 May 40 here I'm pretty shocked to find out that the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders popularity came with a dark side Who could have imagined that? So listening to an article in Texas Monthly 50 years of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders Came with a dark side though all that popularity Tech Shram told photographer Bob Shaw when he saw the image a shop that would sell around a million copies and turn the cheerleaders Into the country's hottest pin-ups This popularity came with a dark side That year in Wichita, Kansas the cheerleaders were walking back to their bus when fans descended on them in a way They never had before a couple of girls everything comes with a dark side power popularity fame money Happiness connection everything comes with the dark side Well started running then we started running and then the crowd was running Tammy Barber remembered it was our Beatles moment. We were running for our lives because these people were grabbing at us Barber sat inside the bus as strangers pounded the sides Wow, who would have thought that teasing people might Might frustrate them might might provoke a reaction pretty shocking My heart was beating so fast and it was the first time I thought why are people crazy? All right, well not not too shocking. I think evolution would probably explain that Where she lived alone good night Tammy said an unfamiliar man's voice She hung up, but he called back another night and she was so scared. She moved Yeah, that's why women traditionally have gotten married and have had someone to protect them Father a brother an uncle male relative male friend husband Community Mitchell instructed the cheerleaders, but often that wasn't enough a cheerleader named Billy Mitchell once opened her eyes In the middle of the night to find a strange man standing beside her bed She chased him out and then she moved to you Right, so this is the price The thing It's not just Jailators who've had to pay this price. I Can't tell you the number of times they're working up in the middle and I found some Attractive vixen just standing there next to me like just wanting to use me Cowboys cheerleaders had become a bona fide global sensation they starred in a hit 1979 made for TV movie. They became part of the story arc in a two-part episode of the love boat They got paid $15 a game and they'd have to rehearse five nights a week for hours They faced off against some Cowboys football players on family feud And along the way Mitchell had the impossible task of managing these internal contradictions She had to keep the cheerleaders safe while presenting them as endlessly available She touted their singularity in public while quashing their egos in private She had to control this wildfire at the same time. She fanned the flames Yeah, I mean This is how the world works You fan the flames and try to control the fire That's such an app phrasing right Head of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders is not the only one who's I face this dilemma Livestreamers have these dilemmas famous people actors model celebrities All right, they want to fan the flames and control the flames Cross the NFL started copying the Cowboys with more than 20 squads Transforming seemingly overnight into sex pot dancers Yeah, who would have thought that there could be a dark side to becoming a professional sex pot dancer It was shocking I'd have thought it'd just be sweetness and light who knew that when you fan the flames of male sexual appetite that could lead to unwanted advances in aggression and criminal behavior Sports Illustrated called it the great cheerleading war of 1978 the Cowboys had become the most visible and most valuable franchise in the NFL And a huge part of the brand was these fetching women It was a match made. Oh think about your average national football league player or the head injuries right or the other injuries Right the enormous toll that playing professional football takes on people even high school and college football people You played even high school football I tend to walk with limps Have ongoing pain the body was not was not built to Play football tackle football But people love the game I love The side benefits that come with being good with the game mean soccer Right, it always sent me when I had the ball. I didn't like to hit the ball and makes people dumber All right, people have lower IQ's after hitting a ball and even soccer as it's in CTE their brain injury problems people often die early After a lifetime playing soccer Everything comes with a dock side as a price to everything in marketing heaven in the center of the field Captain America Roger Stalback and on the sidelines 36 Miss Americas in a famously tardy uniform The year 1978 was also when an adult film actress by the name of Bambi Woods Donned that glorious uniform or at least an imitation of it in a less-than-glorious scene Debbie does Dallas was a shoestring porno film whose plot So to speak followed a young woman with the dream of cheering for a certain legendary Dallas football team Yeah, it became a monster hit because it taps into something primal primal And It's often a price to tapping into that which is primal get primal reactions back You're done always anticipate or enjoy New York City theater where it debuted falsely claimed that Woods was an ex Dallas cowgirl cheerleader and the Cowboys Presumably incensed that the wholesome