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00:00For me, this is not a democracy, it's a cheer-ocracy.
00:05Bring It On is, according to Roger Ebert,
00:08the Citizen Kane of cheerleader movies.
00:10That's true, not just because it's a classic in its genre,
00:14but also because it represents the fall of a towering
00:17but controversial figure.
00:19We're cheerleaders! We are cheerleaders!
00:22The pretty, blonde, all-American cheerleader has long been a key part
00:26of the fabric of the imagined or depicted high school,
00:29representing a feminine ideal for young women to live up to.
00:33I'm sexy! I'm cute! I'm popular to boot!
00:36But 2000's underrated teen movie Bring It On subtly interrogated
00:41and took down our culture's deeply ingrained ideal of the cheerleader.
00:46It pointed out how our idea of this icon is shaped by white privilege.
00:51Our free cheer service is over as of this moment.
00:53And it challenged the character to become more,
00:55ultimately aiding her transformation in our popular consciousness
00:59from an empty-headed prize for a football player
01:01into a serious, driven, and creative athlete in her own right.
01:05We're the s***, the best.
01:07We have fun, we work hard, and we win national championships.
01:10Here's our take on how Bring It On forever reframed
01:14the conversation on the cheerleader and where this figure is at now.
01:22If you're new here, be sure to subscribe and click the bell
01:26to get notified about all our new videos.
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01:56Cheerleading goes back to the 1800s, but women weren't allowed to cheer until the 1920s.
02:02In the decades that followed, women cheerleaders came to symbolize
02:05all-American femininity through an array of cliched on-screen portrayals.
02:10She's like a goddamn poster child for high school.
02:13These established the cheerleader as pretty.
02:15You're so pretty and funny and confident.
02:18Vapid.
02:19I love cheerleading.
02:20Is it just the lame outfits, or do you like the brainless flitting around, too?
02:24Overtly sexual.
02:26Hello, Daddy!
02:27Popular at the top of the high school hierarchy.
02:30Status is like currency.
02:32When your bank account is full,
02:33you can get away with doing just about anything.
02:36White and comfortably middle class.
02:38Right off the bat, the opening cheer of Bring It On
02:41dissects all the main elements of this cheerleader myth.
02:44I'm bitchin', great hair.
02:46The boys all love to stare.
02:47But this opening sequence turns out to be a dream
02:50that Kirsten Dunst's Torrance Shipman wakes up from,
02:53so it's as if the movie is saying that while this
02:56has been our collective dream of cheerleaders up to this point,
03:00I want it, I'm hot, I'm everything you're not.
03:03The reality of cheerleading we're about to see after she wakes up
03:06is something very different.
03:08From there, Bring It On plays with and complicates
03:11cheerleader stereotypes as we meet female athletes
03:14who pursue excellence in their sport,
03:16who prize friendship and honor,
03:18and who learn to check their privilege.
03:20You pay our way in and you sleep better at night
03:22knowing how your whole world is based on one big ol' fat lie.
03:26Let's start with the cheerleaders' looks.
03:28I'm pretty! I'm cool!
03:30Traditionally, the whole foundation of the cheerleaders' prestige
03:33and popularity is their beauty, which is used by schools or teams
03:37to embody a certain aspirational American brand of optimism
03:42and wholesomeness.
03:43Scholars Natalie Adams and Pamela Bettis describe cheerleading
03:46as a standard of ideal girlhood.
03:49You're a straight-A student.
03:50You're a cheerleader, for God's sakes.
03:53You're the perfect girl next door.
03:56Varsity.com says cheerleaders are a key marketing tool
03:59to the athletics programs that they support,
04:02and they create the community patriotism we call school spirit.
04:06Will we be seeing you at the trials this afternoon, Stacey?
04:09I wouldn't miss it.
04:10Well, that's good, because you are exactly the sort of girl
04:12we need to represent us.
04:14Blonde, dimpled new captain Torrance is this image to a tee.
