I believe that the attractive power of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders can best be understood through the lens of the cult of the Virgin Mary.

When understood as a form of modern sacred virgin-mothers, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders (DCC) reveal the continuing power of the courtly ideal of love to unite lust with the sacred. Considering the degree to which the union of various forms of idolatry come together in the idealisation of the DCC, it is perhaps troubling that The Salvation Army has a very public and long-standing relationship with the DCC. It is also important to recognise the ongoing influence of church culture and attendance for the members and culture of the DCC.

Who Are The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders?

On Netflix, there is a documemtary/reality TV series following the recruitment process for the DCC. Watching the series provoked my reflection on the strange interconnections of purity culture, capitalist ownership of the female form, lustful desire, and sacred otherness. I’m going to be exploring those elements in this reflection.

For those who don’t know, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders are a very famous cheerleading team for the Dallas Cowboys, an American football team based in Dallas Texas. They are known for their choreography, their glamour, and the high level of performance expected from their members. There is a strong culture of legacy in the team, with previous cheerleaders often going on to continue working for the DCC, and their children being raised to apply to become cheerleaders themselves. There is frequently a sense of pain or disappointment by the parents and children if that legacy is not continued.

The fame and celebrity of the DCC is based on the complexity and high quality of their dancing, the sex appeal created by that dancing and the look of the dancers, and the mystique and glamour which is produced by both distance and the difficulty in joining the team.

But I think there are other things at play which are helpful to reflect on. I think that we can best understand the DCC if we consider them to be subconsciously drawing upon the same themes which propelled the cult of the Virgin Mary into one of the most powerful religious forces in the world.

The Cult of The Virgin Mary

While the Christian Church has generally venerated or respected the Virgin Mary for most of its existence, the extreme devotion and dedication which marked the medieval early modern periods emerged in the 13th and 14th centuries. Not coincidentally, at the same time as the takes of King Arthur were just starting to become popular.

A problem facing the Church in the middle ages was what to do about the contradiction between the peaceful teachings of Christ, and the highly militaristic and warrior culture of feudal Europe. What were knights and men at arms to do in following Christ when their entire lives were devoted to being good at violence?

At first, the crusades and the military orders provided a way forwards. Knights and warriors could go and fight on behalf of Christ. They could become warrior-monks and participate in Holy and acceptable violence. But as the passion for crusading started to wane, what remained? How could a knight also follow Christ as they were enjoined to do? The stories of King Arthur provided an alternative.

Knights could seek to live up to an ideal, an ideal which was codified as the laws of chivalry. Knights were meant to be merciful, to show restraint, to act with honour, to take prisoners, and, most importantly for our purpose here, to show honour and dignity to women. Whilst these codes were so frequently broken they might as well have not existed, the ideal still persisted.

The Stories of King Arthur Helped Create The Virgin Mary

In the stories of King Arthur we see the ideal form of what became known as courtly love. Galahad loved Gwenevier, but always from a distance, and never did anything which would compromise her honour. His love was pure because it was never consumated.

A false reading of Augustine having given rise to the idea that original sin was passed on through sex, so that all sex was inherently a sinful act except when undertaken purely for procreation. And even then it was a regretful necessity.

Galahad demonstrated what courtly love should look like. Pure, idealised, never consumated, always at a distance, which lifted up the woman to a state of distant honour. Her inviolability made her desirable and beautiful and allowed her to share in the sacred.

In opposition to Galahad was Lancelot. The knight who broke his oaths of loyalty to consumate his desire for Gwenevier. His desire was more lust than love. It sought to possess and to own what was loved and, in consumation, shattered his and Gwnevier’s honour.

It was in the context of these stories that the cult of the Virgin Mary grew into prominence. She was the perfect ideal of womanhood. She was a mother, the fulfilment of the purpose of women. She was subservient to her husband, obedient to God, meek and mild and loving. She was the image of the perfect mother and acted as mother for the church. Yet, she was also a virgin. Eternally pure and unsullied.

