draft had begun.
No one can be young forever, but there will always be people who are young.
(Excerpted from the WeChat public account North American Money Saving Express)