04:18It's only cheerleading.
04:20I am only cheerleading.
04:22She's such an extension of the school spirit,
04:24even her name, Torrance, sounds similar to her sports team, the Toros.
04:29We are the Toros, the mighty, mighty Toros!
04:32Meanwhile, countering her apple pie appeal,
04:35the cheerleader is at the same time an erotic ideal,
04:38as evidenced by the large output of the adult entertainment industry
04:42featuring this character, and as acknowledged off the bat in Bring It On.
04:46I swear I'm not a whore!
04:48Professor Gary Bettinson's character framework
04:50of the classic high school movie includes the football jock,
04:54the slutty cheerleader, the ostracized loner,
04:56and the apathetic high school principal.
04:59Significantly, though, that opening sequence when she dreams
05:02that she's naked in front of the school is the only time
05:05Bring It On overtly sexualizes Torrance, and she's horrified.
05:09Nice wrap!
05:11After that, the focus is on how the cheerleaders have to fight
05:14against their sport being pigeonholed as merely about sex appeal.
05:18Any sport that combines gymnastics, dance, and short skirts is okay by me.
05:23When these characters do use their sexuality, it's with agency,
05:27like when they exploit their bodies for a car wash to make money,
05:30or when Missy calls out her brother because his unthinkingly ogling
05:34the cheerleaders leads to him accidentally looking that way at her.
05:38What are you doing?
05:39Making money from guys ogling my goodies.
05:41The classic cheerleader's symbolic role is typically to act
05:45as the hyper-feminine parallel to the aggressive jock.
05:48Be aggressive. Be aggressive.
05:52Her whole point is ostensibly to cheer on and prop up men,
05:56enabling school-based bro culture, and in many stories,
05:59this support extends to dating members of the football team.
06:03John and I belong together.
06:05He is the team captain, and I am the head cheerleader.
06:09But Bring It On undercuts the traditional heterosexual ideal
06:13of the male football player and the pretty cheerleader at his side,
06:16with its running jokes that the Toro's football team is terrible.
06:20All the cheerleaders in the world wouldn't help our football team?
06:23Man, it's just wrong.
06:24Cheering for them is just plain me.
06:26It elevates the cheerleader herself to a position of prime importance,
06:31by making her a top-tier athlete competing at a national level.
06:34Ever been to a cheerleading competition?
06:36ESPN cameras all around, hundreds of people in the crowds cheering?
06:40Wait, people cheering cheerleaders?
06:43And when Torrance gets her happy romantic ending,
06:46she's nobody's prize.
06:48She kisses her crush.
06:49The film also reminds us that there are plenty of male cheerleaders,
06:52who at this school are more accomplished than the football players.
06:56Just because we won more trophies than you guys,
06:58there's no reason to go get all malignant.
07:00Meanwhile, the loners of Bettinson's framework here can be,
07:04or date, cheerleaders too.
07:06So, is that your band or something?
07:08The Clash?
07:10Another aspect of the cheerleader myth that Bring It On alludes to
07:13is how she's long been a controversial figure.
07:16I'm rockin', I smile, and many think I'm vile!
07:20Professor Emma Jane says that cheerleaders have long drawn
07:24intense vitriol from a range of ostensibly disparate social groups,
07:28including feminists, social conservatives, cultural elites,
07:31sports administrators and fans, mainstream media commentators,
07:35and members of the general public.
07:37The cheerleader is despised for not being feminist enough,
07:41but then for not being socially conservative enough.
07:43She pulls A's.
07:44That's not all she pulls.
07:46She's too much of an everywoman for some,
07:48and far too elite for others.
07:51Torrance faces this misunderstanding even in her own home.
07:54Her parents are fairly nonplussed by her intensity about cheerleading.
07:57It kills me that you barely make time to study.
08:00If you studied half as much as you cheer,
08:02you'd be in great shape.
