Cowboys Cheerleaders Take My Chemical Romance to Court Over Uniforms

Cowboys Nation, the DCC are protecting the most famous uniform in cheer, and this time the fight is with a rock band.

Pro Silver Star Ltd., the company that owns the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders brand, has gone to court against My Chemical Romance, asking for a temporary restraining order and a temporary injunction, per court papers first reported by TheWrap. The filing came Friday, according to the New York Post.

Here's what set it off. At the band's Oct. 21 show at the Hollywood Bowl, part of a five-night run celebrating 20 years of "The Black Parade," female dancers came out in blue-and-white outfits styled like the DCC uniform. In the show's storyline, set in a made-up dictatorship, those dancers picked up rifles and were shown being shot in a staged firefight. The company says fans in the crowd and online thought they were watching the real Cowboys Cheerleaders, and that those posts are still circulating.

Pro Silver Star says it asked the band to drop the costumes for the rest of the run and was turned down. It calls the DCC look protected trade dress and wants a court order blocking the outfits while the case plays out, plus damages in an amount it didn't specify. The filing goes out of its way to say it has no problem with the band's music, story, politics or choreography; it just wants the dancers in something other than the DCC uniform. Band members Gerard Way, Mikey Way, Frank Iero and Ray Toro are named as defendants.

The band hasn't responded publicly, and no judge has ruled, per IBTimes UK. These are claims, not findings.

**Our Take:** This one's easy to understand. The star-and-fringe look is one of the most valuable things the organization owns, and putting it on dancers who get gunned down on stage is exactly the kind of use a brand owner has to push back on, or risk losing the ability to protect it at all. Asking for a costume change, not a canceled show, is a narrow request, and it makes the DCC side look reasonable. It also lands in a big week for the squad, right after the Cowboys agreed to recognize the cheerleaders' new union.

**What's next:** Whether a judge grants the restraining order before the band's remaining Hollywood Bowl dates, and whether MCR changes the costumes on its own first.

Sources: TheWrap, New York Post, Rolling Stone, IBTimes UK, via Parade