Cheerleading is one of America’s most successful cultural export, a phenomenon that gained global popularity almost solely on the account of Hollywood films. Nubile cheerleaders as the epitome of idealised youth and sex appeal were important ingredient of many popular and very different films and TV shows, ranging from Debbie Does Dallas to Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Yet, due to exploitative nature of such motives, it is sometimes easy to forget that cheerleading per se is genuine sport that its participants take quite seriously, and, as such, can become the main subject of film, like in the case of Bring It On, popular 2000 comedy directed by Peyton Reed.
The plot takes place in San Diego and begins when Rancho Carne High School needs the captain of Toros, its renown cheerleading team, because the previous one, Big Red (played by Lindsay Sloane), has graduated. Torrance Shipman (played by Kirsten Dunst) is elected as new captain and faces great responsibility, since Toros have won five consecutive national cheerleading championships and everyone expects her to bring the sixth. Things, however, don’t go as planned, because Carver (played by Bianca Kajlich), one of the team members, gets injured and must be replaced. Missy Pantone (played by Eliza Dushku), trained gymnast who isn’t big fan of cheerleading, reluctantly joins the team because the school doesn’t have gymnastic program. She, however, informs Torrance that Toros’ winning cheer routines were stolen from Clovers, cheerleading team from mainly black school from East Compton and led by talented captain Isis (played by Gabrielle Union). Torrance decides to do the right thing and create original routines with which she would try to best Clovers when they face each other at national championship in Florida.
Bring It On is very easy film to like, especially if you belong to its target audience of teenage or young males. Script by Jessica Bendinger is weak, but it serves as more than decent basis for first-time director Peyton Reed to deliver good combination of standard teen comedy, sports drama and dance musical. Reed understands its target audience very well and tries to deliver what is expected, which means that Bring It On will be very easy on the eyes, at least to those who prefer young nubile women in skimpy clothes. On the other hand, Bring It On is another example of early 21st Century Hollywood teen comedy being neutered by PG-13 rating. Eveb with even the most obvious fan service scene in which Kirsten Dunst and Eliza Dushku provide bikini car wash service in order to finance their characters’ team, this film will disappoint all those who based their expectations on what Hollywood used to do with these themes and setting two decades earlier. The raunchiest detail of the whole film is the lyrics of the opening song rather than anything audience will see at the screen.
Bring It On works best in the beginning, but soon it becomes apparent that Jessica Bendinger lost inspiration and, apart from obligatory romantic subplot involving Torrance and Missy’s brother played by Jesse Bradford, time must be filled with somewhat more serious material. In this case it is the rivalry between Toros and Clovers, which allows producers to show “political correctness” and use this seemingly silly teen comedy to explore issues of race, class, gender stereotypes and homophobia. This didn’t impress critics at the time, but two decades later it turned Bring It On into darling of progressive scholars who love to praise the film as one of the pioneering examples of intersectional feminism in Hollywood films. The audience didn’t care much of the politics and instead viewed it as entertaining piece of cinema. Bring It On became big hit and led to five direct-to-video sequels from 2004 till 2022.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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