08:03And while not everyone gets it,
08:05to her cheering is a superior extracurricular pursuit,
08:08and we can see that being the captain of this team
08:10seems pretty stressful.
08:12I hate to see you like this, all stressed out.
08:14Maybe you're just not captain material.
08:21The other way that Bring It On takes down the all-American cheerleader icon
08:26as we once knew her is through examining her white privilege.
08:30You guys are awesome.
08:31Really?
08:32You ready to share those trophies?
08:33While at first it may seem like your typical teen movie,
08:36Bring It On quickly becomes a parable about something much bigger—
08:39cultural appropriation.
08:41The success of Torrance's Toros as reigning national champions
08:44is built on a big wrong.
08:46The students of this wealthy white school have been stealing
08:49the original creations of a disadvantaged all-black squad.
08:53Miss Red snaked our routines from the East Compton Clovers.
08:56So with its central plot,
08:57the movie draws attention to the routine ways in which black culture,
09:01and particularly the intellectual property of black women,
09:04is co-opted by white people and repackaged to make it palatable
09:08for white audiences.
09:09Every time we get some,
09:10here y'all come trying to steal it,
09:11putting some blonde hair on it,
09:13and calling it something different.
09:14Torrance is devastated when she learns Big Red stole the cheers,
09:18but at first she doesn't seem to grasp the gravity of this situation
09:21from a racial standpoint.
09:22She's looking at it more from an ethical one,
09:24and in a link back to the spoiled white cheerleader trope,
09:27focuses largely on how it affects her.
09:30My entire cheerleading career has been a lie.
09:32The black team, meanwhile,
09:34is very aware of the racial elements at play.
09:36Were the ethnic festivities to your liking today?
09:39There's also the sense that this has been going on for a long time.
09:43Y'all been coming up here for years trying to steal our routines,
09:45and we just love seeing them on ESPN.
09:48And though her heart is in the right place,
09:49many of Torrance's subsequent interactions with the Clovers
09:52evidence her white guilt.
09:54White guilt, defined as the remorse felt by white people
09:57with regards to racial inequality, is a problematic response because,
10:02as Dr. Patrick Grazenka writes,
10:03white guilt retains a focus on the white subject,
10:06and thus it may offer limited potential to transform social relationships
10:11and systems of inequity.
10:13Torrance's sequence of behaviors after she learns of Big Red's transgression
10:17offers essentially a step-by-step primer of what not to do
10:21in situations like these.
10:22After she informs the other cheerleaders,
10:25her teammates argue that they should still be able to perform
10:28their stolen routine.
10:29We learned that routine fair and square.
10:32Don't punish the squad for Big Red's mistake.
10:35This is a recognizable kind of reasoning that white or privileged members
10:39of society might resort to when being confronted about inequality.
10:43The team members claim that, as individuals,
10:46they didn't knowingly do anything wrong,
10:48so they don't feel they should be punished by having any of their
10:51privileges taken away from them.
10:53Changing the routine now would be total murder-suicide.
10:56How is Compton going to prove anything?
10:58But these arguments overlook the truth that Torrance deep down
11:02intuits that all of their successes are corrupted
11:04because they're built on an original sin.
11:07Arguably, the fact that they looked the other way
11:09and never questioned where Big Red got such creative routines
11:13is a central part of the wrong they engaged in, too.
11:16I know you didn't think a white girl made that s*** up.
11:18Just as not being actively racist as an individual
11:21doesn't mean you don't profit from systemic racism.
11:24I hate racism.
11:26You don't have to deal with things like being racially profiled,
11:29or getting unfairly turned down for a mortgage loan
11:32because of your skin color.
11:33As academics Couette and Taylor Wright of White Guilt,
11:36we are all accomplices in a society that perpetuates past wrongs
11:40in the present day.
11:42At first, Torrance caves to the pressure to still perform the routine,
11:46but the story punishes this wrong decision
11:48with the public humiliation at their football game.
