But even if her rules were limiting and at times fear-inducing, she was fiercely protective of the women she oversaw, and to this day, her legacy garners respect and admiration from many of her former squad members.Īlongside the Dallas teams of the 1970s and 1980s, featuring the likes of quarterback Roger Staubach and running back Tony Dorsett, the DCC helped put the Cowboys squarely in the national consciousness - aided by a forward-thinking general manager, the advent of televised football as entertainment and the efforts of Mitchell, a woman who would become one of the most important, yet one of the most overlooked, women in the NFL.Īlong the way, the DCC were subject to scrutiny from both sides of the political aisle. It was the first squad of its kind, one that recognized the appetite of male audiences for beautiful women to present the game as more than mere sport, but also as entertainment, in conjunction with the "eventizing" of the NFL that was solidified by the success of "Monday Night Football," which debuted on ABC in 1970.Īs the only female executive with the Cowboys, Mitchell built the DCC to be ambassadors of the team, sending them to visit parentless children and war veterans and establishing a set of rules that limited personal behavior and made it clear that when they wore their uniform, these women didn't just represent themselves - they represented the Cowboys. "I just looked at him and said, 'Your chair's pretty comfortable,'" she noted in the film. When Mitchell entered Schramm's office for the first time before she became his secretary, and eventually director of the cheerleaders, he asked her what she wanted to do in five years. Shapiro and producer Carra Greenberg both described Mitchell's ambition as akin to Peggy from AMC's "Mad Men." On the show, Peggy started as a secretary in the advertising agency and overcame the gender limitations of the late 1960s and early 1970s to eventually become copy chief. But emerging as the central character is the late Suzanne Mitchell, who started as general manager Tex Schramm's secretary and was named director of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (DCC) in 1976. Shannon Baker Werthmann, Toni Washington and Dana Presley Killmer are among the many former cheerleaders who appear in the film. "Here is something that's so big, yet so misunderstood," Shapiro said. They were pinups - their poster outsold Farrah Fawcett - and they were also attacked by religious groups and by feminist groups." "As we looked into it, they were equally loved and loathed. "Everybody's aware of the iconography of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, but nobody's aware of any of the actual Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders," Shapiro said. Kennedy's assassination to the site of "America's Team." In the documentary film "Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders," which premiered at the annual SXSW Conference & Festivals this past Sunday, director Dana Adam Shapiro chronicles the birth of the most iconic cheerleading team in the United States, a squad that helped rehabilitate the city of Dallas' image from the site of John F. The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders have long been documented by popular media, but for the first time, we're hearing the voices of the women on the original squads. Davidson, Contributor, Ī look at the untold story of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
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