How 'bout them cowgirls?

Well, it's football season.

Not that I'm paying it much mind.

My primary sporting allegiance is the baseball in general, and the Red Sox in particular. So, until late October/early November, that's where my sporting attention will be paid. 

I do keep a vague eye on the other teams in Boston's Big Four - Bruins, Celtics, Patriots - and I do read the sports pages pretty regularly. (I also read the Irish sports pages, but that's another story.)

So I know it's football season. Mostly that's a meh/yawn. If and when the Pats return to their glory days, I will watch games, but, when it comes to football, I'm a total band wagon-er. 

If I pay little attention to the Patriots, I pay even less attention to their cheerleaders. Just now, however, I did pay them a tiny bit of attention, and checked them out on the Pats' website. The team has the requisite long-haired, long-legged, pretty young women - all named Megan or Mallory or Kayla - and, surprisingly (to me, anyway) a couple of good looking young men. 

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (or, the DCC) also have the requisite long-haired, long-legged pretty Megans, Mallorys, and Kaylas. But unlike the Patriots, DCC is decidedly not co-ed. 

And, having watched the Netflix America's Sweethearts documentary, I know a lot more about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders than I do about the Pats' squad. After all, the DCC are America's sweethearts. And the Pats' cheerleaders, alas, are not. (Let's face it, no group of women from New England are going to be called anyone's sweethearts, no matter how pretty, leggy, and sweet they are.)

Anyway, America's Sweethearts is riveting. It follows the women from trying out for the tryouts to making the team to marching on field to the tune of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck," shaking their booties, shaking their poms, showing off their assets - both naturally and unnaturally (all those "blondes?" come on!) endowed assets in their white cowboy boots, skimpy white shorts, skimpy blue blouses, and skimpy starred and bedazzled white vests. 

The first couple of takeaways, once you get beyond the obvious prettiness, are that these women - it is so damned hard not to call them girls! - are exceedingly hard working and amazingly talented. They're incredible - and incredibly athletic - dancers. 

They're also a pretty educated and intelligent bunch, with off-the-field accomplishments. Most seem to have degrees in dance, communications, or business, but the recently retired lead cheerleader, Kelcey, was a pediatric RN. And one of the women trying out was an orthodontist. 

I was expecting there to be a lot more bitchier, cliquiness, and backbiting showcased, but for the most part the cheerleaders come across as decent, and supportive and fond of each other. I thought they'd come across as phoney, nasty sorority girls. While I'm guessing most of them were sorority girls, they come across as genuinely nice. (I could have done with a bit less of the cloyingly sweet and unimaginably naive Reese, but other than that...Not that we'd ever be besties, but I could imagine having a convo with most of them. Many came across as very self-aware and funny.) Maybe the bitchery was edited out, but that's how they came across to me.

The one problema sweetheart was Victoria, who didn't seem to have any friends on the squad and whose efforts to demonstrate leadership - she was a veteran hoping to be tapped as one of the leaders of the lines - were unsuccessful. Victoria was a legacy - her mother had also been a DCC - but she just didn't seem to easily fit in with the other girls cheerleaders. She wasn't as pretty (to my eyes, anyway). She didn't have any post-high school education, which set her apart. She tried to damned hard. It's not that the others shunned her, exactly, but...

Victoria was also open about her mental health issues. She'd taken some time away to get healthier but, in the end, when the boss lady, Kelli, delivered the crushing news that she wouldn't be considered for a leadership role, she decided to turn in her poms. (Last I heard, Victoria was in NYC, living her best life and trying to make it as a Rockette.)

Much of the drama - beyond who was going to make the cut, and what was going on with Victoria - was provided by the focus on women who run the squad. Boss-lady Kelli is an alum who's run the show for years. She comes across as a bit too hardboiled, a bit too drill sargenty, a lot too arbitrary. (I don't make the rules. I just make them.) Kelli's there on the sidelines - and studying the "game films" afterwards - looking for every hair out of place, every smile that's not gleamy enough, every step a nano-second off. But that may well be what she and her minions need to do to keep the cheerleaders looking purdy and high-kicking to perfection. 

Then there's the boss-lady's boss lady, Charlotte Jones, the 60-ish daughter of owner Jerry Jones. Charlotte has the plum nepo position of being in charge of the Dallas Cowboys brand. And those sweethearts are a big part of that brand. I found Charlotte even less likable than Kelli, but that may because she's tainted by being the daughter of the outrageously foul and unlikable Jerry Jones. 

It's very hard to watch America's Sweethearts and not come away feeling a tiny bit disheartened by the retro, sexist nature of the entire enterprise. Couldn't we have cheerleaders who were just a notch or two toned down on the sexpot-tery? This is, of course, countered by the fact that the cheerleaders are a) very talented; and b) doing something they love doing. What could be more feminist than that?

Well, I'd like the situation a lot more if the DCC were a bit better compensated for their work. It's hard to get a handle on what they do make. And the Dallas brigade, because of their worldwide brand (thanks, Charlotte, I guess), do get to make more compensated appearances than other NFL cheering squads. But they still don't make a lot, and all seem to juggle their cheering work with full time jobs that pay the bills.

Not to mention that all that high-kicking, strutting, and doing the splits takes a toll on their health. They may not end up with CTE like their male comrades (and no, they're not allowed to date players) taking a brain-pounding on the field, but many do end up with orthopedic issues galore.

I've never been to an NFL game. And it's not on my bucket list. So all I'm ever going to see of America's Sweethearts - or New England's Non-Sweethearts - in action is going to be whatever I glimpse while half-paying attention to a game I have on in the background.

But I did enjoy the behind the scene look at what goes on with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. 

As Texas troubador George Strait sings, how 'bout them cowgirls?