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Sharon Grigsby doesn't like Cowboys Cheerleaders

8,400 Views | 47 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by applemacg4
BaylorLit 01
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https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/09/11/dallas-cowboys-lets-get-real-about-your-outdated-cheerleaders-and-the-giant-video-board-that-exploits-them/

Texas' obsession with tradition, especially around football, is the benign justification for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders continuing to shimmy and shake on the sidelines. But the calculation that sex still sells on the sidelines is why this spectacle endures.

While everything around them has evolved, the cheerleaders have never changed out of the skimpy halter tops, fringe vests and short shorts they put on in 1972.

Forty-seven years later, all they represent is the diminished role that women once played -- both in sports and in society. They are a 20th century throwback dragged into a new era that doesn't want or need them.

To this lifelong Cowboys fan, it feels the time has come to retire America's Sweethearts -- or at least put them in an entirely new uniform with a completely different routine.

Both of those options are as likely as Jerry Jones selling the team, so here's middle ground: Stop using 2019 technology to jumbo-size the problem and change how the cheerleaders are portrayed on the stadium's monster-size video screen.

As I watched several young men sitting in front of me photograph and compare those bigger-than-life images during a Cowboys preseason game, the revealing, sexxed-up presentation made me queasy.

Local author Karen Blumenthal, a season ticket-holder who has bled silver and blue since birth, is equally bothered by the cheerleader close-ups on Jerry's "vidja board."

Blumenthal and her husband jokingly call it "the breast board" giant-sized women whose bodies are all but bursting out of their tight costumes and the couple frequently takes note of men filming and photographing the most intimate shots.

Blumenthal's breaking point came at last year's nail-biter against the New Orleans Saints, when a man seated nearby repeatedly photographed individual cheerleaders' body parts as they strutted their stuff on the big screen.

"He would whip his phone up and zero in on their crotches or breasts," Blumenthal told me.
"By the second quarter, I am taking pictures of him taking pictures. By the fourth quarter, the young people behind me are yelling, 'We need an intervention for this guy.'"

The bare-skin-obsessed fan wasn't deterred, sharing his images with the men in his party and flipping repeatedly through the photos.

"This guy all but ruined one of the best games of the year for me," Blumenthal said. "This is not a violation of any of the posted rules, but it made me really uncomfortable. In retrospect, it created a hostile environment for women and young people."

Blumenthal reported this sorry behavior to the Cowboys and asked that they reconsider the images on the video screen. She also raised concerns about last year's prerecorded opening to the cheerleaders' performances, which she described as "a shot of the belt buckle but it's really a crotch shot, showing a navel, shorts and two thighs."

Cowboys employee Cory Miller, part of the video content team, responded that the organization shows the cheerleaders only in a positive and professional light. "Based on your comments, we will work even harder to ensure we are featuring only the best on our board this season," he wrote.
Blumenthal didn't ask me to take her word for the in-stadium experience; she gave me her two tickets to the Aug. 29 preseason game to check it out for myself.

She wasn't exaggerating. These grown women's sidelines work in no way resembles that of college and high school cheerleaders -- and certainly not those whose routines of daring and skill win national competitions.
The Cowboys cheerleaders' moves that Thursday night were mostly pelvic thrusts, chest jiggles and bottoms up, long hair sweeping the ground. The projection of that eye candy onto the 60-yard-long video board magnified the feeling that the Cowboys are all but selling sex on the sidelines.
Yet fans seemed to pay little attention to the cheerleaders except for the group of four young men in front of me.

I left the game wondering what value the organization believes the cheerleaders add. I question how many fans care about the cheerleaders and whether those who do, care for the right reason.
Perhaps the cheerleaders contribute to the Jones family's bottom line in some other way through merchandise sales, paid appearances or profits from the long-running CMT reality series Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team.