11:50Tried to settle our bit, but you look like s***,
11:53but we're the ones who are down with it.
11:54We were humiliated on our own turf.
11:57She then makes another classic wealthy white person mistake,
12:00trying to throw money at the problem.
12:02But after the choreographer she hires teaches them,
12:05and five other teams, a subpar routine,
12:08which leads to another incident of public shame.
12:11Apparently he's been peddling the same routine
12:13up and down the California coast.
12:15Six squads total.
12:17She learns that money alone can't buy quality creative output,
12:22or excellence.
12:23Ultimately, Torrance's personal journey is about the inverse
12:26of appropriation, channeling her own creativity.
12:30Our whole cheering career,
12:31we've staked our reputation on being the best,
12:34the most inventive.
12:36Now we finally have a chance to truly be original?
12:39Things only start turning around for her once she looks inward
12:42to create an original artistic work that reflects her own experience,
12:46and not someone else's.
12:47After her love interest Cliff writes her a song that speaks to her,
12:51she has the instinct to express her feelings through her own moves.
12:55Meanwhile, after getting nowhere by listening to others
12:57about what kind of captain she should be,
13:00she grasps that the key to being a leader is to trust yourself,
13:03to listen to your own gut, your moral compass,
13:06and your inner creative drive.
13:08And we've got less than three weeks till nationals.
13:11But if we can do it, if we can pull this off,
13:15then we can really call ourselves original.
13:17Just when she thinks she's got it figured out though,
13:19Torrance has thrown another curveball.
13:21She discovers the Clovers won't be competing at nationals
13:25because they can't afford it.
13:26They couldn't raise the money in time.
13:28She's upset by the injustice and wants to take responsibility and help,
13:32but again, her white guilt leads her in the wrong direction.
13:36She leaps to fund them herself, running to,
13:38yes, her dad, to ask him to pay for it.
13:41They deserve to go.
13:43Do the right thing, dad.
13:44Bring It On's director, Peyton Reed, said that in her mind,
13:47that's sort of her privileged white girl reaction,
13:50like, oh, I'm going to solve this thing.
13:52It's not that much money, Mr. Level Playing Field.
13:55Tell them the deal, maybe they'll want to help.
13:57Yet the Clovers' captain, Isis,
13:58fox at what she sees as self-serving, guilt-driven charity.
14:02What is this, hush money?
14:04No.
14:05Oh, right, it's guilt money.
14:07In this exchange, the movie rejects its protagonist's attempt
14:10to be a white savior, a stage that often follows white guilt
14:14and offers a path for the white person to feel better.
14:17Why do you have to be so mean?
14:18I'm just trying to do the right thing here.
14:20But in Isis's view, this representative of an establishment
14:24that has exploited and stolen from her community
14:26shouldn't get to swoop in, offer a check that wasn't that hard
14:30for her to obtain, and get the satisfaction of viewing herself as a hero.
14:34You pay our way in and you sleep better at night
14:35knowing how your whole world is based on one big ol' fat lie.
14:39No matter how nice Torrance feels she's being,
14:41she's not an individual separate from this whole problematic, larger context.
14:46And while Torrance is looking for a quick fix,
14:48the point is that there isn't an easy solution that will allow her to feel better.
14:53Torrance and the people she represents should feel uncomfortable
14:56about their part in racial inequality and dwell in that feeling.
15:00Isis wants the Clovers to make it to the Nationals on their own,
15:03and in her view, the right way to get the money for her team
15:06is from a successful former member of her neighborhood.
15:09It's not charity.
15:10Paula the Patton's from our neighborhood.
15:11She'll understand why we need the money.
15:13Torrance doesn't need to be anyone's savior.
15:15She just needs to acknowledge the Clovers for the superior athletes they are.
15:20You want to make it right? Then when you go to Nationals, bring it.
15:24And show them the respect they deserve by competing her hardest against them.
15:28Don't slack off because you feel sorry for us.
15:31That way, when we beat you, we'll know it's because we're better.