People could desire her but never possess her. She could have children without losing her honour and purity through sex. She existed in two worlds at the same time. The perfect nun and the perfect mother. She was the ideal woman. And she created a safe object of devotion for the knights of the middle ages.

A knight could safely love the Virgin because she would always be just behind his reach. Yet he could turn to her as if she was his own mother in his troubles and concerns. It is this mix of close and yet far, sacred yet earthly, lust made pure through distance and love, that is important to understand the DCC.

The Vigin Cheerleaders

In the audition phase of the show, we see the women who’ve applied to be dancers being assessed on their skill, strength, stamina, and beauty. There is a male judge who frequently describes the beautiful women who can dance the sexiest as being “money makers.” But at the same time, they were critical of the women who were too provocative in their dancing. There was a fine line to walk between enticing and overtly sexual. The dancers needed to make the audience think sexy things about them without ever thinking the dancers wanted them to think those things.

There was a curious sense where innocency and desire came together. Particularly in the morality clauses the dancers all have to agree to. In one case, a potential dancer was cut from the programme because of posts she put on social media which were considered inappropriate for the brand of the DCC. A brand which came with the tagline “America’s Sweethearts.”

The DCC have to be sexy, but innocent. They have to be relatable, but distant. You can have your picture taken with them, but you can’t touch them. You can see them dance on the field or on TV, but always at a distance. They have the same sense of distance that the Virgin Mary has. They posses a kind of secular sacredness rooted in their desirability and their distance. They are literally untouchable for almost everyone.

But whereas the Virgin Mary was promoted to give people a way to relate to heaven and a person that it was safe to idolise, the DCC are a commercial form of sacred virgins. Their distance and performative purity combined with the intentional sexualisation of their forms and actions, create a “money maker.” The dancers, all women, are turned into objects of desire purely for financial returns. It is formed by and in turn forms a culture driven by an aquisitive male gaze with objectifies and defines by desire.

Evangelicalism and the Cheerleaders

This is combined with a strange intersection with evangelical religion. Not only with the morality clauses and purity culture, but with the encouragement the women receive to attend church regularly and to do prayers together. They are also encouraged to get married and start families, even though they would have to stop dancing when they have the child, at least until they were ready to start again.

By bringing together the origins of the cult of the Virgin Mary with a reflection on the commercialisation of purity culture and the sacralisation of sexuality at a distance, we can understand not only the appeal of the DCC but of a wide range of cultural and entertainment practices which purport to empower women but subsume them to the dominating power of the aquisitive and objectifying male gaze.

Idolatry Sneaks In

It is a powerful warning against how easy it is to slip into forms of idolatry which are destructive, not only for others but for the self. So many of the women in the show who want to be DCC dancers suffer physically and emotionally for the opportunity. They come to regard their body as an enemy, or a source of validation. They are constantly judged by their apparence, by their public persona, by their meekness and obedience.

It is wrapped up in religion and an appearance of Christianity, but it risks harm to the image of God by leaving the women doubting their own worth apart from other people’s gaze.

I am sure that the people involved are making informed decisions. I do not doubt the sincerity of their desire. I do not believe it is my place to tell them to choose differently.

But I do want to critique the culture, religion, and society that creates the space within which the value of women is reduced to the value that others place on them. Given the degree to which The Salvation Army in the USA is in partnership with the DCC for fundraising and PR purposes, perhaps there needs to be a reconsideration of that relationship.

If you want to keep up to date, sign up to My Theology Corner Newsletter for a weekly lite-bite theology hit. Get short-form reflections from topics on the main blog and or on other interesting topics from that week.

https://chrisbutton.substack.com

Try One of These Similar Posts…

Reimagining the Military Metaphor of The Salvation Army as Prophetic Irony

The Culture Wars and The Salvation Army – A Way Beyond Identity Theology

7 Steps to Disagreeing Well

‘Changi Citadel’ – The Salvation Army Corps In a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp

How Bramwell Booth Helped Put Oscar Wilde in Prison

Please Like and Subscribe