To Understand This Election, You Should Watch Netflix’s America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders (But Before You Do That, You Should Know About the Legacy of the JET Beauty of the Week)

A Black Eyed Review of Netflix's America's Sweethearts

JET Magazine. July, 1974

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Tradition can unite generations of people that have something in common. It can be a source of comfort. It can be a source of consistency. And it gives people things to be proud of. 

Kelli Finglass, Director of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

My Aunt Porky (don’t let the nickname fool ya) could’ve been a JET Beauty of the Week – not a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model, not a Miss America or a Miss USA or a Miss Universe or a Playboy Playmate of the Year. She was Black and beautiful. When you think about this kind of Black beauty, make sure to keep the B on that Black capitalized and in boldface. 

White Americans don’t know anything about this kind of beauty. This kind of beauty exalted standards that White Americans would never crown: pigeon toes and bow legs, unibrows and hairy legs and mustaches. This kind of beauty liked freckles and gap-teeth and cellulite. I’ll put it like this: take all these attributes I’m telling you about and go listen to Kendrick Lamar’s HUMBLE. When he raps, I’m so fuckin' sick and tired of the Photoshop/Show me somethin' natural like afro on Richard Pryor/Show me somethin' natural like ass with some stretch marks, you’ll understand he and I are both talking about the same thing. Throughout the 70s and 80s and even into the 90s, Aunt Porky was a “somethin’-natural-like,” Jet-magazine kind of beauty. Every Black family had at least one Aunt Porky. 

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JET Magazine. Circa 1970s

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I don’t have a problem with beauty. I don’t even have a problem with beauty standards. I don’t  think they should be fair. Them that’s got shall get. Them that’s not shall lose. Or as my mother used to say, Not everything is for everybody. 

We can’t all be beautiful. What I have is a problem with is who gets a say in who gets to be beautiful and who gets to be talented. It’s a crying shame that it’s usually the most unattractive and untalented who get to call all the shots. Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein and Simon Cowell are not the most beautiful or the most talented, but each has played a role in setting the terms and conditions for stardom. Trump was the former owner of pageants. Weinstein was a Hollywood mover and shaker. Cowell continues to be producer, judge and jury of amateur talent. 

For every beautiful face gracing a billboard or magazine cover, a man like one of these three is making a lot of money. It’s not because any of them is more discerning of beauty. It’s not because they recognize talent more than we do. It’s certainly not because they hold more kindness and wisdom. It’s because the duality of colonialism and imperialism allows he who has the most coins (no matter how ill-gotten) to have the most say.