Super Bowl: Understand the history and importance of cheerleaders in American football

This Sunday (13), when the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals take to the field in the Super Bowl, will mark the return of the cheerleaders to the biggest sporting event in the United States, after being prevented from entering the field last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

While commercials and halftime musical performances currently generate more buzz on the internet than those cheering on the sidelines, what cheerleaders stand for – and what they wear – has long been a topic of public interest, raising eyebrows. questions about gender stereotypes and fair treatment of cheer athletes.

That’s been the case since the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders were broadcast nationally on television in the 1970s, wearing long-sleeved blue crop tops, white vests and white mini shorts — an outfit that now features in the Smithsonian Museum’s collection.

This break from the pleated skirts and modest tops seen throughout the 1960s turned on a light.

It was “unlike anything you’ve seen in professional sports,” he told the BBC. CNN Sarah Hepola, author and anchor of the “America’s Girls” podcast, which examines the cultural influence of the team, which served as inspiration for future teams, both in style and routine.

“[Elas] definitely had a ripple effect among NFL cheerleaders in particular. I don’t think any other team has had a similar impact,” Mhkeeba Pate, anchor of the “Pro Cheerleading Podcast: The Truth Behind The Poms” podcast, said in an interview with CNN by phone.

Pate was part of the Seattle Seahawks Sea Gal (the cheer team was renamed the Seahawks Dancers) between 2011 and 2016.

Pate’s own Seahawks uniform was similar in style (to the Dallas Cowboys of the 1970s) but with a nautical twist: a low-cut white crop top with puffed sleeves and a rhinestone-encrusted sailor collar; tiny white shorts with a belt; and white boots.

“When [você está] with that uniform, it elevates your whole sense of importance – the way you move and your posture when you’re on the edge of the field,” he recalled. “Everything speaks for you and you have to match that with the way you carry yourself,” she said.

moderate uniforms

The cheerleader uniform varies between categories (professional sports, school sports and “All Stars”), and conveys different things: popularity, pride, spirit, sex, determination, courage.

Men may have been the first cheerleaders, wearing sweaters and formal pants (until World War II changed the sport’s demographics). But cheerleading uniforms have been an enduring and complicated symbol of American femininity in pop culture — ranging from the prudish Sandy in “Grease” to the questioning Megan in the LGBTQ classic “I’ve Never Been a Saint.”

Some uniforms have become famous: Actress Gabrielle Union and her youngest daughter went viral in 2019 wearing matching Clovers uniforms in the “Bring It On” franchise, in which Union starred two decades earlier. Model Kendall Jenner won her own Navarro uniform from the Netflix documentary series “Cheer”, during an episode of the Ellen DeGeneres show.

But while uniforms in the school and All Star categories are generally more sporty and collegiate in style, NFL cheer teams have historically focused on glamour, sex appeal and themed looks.

The Denver Broncos cheerleaders channeled the Western style in matching vests and pants, while the Tampa Bay Bucaneers team for many years favored a feminine pirate style, with lace-up bra tops and ragged miniskirts.

The past few years have seen a shift, however, as NFL teams have embraced more athletic and less revealing looks. The Bucs cheerleaders traded the bra and miniskirt for leggings and cropped shirts; the Minnesota Vikings moved away from their ruffled, bare-shouldered tops for a workout apparel design; this year, the Cincinnati Ben-Gals also introduced a less revealing top.

In 2018, the Indianapolis Colts cheerleaders unveiled one-piece dresses reminiscent of ice skater costumes, before bringing back more streamlined short tops with plunging necklines last season.

The newly named New Orlenas Saints Cheer Krewe (formerly Saintsations) has made a few different outfit changes for members of the women’s team since 2018, first swapping his gold two-pieces for a 1970s-style belted long-sleeved jumpsuit, then adopting a more schoolgirl design, with ruffled skirts, last season.

Pate called the trend a “move away from the glamorous uniform”. “It’s definitely more subdued,” she said.

Some new uniforms were introduced as teams became co-ed and were renamed as dance or entertainment teams — but in other cases, the changes were made in an effort to revise the image created by NFL cheerleaders.

“This new approach is designed to elevate Colts cheerleaders as one of the premier cheer and dance teams in the NFL, moving away from many of the stereotypes often associated with professional cheerleading and athletes,” the Colts told USA Today in 2018.

pom poms and pornography

While recent years have given rise to more conversation about the image and treatment of cheerleaders, the origins of this debate can be found in reactions to the infamous Dallas Cowboys designs of the 1970s.

