Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Show Is Back After Bubble Training and Body Shaming Accusations
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This year’s run of the reality series Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team is coming out of the bubble in its 16th season on CMT.
The network’s longest-running show will return from September 17th. CMT announced that new season production is currently underway with 52 hopefuls in training camp to compete for a spot on the fabled NFL cheerleading roster, according to a statement released by the network.
The new season follows last year’s “bubble” season, in which the participants were auditioned and trained in a virtual environment because of the coronavirus pandemic. The term comes from a cameo video sent to a fan by Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Director Kelli Finglass that first explained how the new season and trial runs would work during the pandemic shutdown.
The shutdown affected the cheerleaders’ performance at home games. The NFL announced that no “game day entertainment staff” would be allowed on the field during last season’s home games, including cheerleaders and team mascots.
The show’s final season also saw “the most veteran cuts in show history,” the network said.
Viewers might be interested to see how the squad and foreplay process has changed after the pandemic, and to find out how the show tackles topics like body shaming. Meagan Pravden, a competitor from the 2014 season, told Observer’s Paige Skinner that her time on the show affected her body image issues. Pravden says she didn’t make the final cut because Finglass told her, “I don’t think our uniform will fit your body.”
“You can’t change your body and you don’t have to lose weight. You’re just sturdier for that uniform.” – Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Director Kelli Finglass at competitor Meagan Pravden
“You can’t change your body and you don’t have to lose weight,” Finglass told Pravden on the CMT show. “You’re just a stockier figure for this uniform.”
Pravden has posted a number of Instagram posts about how the training and auditioning process that began long before her appearance on the reality series took a mental toll on her, and how she “recently took it on my own Journey of healing began after years of unhealthy body images from my background in cheers and dancing, “as Pravden wrote in an Instagram post.
The CMT show made a noticeable change last season, a few months after Pravden’s story hit the internet. During the last Uniform episode, Finglass ‘feedback was less focused on the attendees’ bodies and instead focused on how the uniform had to fit “properly” in order to qualify for the audition.
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Danny Gallagher has been a regular contributor to the Dallas Observer since 2014. He has also written features, essays, and stories for MTV, the Chicago Tribune, Maxim, Cracked, Mental_Floss, The Week, CNET, and The Onion AV Club.
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