I had hoped Cowboys Executive Vice President Charlotte Jones Anderson, who is also chief brand officer of the entire organization, would discuss these questions with me. But all I got was a four-paragraph written statement from cheerleaders director Kelli Finglass, who expressed pride in the women's uniform "and the more than 700 women who have worn it since its inception in the days of Tex Schramm and Tom Landry."

"We have women who have gone on to wonderfully significant lives as mothers and grandmothers, some of whom have also had successful careers in areas that range from show business, medicine, education, broadcasting and medical services," Finglass wrote.

I'm not questioning the worth of the women who wear the cheerleader uniform. Of course, women should have pride in our choices and our bodies. The issue at hand involves how to balance that empowerment with systems that exploit women's appearances for men's pleasure.

One of the smartest people I know on this subject is Sarah Hepola, who before she became a best-selling author, wrote the "Smart Blonde" column in D magazine that intelligently wrestled with how Dallas culture shaped her -- and warped her.

Sarah was a young girl when her family moved to Dallas in 1978, a time Hepola now looks back on as "peak Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders." She told me, "they were, in some ways, the center of culture as I grew up."
"As a little girl, I wanted to be an actress, a singer, a writer and a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader," Hepola told me. "In that hybrid, you see what's happening with my generation. We were told we can do anything, but we still witness a world where women are their most powerful when they are their most beautiful and most youthful."

Hepola, the author of Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget and currently working on Unattached, a memoir about being single in her 40s, says she is neither "for or against" the cheerleaders.
"I love the look. It's like watching an artist at work a woman dancing with her hair," Hepola said. "Parts of me will always be hopelessly tugged toward the cheerleaders. That stuff is programmed into me."
But she also senses that the cheerleaders are outdated. "When I was young, and we'd watch the game, the only place I'd see myself was in those girls. We don't need that place anymore. We have other places in sports."

Dallas debuted the iconic star-spangled cheerleaders the same year Title IX passed. At the very moment that legislation changed the landscape for women in athletics, their greatest visibility in sports was the pop culture sensation of bare midriffs, go-go boots and hot pants on Cowboys game day.
Today, women are part of team ownership, interviewing players on the sidelines or internationally famous in other sports. Girls in the football stands wear Dak Prescott and Jason Witten jerseys, not sparkly, fringed costumes.

Yet the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders remain part of a $5 billion football franchise's brand -- a problematic part of the brand in an industry that has made plenty of mistakes regarding the treatment of women.
A year ago, the Cowboys donated one of its iconic cheerleader uniforms to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Too bad they insist on keeping this relic on the sidelines in 2019.**

BUGWBBear
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Obviously she's as equally ugly as she is jealous of beauty. Isn't there an Antonio Brown rape somewhere she needs to focus on?
BUbackerinET
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One word: PATHETIC, perhaps the most embarrassing alum of all time...
Hob Howelll
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They literally sell skimpy swimsuit calendars that feature NFL cheerleaders. Of course they're there for the sex appeal. Doesnt justify being a creeper or lust in general, and I have respect for cheerleaders as it involves hard work and is very competitive, but let's call it like it is.

On the other hand, I have a feeling that feminists would riot if they made cheerleaders wear long Mormon esque skirts too
57Bear
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Maybe I should start watching the cowboy games! I didn't realize what I was missing.
Jacques Strap
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Cheerleading is a sport and I like watching sports, ergo keep the cheerleaders.
OsoCoreyell
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Could the liberals please make up their minds about what the sexual revolution means? Does it mean the women have complete control of their bodies and can do whatever they want with it at all times, including terminating any inconvenient kids until they actually pop out of the birth canal, or is it that anyone that straps on some booty-shorts is being exploited? I'm very confused.

Dave Chappelle is kind-of onto something with this I think?




Jack Bauer
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Breaking news: Heterosexual men like looking at attractive females.
Jordan
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She seems like a lot of fun...
Doc Holliday
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I swear these leftist journalists act as if they're the 'thought-police'.