15:40The final way that Bring It On unpacks the cheerleader
15:43is as a symbol of class privilege and wealth.
15:45One of the big reveals in Bring It On is the fact that although talent is important,
15:50it comes second to cash.
15:52It's so unfair!
15:53The first inner-city squad ever to get a bit to Nationals,
15:55and they can't afford to go?
15:57The film shows Torrance's outrage that the Clovers' raw talent isn't enough
16:01to get them to finals, and the audience might share that surprise,
16:04because it remains rare that a sports movie so openly confronts
16:08the capitalist nature of school athletics.
16:10He'll need three or four days to teach us the routine.
16:12But here's the thing, it's gonna cost us—
16:15the fact is that cheerleading is inherently inequitable.
16:18These days, Huck's Ruby Lott-Lavinga says the cost of cheerleading
16:21can be between $750 to $3500 a year.
16:25As a result, it's a massive industry, estimated to be worth $2 billion.
16:30And in part, Bring It On is an analysis of the complex set of privileges
16:34that leads to a successful cheer career.
16:36But what Torrance realizes by the end of the movie is that
16:39only on a level playing field is any win even real.
16:43I define best as competing against the best there is out there and beating them.
16:46And this leads us to the movie's satisfying conclusion.
16:49A teen movie in that era could have easily decided it was an unbreakable rule
16:53that its protagonist must win the championship to get her happy ending.
16:57But Bring It On understands that it's a happier ending
17:00for Torrance's society if the best team wins.
17:04You guys were good.
17:05Thanks.
17:06You were better.
17:09We were, huh?
17:10While Torrance's close second got the right way is the victory for the protagonist.
17:15So, second place?
17:17How's it feel?
17:18Feels like first.
17:21Bring It On joined a few other teen movies at the turn of the millennium
17:24that gave the cliched cheerleader a second look.
17:27Varsity Blues looked at how this figure might be trapped into playing a cliche
17:31by her limited prospects.
17:32It was never about love.
17:34It was about me getting a better life.
17:36You're gonna get out of West Canaan on your own.
17:40All right, you're smart.
17:42American Beauty presented a gorgeous cheerleader
17:44who's only pretending to be the knowing sexual ideal
17:48when in reality she's not only inexperienced,
17:50but also at a loss for what might make her happy in life.
17:54What do you want?
17:55I don't know.
17:57And But I'm a Cheerleader based its whole movie on subverting
18:01cultural expectations of this figure as a heterosexual ideal.
18:05I'm not perverted.
18:07I get good grades.
18:09I go to church.
18:10I'm a cheerleader!
18:12The early 2000s were a time when the world was rapidly changing for teens,
18:16who now had access to the internet and found new ways to articulate
18:20their feelings and frustrations.
18:21Bring It On and others showed high school not through its usual coding
18:25and fixed hierarchy, but as a fluid, more complicated place,
18:29where friendship, even between blonde head cheerleaders
18:32and the alternative outcasts, is prized.
18:34Thank God you're here this season, Missy.
18:36I couldn't have done it alone.
18:37It kickstarted a new genre of teen narratives
18:40in which the cheerleader isn't just the vapid girlfriend
18:43to a football player.
18:44She can be a person with agency, creativity, and even edge.
18:48She contains multitudes.
18:50You're Betty Cooper.
18:51Like Nancy Drew means girl with the dragon tattoo.
18:54And while this movie is very much a white person's perspective
18:57on appropriation, Bring It On drew attention to important
19:00conversations about race in spaces where these were not yet commonplace.
19:04Ultimately, it's a lesson in how to look beyond the surface,
19:08how to evolve as we become more informed,
19:10and how to lose gracefully.
19:13Second place.
19:14Hell yeah!
19:20Hi, everyone.
19:20I'm Susanna.
19:21I'm Debra.
19:22And we're the creators of The Take.
19:23Please subscribe and tell us what you want our take on next.
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