On B List of Movie Reviews
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Bring It On (2000)
Rate:
1
Viewed:
6/25
6/25:
If there's a "sport" that's more dangerous than football, it's competitive cheer.
Bring It On wants me to think it's cute and fun when in reality is not. What most people don't know is
the numerous injuries that happen behind the scenes. Remember practice makes perfection, and it doesn't
always mean things will go as planned on the first try. And for what? It's not uncommon to read news about a
cheerleader becoming paralyzed in a stunt gone wrong.
When I watch these girls getting thrown up in the air, doing the pyramids, and so on, I simply cringe. It means
legs, arms, knees, ankles, hands/wrists, and, most of all, heads potentially slamming against the catcher or the
ground. The higher they go, the more dangerous it is. According to one article, "experts attribute
cheerleading's danger to three things: inadequate safety measures, improper training, and competitiveness."
In fact, the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury (NCCSIR) reported that cheerleading accounted for
65% of direct catastrophic injuries to all high school female sports participants and 70.8% of catastrophic
injuries to female college athletes from 1982 to 2009. Also, "over 26 years, they [statistics annually tracked
by Mueller's organization] show disabilities or deaths caused by head or spine trauma are almost double for
female high school cheerleaders than that for all female sports combined: 73 'catastrophic
injuries'—including two deaths—from the fall of 1982 to the spring of 2008. Gymnastics was second,
with nine injuries."
Back to the film, the part I wondered the most is "where were the coaches?" I didn't see any kind of adult
supervision. This is high school, for goodness' sake! Should the stunts go wrong, good luck to the higher-ups
when it comes to lawsuit time. More disgusting is the sexualization of female cheerleaders, especially when
a male fingered one of them while hoisting her up. Therefore, I won't be surprised to learn there are tons of
sex abuse going on just like gymnastics.
How about that national championship at the end? I say, "Who cares?" All of the characters are either unlikeable
or cheesy. It's like watching a cult. The material is beneath Kirsten Dunst's talent. While Jesse Bradford is
the absolute worst with Gabrielle Union and the rest of her squad coming in a close second, Eliza Dushku gets
points for never being corny.
All in all, Bring It On is wrong on a lot of levels.