"How dare you be attracted to sexy barely clothed women!!"
Lil Sebastian
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Unpopular opinion but I tend to agree with her, although I can't stand the tone she has in that article. My football watching experience would be completely unchanged by the presence or absence of the cheerleaders. If you like cheerleaders "because it's a sport", then go to an A&T meet
Forest Bueller_bf
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https://i.pinimg.com/474x/13/74/71/1374718aa2b4e006ad4c435ba6ae02ab--dallas-cowboy-cheerleaders-cowboys-football.jpg

Thing is Lil' Sebastian, if it were 1972 she would be crowing about the inclusiveness and diversity of the group, and how women have taken ownership of their own sexuality etc. etc.

Current sjw's are a hypocritical, judgemental lot.

Redbrickbear
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I love liberals in the media.

When small town Baptist Church men and women didn't like the sexualized cheerleader thing back in the 1960s-70s it was all......"look at these small minded bigot Christians trying to suppress sexual freedom muhhhhhh!!!"

Now liberals are "well we don't like hot young women showing off their bodies because we are mostly ugly 55+ and older boomers and the sexual revolution has not turned out the way we wanted muhhhhhh!!!"
Redbrickbear
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Doc Holliday said:

I swear these leftist journalists act as if they're the 'thought-police'.

"How dare you be attracted to sexy barely clothed women!!"
They are the thought-police.

They even have the power to decide what historic statues can stand in your town square.

The liberals in the media are one of the pillars of the modern ruling class.

They set the tone for what is "acceptable" for us plebs.
OsoCoreyell
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This, to me, is the quote that shows that Sharon doesn't even know what she's writing about:

"Of course, women should have pride in our choices and our bodies. The issue at hand involves how to balance that empowerment with systems that exploit women's appearances for men's pleasure."

What does that even mean, Sharon? If women are empowered fully over their "choices and bodies" then they have the right to titivate men, right? Or is it that you believe these women to be too stupid to make that choice and so the way to take care of them is to shame the men whom they perform for? It's just incoherent claptrap.
Doc Holliday
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Redbrickbear said:

Doc Holliday said:

I swear these leftist journalists act as if they're the 'thought-police'.

"How dare you be attracted to sexy barely clothed women!!"
They are the thought-police.

They even have the power to decide what historic statues can stand in your town square.

The liberals in the media are one of the pillars of the modern ruling class.

They set the tone for what is "acceptable" for us plebs.
To them, every moral grievance must be immediately extinguished until we have perfected society.

Most Americans are sick and tired of it.
Kyle
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Sharon is completely correct. When I got to the gym or see women jogging in the neighborhood, they basically wear burkas because they do not want men looking at them or objectifying them. Why do you think bikini sales bare basically zero - women hated showing off there bodies and now basically swim in jeans and long-sleeve T-shirts.
Kyle
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OsoCoreyell said:

This, to me, is the quote that shows that Sharon doesn't even know what she's writing about:

"Of course, women should have pride in our choices and our bodies. The issue at hand involves how to balance that empowerment with systems that exploit women's appearances for men's pleasure."

What does that even mean, Sharon? If women are empowered fully over their "choices and bodies" then they have the right to titivate men, right? Or is it that you believe these women to be too stupid to make that choice and so the way to take care of them is to shame the men whom they perform for? It's just incoherent claptrap.
This is extremely homophobic and trans-phobic assuming that the women are not exploiting themselves for women's pleasure. Very hetero-normatively biased.
JohnProctor
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I read about 3 sentences and got that same feeling of drifting off and not caring as when my wife is giving me a 15 minute speech on how I didn't load the dishwasher properly. Best case scenario I catch the first 60 seconds of that talk before I start thinking about sports or boobs or what there is to eat in the house.

Booray
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Jack Bauer said:

Breaking news: Heterosexual men like looking at attractive females.
So do lesbian women. Its all working out.

57Bear
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BaylorLit 01 said:

... While everything around them has evolved, the cheerleaders have never changed out of the skimpy halter tops, fringe vests and short shorts they put on in 1972.

