Gabrielle Union, who played the leader of the Black cheerleading squad the Clovers in Bring It On, claims that producers tried to bait people into thinking the film’s Black characters had a more prominent role in the story than they actually had.
If you’ve seen the film, you can probably tell that none of the slice-of-life scenes with the Clovers in the trailer below are in the actual film. And according to Union, they were never intended to be.
In a recent TikTok video, she claims that she and the other Black stars in the film were called back on set after production wrapped to film extra scenes for the trailer after testing audiences said they wanted to see more of the Clovers in the film.
“We shot these for the trailer, not for the movie, to make people think we were in the movie more than we were,” she said.
@gabunion Fun Facts 🙃 #bringiton #clovers #tiktokpartner
If true, this is pretty fkd if you think about it.
Sure, movie trailers often mislead us and tell a warped summary of a film to grab your interest, but there’s something particularly upsetting about it happening here.
Films in the early 2000s rarely had a Black lead. Black women were only really cast as sassy sidekicks like Regina Hall in Scary Movie. So, the optics of Hollywood producers allegedly manipulating a Black audience to think that they’re represented in a film that actually follows a white cast is tragic.
So they used the black school to get people to watch the movies just for you to get your ticket and see the main characters are the yts that’s sadly hilarious
— sagittarius & optimist🧚🏾♀️🤎 (@chocolithoney) January 9, 2022
Pull you in with a Black aesthetic but don’t actually respect and honor the Black talent with enough screen time. Sounds familiar. It’s giving cultural appropriation from a film about cultural appropriation. 🤦🏾♀️
— Fluorescent Black Woman (@AHarrisWrites) January 9, 2022
As one person summed it up in the comments of Union’s video: “that’s kinda sad when you think about it.”
“I remember watching the movie and being like, there’s a lot of scenes missing,” said another.
One simply joked that this alleged story explains why the Bring It On sequels felt more “hip hop” than the first film.
Honestly, the best way to retcon this is to do what several TikTokers are suggesting in the comments and reboot the franchise with a film about the Clovers – starring Gabrielle Union’s character as the coach, ofc.
