America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

Season 2 of the documentary series “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders,” on Netflix, is a bit less rah-rah than Season 1 — still full of tears, high kicks and sisterhood but also more attuned to the pain of it all, the sorrow and struggle of cobbling together one’s self-worth.

Stripped of its branding obligations, Sweethearts is a compelling portrait of talented young people devoting themselves wholly to their craft. I may not enjoy the jingoistic aggression of the sport surrounding them, nor the hetero gaze glaring down so hard upon these dancers. But one does grow to love, or at least empathize deeply with, the women trying to assert themselves amidst that storm of money and manliness and manners.

The stories of the women on the DCC squad are what make America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders worth watching, even if the format sometimes feels repetitive.

While America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders isn’t going to get too dark or delve too deeply into real issues, it’s still a good behind the scenes look at how one of the most famous cheerleading squads in the world gets ready for being in the spotlight.

Empathetic, observant but uneven doc.

I still found myself caring about a number of the cheerleaders and even investing in things like the precarious “Thunderstruck” jump-splits. But when the seventh episode concluded with several participants symbolically removing their thick layers of makeup and eyelashes with the camera as a mirror, I was very aware that the series hadn’t, in fact, actually taken us beneath any surfaces at all.