The actress playing head Clovers cheerleader Isis in the 2000 film admits during a new interview on 'Good Morning America' that she did not allow her character to show her full humanity.
- Sep 16, 2021
AceShowbiz - Actress Gabrielle Union wishes she'd played her cheerleader role in 2000 film "Bring It On" differently.
In the hit high school comedy, Gabrielle played head Clovers cheerleader Isis, who confronts Kirsten Dunst's suburban character Torrance - the cheer captain for the rival Toros team - about her predecessor stealing the team's routines. And though Torrance apologizes for the theft, she and her teammates continue to use the Clovers' dance steps until they are shamed into dropping them.
Appearing on "Good Morning America" on Monday, September 13, Gabrielle admitted she "failed" herself and the character in making the film.
"I chose respectability and to be classy and take the high road, because I felt like that would make her be appropriate - the right kind of black girl..," she explained. "Black girls aren't allowed to be angry. Certainly not demonstratively angry, and I muzzled [Isis]."
Despite her best efforts to make Isis a "gracious, decent, kind leader," the actress believes the character was interpreted as the villain of the piece.
"I was still a villain in that movie for making her want accountability for the theft of their work product and the cultural appropriation. I did all that shape-shifting for a character, and then I realized I was doing that to myself too. I wasn't allowing myself the full range of my humanity," Gabrielle admitted.
And she would play the role quite differently today. "I would have allowed her her full humanity, and part of being a full human is the ability to express rage when harmed," she added.
"When you don't really allow yourself your full range of emotion and you muzzle your own emotions, it allows people to think, 'Maybe what I did wasn't that bad.' I would have given her all the anger."
