When we think about early 2000s teen movies, Bring It On often makes the list of nostalgic favourites.
With its catchy cheers, fierce routines, and iconic performances, it’s easy to remember it as light-hearted entertainment. The film features Kirsten Dunst, Gabrielle Union, and a host of other incredibly talented dancers and actors.
I loved Bring It On.
But rewatching Bring It On through a critical lens and as an adult reveals something much darker: the casual normalisation of sexual violence, particularly against young women and girls.
Recently, Bring It On was on TV, and with a sense of nostalgia, I excitedly sat down to watch it.
Within the first half hour, however, I was feeling awkward and uncomfortable.
Following on from my previous posts on Grease and American Pie, this article explores how Bring It On, a film many of us grew up with, quietly reinforces harmful narratives that contribute to the wider culture of violence against women and girls (VAWG).
From offhand comments to disturbingly casual mentions of digital rape, this teen comedy reflects just how embedded grooming and sexual violence are in popular media.
In this post, we will consider how Bring It On subtly reinforces VAWG culture and whether we need to ‘cancel’ this film.
You can read the previous posts about Grease and American Pie by clicking on the links below:
- The Dark Side of Grease: How This Iconic Film Reinforces VAWG Culture
- How American Pie Promotes Harmful Violence Against Women and Girls
Problematic Moments in Bring It On That Promote Sexual Violence
Eventually, we got to the part of the film where Torrance, along with two guys on the cheerleading squad (whose names I forget now), picked up Missy for her first performance on the cheerleading team.
They whoop at her transformation from looking like an Avril Lavigne wannabe (even though the film pre-dates Avril’s fame, so maybe someone like Courtney Love is a better comparison), to someone with a crop top and short skirt.
You could argue that this represents the sexualising of teens and young women, but this wasn’t what got me. What got me was the conversation that the characters have in the car where one of the male characters talks about ‘slipping digits’ to another girl on the cheerleading squad whilst performing a cheer routine.
They all laugh about it.
I sat there horrified.
He’s talking about digital rape and the characters are laughing about it.
Who in the heck sat in an office and approved this script?
Who the heck filmed this scene and didn’t think that promoting sexual violence was wrong?
Who the heck sat on the cutting room floor and thought ‘Yeah, this is a great scene to stick in front of teens!’
And how did this scene make Kirsten Dunst and Eliza Dushku feel whilst they filmed it?
As young women themselves, did they think anything of the line? Or, like me watching the film as a teenager, did they just accept that this was part of what being a female was in the 1990s and the 2000s?
Now, I’ll give it to Bring It On that we never see anything that makes the audience think that this type of event ever occurred, but the fact that these lines are included in the film almost makes it feel that if this were to happen in real life then this is ok.
Why?
Because everyone freaking laughs when it’s mentioned.
What is Digital Rape? Understanding the Language of Consent
I’ve used the term ‘digital rape’ to describe the character’s description of behaviour in the above scene.
I’ll admit, I’d never come across the term until I read Paris Hilton’s, ‘Paris: The Memoir.’ Regardless of if you’re a fan of Paris Hilton or not, I highly recommend this book to everyone.
It’s an eye-opening and very sober read for anyone who thinks that control and coercion only happen in cases of domestic violence, and that child abuse is reserved for physical abuse only.
In my opinion, Paris’ parents were victims of controlling and coercive regimes, and Paris herself was the victim of a range of abuse from people in positions of authority.
As I said, if you’ve not read it; do.
And whilst you’re at it, check out Jeannette McCurdy’s ‘I’m Glad My Mom Died’ and Britney Spears’s ‘The Woman in Me.’
If you have any doubt in your mind as to the different faces of what grooming, control, and coercion look like, just read these three books and then tell me that grooming is obvious.
How ‘Classic’ Films Contribute to Violence Against Women and Girls Today
With the above in mind, I don’t want anyone to fall into the trap of thinking that the mid-noughts were coming up 20 years ago and things have changed since then.
You’re right; things have changed, but from a grooming and sexual offences point of view, things haven’t necessarily moved on for the better.
There are still songs being produced all the time that promote violence against women and girls, even subtly.
But how is all of this information relevant to women and girls living in our societies?
I’m glad you asked. And here are some facts statistics to demonstrate the landscape of VAWG culture decades after Bring It On was released.
- In 2014, an estimated 50,000 16–17-year-olds in the UK were victims of sexual assault.
- Of these, only approximately 4,900 assaults were reported to the police.
- The trend is that women subjected to acts of sexual violence are on the rise.
- In 2023, 7.9 million women aged 16 or over had experienced a sexual assault; 1.9 million of these women were raped.
- For each act of sexual violence carried out against a girl under the age of 18, it’s estimated that 30-40% of these individuals were groomed before the violence took place.
We know that grooming is woefully under-reported and is very much misunderstood.
It’s, therefore, safe to assume that the actual statistic of girls who are victims of sexual violence and groomed beforehand is actually much higher.
Add the women who were groomed before being sexually violated into the mix, and I shudder to think about how many women and girls are groomed before experiencing an act of sexual violence.
And by continuing to blindly engage with the media that normalises these issues, we all continue to contribute to the problem of violence against women and girls.
These societal influences aren’t just distant media examples, though.
They directly affect how young people, including myself, currently perceive and react or how they have perceived and reacted to harmful situations in the past.
As we move forward, we must remain aware of how influences of the media shape perceptions around violence against women and girls because only with such awareness will we be able to bring about change.
Closing Thoughts
Our engagement with the media, from nostalgic films to chart-topping songs, can blind us to how grooming and sexual violence is normalised within society.
The challenge for us all lies not in cancelling the past and turning out backs on popular classics, but in educating ourselves and others to critically analyse the messages that we are consuming.
It’s only when we foster awareness and demand societal accountability that we can begin to counteract the sexual violence that has become integrated in our everyday lives.
And you’re probably now thinking that my opinion is that we cancel this film. And you’d be forgiven for thinking so.
However, my thoughts are that we don’t ‘cancel’ films such as Bring It On, but instead look to educate people that these films were ‘of their time’ and that they are for entertainment purposes only. These films were never designed to intentionally promote sexual violence.
Their intention was to make money.
And if we can start to see that, then we can start to have tangible conversations about how inappropriate certain conversations within this film are.
This post is adapted from a section of It's All Your Fault - due for release in 2025.
