As we discussed sporting bodies, there is an overarching understanding of how factors like race and gender prescribe certain bodies to sports, in which industries and society deem who can and can’t participate. With this, something that continued to infiltrate my mind was the occurrence of the privatization of sports. This can be attributed to the dance industry, which determines who can and can’t participate through various factors such as race, class, sexuality, and gender. A noteworthy example of this could be considered within the Netflix docuseries, “America’s Sweethearts,” about the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, which displays how dance is privatized and systemically pushes certain people out while keeping others in.
In my experience as a competitive dancer, the aspect of having money is one of the largest barriers to becoming a successful dancer. You have to be able to afford the costumes, the shoes, the uniforms, the makeup, and the classes. And if you want to get ahead, you have to be able to afford the private classes and the fees that come along with being on the competitive dance team. Consequently, the dance world is not the most diverse, and there is still a severe lack of effort in considering dancers who don’t fit the mold of able-bodied, white, thin, and wealthy.
You even see it in “traditional” dance attire. You know those pink tights and pointe shoes that everyone correlates with ballet, even sometimes referencing the color as “ballet pink?” That color is intended to match a dancer’s skin tone, to make their legs appear longer on stage. The problem with this, however, is that not everyone has a pale skin tone. This alone is enough to understand why dance is so privatized—to keep certain people in and certain people out.
Throughout the Netflix show, the viewers see how these women are expected to be classically trained to a high standard, have the most expensive costumes, have all the necessary equipment to upkeep their hair and makeup, and maintain particularly expensive diets, all for the sake of the chance of auditioning to make the team. Here, it becomes clear that there is an obvious class barrier to getting on the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, as all the mentioned aspects cost extensive amounts of money. Of course, this is only further complicated when we think about who is barred from gaining access to wealth. Additionally, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, in adhering to Eurocentric beauty standards, tend to prioritize thin-white women to upkeep their identity as “America’s Sweethearts.”
Thus, I find that the Netflix series about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders provides a prime example of how dance is privatized. While you might not see it from outside of the dance world, the show gives some insight into how the dance industry has become dominated by wealthy white people. Ultimately, as made clear by this series and the industry as a whole, dance is privatized to avoid being accessible; only certain types of bodies are welcome, and only certain bodies can be seen as “professional” dancers.
Unruly Bodies 
Even taking into account the fact that DCCs aren’t paid a lot. This is enough for many talented prospective DCCs to not try out, as having the job means working essentially a full time job without pay. Just another way dance is privatized.
I also watched the original Making the Team DCC show, and the amount of fat shaming of very thin girls was absolutely shocking, especially as a fat person. I can’t imagine the damage that must have been done to those cheerleaders AND any young children who watched the show without the knowledge that this is a very skewed way of looking at bodies.
Wow, I knew a lot about the situation with the Dallas Cheerleaders (and therefore the entire culture around cheerleading for men’s sporting leagues), but I didn’t know that the pale “Ballet Pink” popular in most ballet productions comes from trying to match the dancers’ skin tones. It just speaks to how ingrained Euro-centric beauty standards are in most Western cultures that things that seem innocuous on the surface actually have pretty sinister origins.
I found an article on allure.com from 2020 that details specifically the discrimination Jacie Scott, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader from 2016 to 2018, faced while performing for the team. Specifically, she did not wear her hair in texture-preserving styles and instead opted to relax it to appear more in-line with the beauty standards set by the team. She suffered severe hair damage and breakage as a result of doing this long-term. This only further reinforces your point of professional sporting leagues needing to make change to allow everyone a fair shot at participation.