Forty-seven years later, all they represent is the diminished role that women once played ...
That also says that forty-seven years later they are showing no more skin than they did in 1972. Contrast that to society in general or to Hollywood in particular, especially its awards extravaganzas.
boognish_bear
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What kind of creep takes pics of the cheerleaders body parts up on the Jumbotron?

Watching them is harmless....but don't take it to the Jame Gumb level
vanillabryce
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boognish_bear said:

What kind of creep takes pics of the cheerleaders body parts up on the Jumbotron?

Watching them is harmless....but don't take it to the Jame Gumb level


She literally took the worst type of behavior one could witness at a game outside of that dude pulling it out, and used it to represent men.
Forest Bueller
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vanillabryce said:

boognish_bear said:

What kind of creep takes pics of the cheerleaders body parts up on the Jumbotron?

Watching them is harmless....but don't take it to the Jame Gumb level


She literally took the worst type of behavior one could witness at a game outside of that dude pulling it out, and used it to represent men.
Well it does represent one man, out of 40,000.
OsoCoreyell
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Kyle said:

OsoCoreyell said:

This, to me, is the quote that shows that Sharon doesn't even know what she's writing about:

"Of course, women should have pride in our choices and our bodies. The issue at hand involves how to balance that empowerment with systems that exploit women's appearances for men's pleasure."

What does that even mean, Sharon? If women are empowered fully over their "choices and bodies" then they have the right to titivate men, right? Or is it that you believe these women to be too stupid to make that choice and so the way to take care of them is to shame the men whom they perform for? It's just incoherent claptrap.
This is extremely homophobic and trans-phobic assuming that the women are not exploiting themselves for women's pleasure. Very hetero-normatively biased.
Well, sir/ma'am, how do you know that all of those Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders are, in fact, women? Did you interview them and ask them how they want to identify and what pronouns are appropriate for them? Hmmm? Did you? DID YOU!!??
Aliceinbubbleland
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Bye weeks create really silly threads. Bring on the teams that we want to crush, badly. Cheerleader and band threads should be banned.
OsoCoreyell
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Aliceinbubbleland said:

...Cheerleader and band threads should be banned.


Especially those without pictures!
OsoCoreyell
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vanillabryce said:

boognish_bear said:

What kind of creep takes pics of the cheerleaders body parts up on the Jumbotron?

Watching them is harmless....but don't take it to the Jame Gumb level


She literally took the worst type of behavior one could witness at a game outside of that dude pulling it out, and used it to represent men.


That's because she is a joyless, self-righteous harpy.
Stan Mikita
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OsoCoreyell said:

vanillabryce said:

boognish_bear said:

What kind of creep takes pics of the cheerleaders body parts up on the Jumbotron?

Watching them is harmless....but don't take it to the Jame Gumb level


She literally took the worst type of behavior one could witness at a game outside of that dude pulling it out, and used it to represent men.


That's because she is a joyless, self-righteous harpie.
Jack Bauer
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Yogi
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Who the **** cares about Sharon Grigsby?

"Smarter than the Average Bear."
ABC BEAR
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Doc Holliday said:

I swear these leftist journalists act as if they're the 'thought-police'.

"How dare you be attracted to sexy barely clothed women!!"
They are the 'thought police'. Unfortunately they don't play good cop-bad cop, it's all bad cop.
xiledinok
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There's only one regime that old lady has any voice in *****ing about when it comes to sports and it is not the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders.
whitetrash
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Yogi said:

Who the **** cares about Sharon Grigsby?


Muffin, Bobo, Fluffy, Mr. Whiskers, and the other 23 cats that rely on her to open the Little Friskies every evening.
1975bear
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Kyle said:

Sharon is completely correct. When I got to the gym or see women jogging in the neighborhood, they basically wear burkas because they do not want men looking at them or objectifying them. Why do you think bikini sales bare basically zero - women hated showing off there bodies and now basically swim in jeans and long-sleeve T-shirts.


???
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