This Video Reveals Just How Degrading Professional Cheerleading Really Is

Earlier today I published a timeline that chronicles the history of cheerleading, featuring everything from the debut of the Washington Redskinettes to Robin Williams’ cameo as a Denver Broncos cheerleader. But for all the confounding moments in the hundred-plus years of cheerleading, this clip of a reality TV show called Making the Team might take the cake.

Now in its ninth season on Country Music Television, the show follows candidates as they try out for the famous Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. In the clip above, from August, team director Kelli Finglass performs “uniform checks,” which she punctuates with choice comments like, “Today, we had a little bit of thigh and butt running together, so we’re calling it a ‘thutt.’ Megan had a little bit of a thutt. We can cover cankles with boots, but we can’t cover thutts.”

Keep in mind: Finglass has said that she wants her cheerleaders to be “role models” who are a “cross section of the American woman.” Also, it’s 2014.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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