“While it doesn’t seem racy to us at the time, you have exposed bellies, you have a shirt that ties at the rib cage in a way that emphasizes the cleavage,” Hepola described in a phone interview.

“You have shorts, go-go boots,” he added. The blank blue star details also vaguely invoked the American flag, she pointed out, adding patriotic appeal.

When the 1976 Super Bowl match between the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers aired to over 70 million people, the Texas cheerleading squad was catapulted to fame. Over the next few years, they made television appearances and sold posters and other merchandise and became the subject of a made-for-TV movie starring Jane Seymour, which drew 48 million viewers.

Dana Adam Shapiro, director of “Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders,” characterized the phenomenon in a 2018 ESPN interview, saying, “They were equally loved and hated.”

“They were pinups – their poster outsold Farrah Fawcett – and they were also attacked by religious groups and feminist groups,” Shapiro said.

Other squads came later, trying to achieve the same level of fame. The uniform “was so popular that (Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders) quickly had to register it because so many different squads were imitating them,” Hepola said.

But the cheerleading uniform policy was taking shape, led by the question of how sexy these women should be and who gets to decide.

In 1978, Playboy capitalized on the “girl next door” image that NFL cheerleaders had cultivated, asking women from different teams — as well as five former Dallas Cowboys team members — to pose.

The cover caused a scandal, and in an incident later chronicled by the 2018 documentary “Sidelined,” an entire squad — the San Diego Chargettes — was fired before the issue hit newsstands.

The Cowboys’ uniform was infamously copied for the pornographic film “Debbie Does Dallas,” which follows a high school cheer captain as she tries out for the fictional Texas Cowgirls team.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Inc. (a subsidiary of the Dallas Cowboys team) sued in 1979 and ended up winning a lawsuit against the New York movie theater that did, but the case had an unintended effect, Hepola said.

“It’s low-budget porn. Nobody is really paying attention to it,” Hepola said. “And all of a sudden, this movie becomes one of the top five porn movies of all time because of the process,” she explained.

Attacking the wrong problem

Now, as NFL cheerleading uniforms tend towards more athletic styles, Hepola believes there has been a cultural shift.

“You have to look at your audience. And not just the men, but also the women, who are a big part of the conversation,” she said.

“I think the costume they want to sell these days has a lot more to do with athleticism and strength than sex appeal and beauty,” he argued.

But Pate is suspicious of the motivations to tone down the uniforms.

“There were teams that wanted to move away from the image of a sexy, beautiful cheerleader to focus more on (being) professional athletes, which I can applaud on certain levels because we are athletes,” she said.

But pointing to deeper issues around equity that NFL cheerleaders say they have faced, including low pay, discriminatory practices and sexual harassment, Pate worries that the emphasis on uniforms puts too much weight on the wrong issue.

“The solution is to cover them up, change what they’re wearing, change the way they’re dancing,” said Pate. “I think it’s wrong… (the uniforms) weren’t the problems to be fixed.”

Last year, the documentary “A Woman’s Work: The NFL’ Cheerleader Problem” brought to light that, at the time of filming, 10 of the 26 NFL teams with cheerleading had been sued for pay theft, unsafe working conditions, harassment. sex and discrimination.

“It’s really a microcosm of what all women are facing right now in the workplace, fighting these stereotypes and these hypocritical standards that we face,” the documentary’s director Yu Gu told CNN.

At the time, the CNN spoke to former NFL cheerleaders who said their earnings were below minimum wage; they were not paid for training, team training and public appearances; and they were expected to pay for uniforms and equipment themselves.

Pate said he believes system changes are necessary, but they need to come through a change in culture or attitudes – not a change of clothes.

“I think if there was a little more respect and understanding about what we do and how hard we work to wear this uniform… I think the criticism (against our clothes) would be a lot more fair and balanced,” she said, emphasizing that the leaders of fans are worthy of respect, regardless of what they are wearing.

“Overall, it speaks to society at large and the lack of respect for women’s bodies and the choices we make around our bodies and how we represent ourselves,” he added.

“We have reached the highest level of our sport,” he added. “That’s why it means so much to these men and women – because (we) deserve it.”