sexiness they'd pioneered had gone full frontal sued for trademark infringement Resulting in the deliciously named lawsuit Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders the pussy cat cinema Papers TV stations devoured this saga The Cowboys eventually won the case but the media frenzy turned a fly-by-night skin flick into a blockbuster Intern the Barbara Streisand effect right when Barbara Streisand tried to have a photo of a Home removed from Google to spark more interest in seeing that photo The cheerleaders doubled down on their wholesome image. They launched a line of children's clothing Yeah, I wouldn't have any orthodox Jewish women girls grew up to want to be Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. I Think it'd be that many Okay 3.7 kilometers till we hit the spit bridge Young girls had by then become a major fan base for the cheerleaders Right like young girls want to be grew up to be the objective male worship and desire Introduced was tricky to put back in the bottle That same fall of 1978 five women dressed as cheerleaders posed for a feature in Playboy So it reminds me of a Playboy story the dark side of Playboy that what 12-part A&E special on the rape the drugging and raping Use of Linda Lovelace with with a dog Hugh Hefner raping Dorothy Stratton Ailey There's all sorts of horrible horrible behavior going on in the Playboy Empire While Simultaneously getting really good press much of it was because Hugh Hefner and Playboy have Videotape going on all around the Playboy mansion so many members of the media they would be taped in compromising situations So they would then be quite reluctant to say anything publicly against Playboy The group was a rogue outfit called the Texas cowgirls a rival Dallas based agency formed by women who had quit the cheerleaders Fed up with the rules worn down by the demanding schedule and low pay or been nixed from the squad as auditions became cut throat The cowgirls made appearances at places where the cheerleaders wouldn't dare go Often events where alcohol was served and their fees were shared evenly among the members unlike the cheerleaders Whose occasional appearance fees went to a select group of favorite members of the squad and who did not see a dime from the squad's numerous merchandising deals The Texas cowgirls splashy debut in Playboy was a riff on the cheerleaders top-selling 1977 poster five glamizans and trunk Well grotto point Aboriginal engravings, bro This looks pretty cool Some amazing art it rivals out of Michelangelo and Monet in the sophistication Unbelievable Give me the shakes and the shivers. I Mean this is some art. Yeah, I don't know why people are like so worshipful of the Sistine Chapel When they could and they could come and see like fishing gravings Wow I mean this is better than the Sistine Chapel. I Mean, this is art that just takes your breath away Formation except for one detail this time their tops were untied. Oh, no Despite the controversies of the late 70s the cheerleaders rarely encountered any sort of public backlash But in 1982 they arrived at Fresno State University in California to rehearse for a halftime performance And as they entered the campus, they were just imagine that being widely adored public figures playing on the most primal of emotions All right without any backlash, right? How long do you think that can go on? Greeted by a big white bedsheet hanging out the window of a building spray painted with the words hearts and minds not bumps and grinds Power Yeah, the cheerleaders transformed culture seems a little exaggerated Let's say they mildly amplified Things are already in the culture And what a joyous bunch of people what a fun-loving happy Wise cracking bunch of people like the Miz magazine crowd That is that liberalism always tends to scolding bullying hectoring without educating bullying hectoring scolding You wouldn't have the liberal left All right, there's no liberal left without Taking on a mission to civilize the peasants The bully and educate people they need to wear their face masks and they need to Not dead name people They need to use the proper pronouns Consciousness raising publication co-founded by Gloria Steinem. I think like a good consciousness raising All right. I always associate consciousness rising raising with good times joy happiness Humor light-heartedness not taking yourself too seriously All right, I don't know how what do you associate with the consciousness raising Yeah, boy that sounds like a good time, right? Boy nothing nothing I like more than being educated about Objectification and the male gaze I really could do with some education and hectoring and bullying on that. Thank God for Gloria Steinem and Miz magazine Decade when legal victories like Roe v. Wade and the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act were changing women's lives Oh and changing them just for the better All right, nothing like the murder of millions of kids to and transform women's lives for the good By 1982 a feminist vernacular had seeped into the American vocabulary In the same way hot pants and jiggle had seeped into network programming Yeah, how about a middle path between the two? Right a little bit of modesty Combined with femininity traditional more race Where women would have fathers brothers relatives friends communities churches who would Encourage them to turn it down a little bit if they were going over the top