The summer of 2000 brought us Coyote Ugly and Bring It On. But what did they teach teen audiences?

Anne-iversaries is a bi-weekly column by writer Anne T. Donahue that explores and celebrates the pop culture that defined the '90s and 2000s and the way it affects us now (with, of course, a few personal anecdotes along the way).

The day after I finally rented and watched Coyote Ugly was a busy one. After spending nearly two hours blow-drying and ironing my box dyed-blond hair, I settled on an outfit that I felt would reflect the aesthetic values of a New York City bartender. Then, in my pleather pants and bright pink polyester halter top, I stood in front of my tiny TV, fast-forwarded to the scene in which the cast dances to "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" atop the bar, and learned the choreography.

I, dear reader, was finally a woman.

At least as far as my 15-year-old self was concerned. Of course, as a tiny precious infant at the time, I had yet to fully understand why Coyote Ugly — a movie about a group of female bartenders whose beauty and knack for choreography give them an almost untouchable power — had such a strong allure for me. But 20 years later, the appeal is obvious: Coyote Ugly is a story that suggests you can tap into your long-evasive self-confidence through dance.

That is, as long as you're willing to embrace the feeling already so prevalent throughout your teens: shame.

These themes are echoed in another defining 2000 film, Bring It On. Released just weeks later, it too centred on a white woman trying to define herself through movement. But where Coyote Ugly used shame in conjunction with the development of its main character's self-worth, Bring It On wielded it to illuminate the damage caused by co-opting Black culture. In this film's world, the shame was legitimately deserved. And instead of being the catalyst for abandoning dance altogether, it forced a sect of main characters to atone for their actions while abandoning tradition and pursuing creativity. Ultimately, one is a story about forging your own path, and the other is about...well, the same thing, provided you don't do it at a bar that you also dance atop of.

It's ironic that the more meaningful story is rooted in high school and in cheerleading, two settings that are typically dismissed by anyone whose worlds are no longer — or were never — entrenched in them. Torrence (Kirsten Dunst), the new captain of her school's cheerleading team, quickly learns the existing routines were lifted from the Clovers, rivals from a primarily Black school. So, called out by the Clovers' Captain (played by Gabrielle Union), Torrence ends up scrapping the existing dances and starting fresh. And while the Toros end up giving it their all at the championship, the Clovers finally take home the trophy after years spent coming second place to their own moves that had been stolen from them.

Of course, there are many Teen Movie™ elements that are silly and stereotypical of the genre. But while moments of levity abound, there's still a bigger message to take home: white people don't get to steal and appropriate Black culture. And if they (we) do, we shouldn't have to offer a meagre apology. We should have to learn from our mistakes, start again, and do better. There deserves to be an element of shame.

But, interestingly, the shame depicted in Coyote Ugly isn't the same sort. In fact, for a story about adults who have agency over their own choices, its substance pales in comparison to the movie about teen cheerleaders.

When we meet aspiring songwriter Violet Sanford (Piper Perabo), she's a recent New York City transplant with dreams of earning her place in the music industry. Unfortunately, that takes a while. So, in need of a job, she finds herself at Coyote Ugly, a bar (that exists in real life) renowned for its beautiful and scrappy bartenders, bar dancing, and the amount of money available to make via tips. There, Violet thrives. And after finding her footing atop one of the most infamous bars in the city, she ends up being seen by her boyfriend and her father, who take turns shaming her for a job that's helped her pay rent and — perhaps even more controversially — find her self-confidence.

The message Violet is dealt by those who care about her is clear: she should be ashamed to work at Coyote Ugly, and she should be even more ashamed to have "abandoned" her dreams. (This is despite the fact that the music industry is arguably a far worse go than anything we witness at Coyote.) And she, a grown woman, accepts this. By the end of the movie she performs her own music at the bar, but moves on to serving at a different establishment while working toward her big goal. She's "above" bars like Coyote Ugly, and "above" the public embrace of her own sexuality. Violet is "good." Coyote Ugly is bad.

As a teen, I obviously liked both. I desperately wanted to be a cheerleader (and I still want to be friends with Kirsten Dunst), and I even more desperately wanted to be cool, edgy, and beautiful enough to get a job tending bar in a place where you could spray a patron with water if they ordered it. After all, Coyote Ugly was a movie about grown-ups; it was the story of a young blond woman who finds a piece of herself through music and dance and public acclaim. The film's villain was largely sneaky and shape-shifting: it was the allure of earning attention by using one's body, and about being good at "being bad." It was the promise of money as a result of laughing, dancing, and hanging out with your friends, and it was the trade-off for disappointing your father and boyfriend, who clearly had never had to flip, harness, and use the male gaze. It was a dangerous game between maintaining your virtue and losing yourself to the dark side.

But Bring It On's message was more overt. It was a call for accountability; for acknowledging (and refusing to perpetuate) the damage that comes with hijacking culture. But because it was wrapped up in the teen genre — framed as a film about cheers and steps and claps and rhymes — its message was overlooked by audiences who'd tuned in simply to watch teen stars cheer. Plus, its marketing didn't exactly help — commercials for Bring It On were silly and goofy, and most of the reviews around the film failed to acknowledge the real villain: appropriation by white people, whose privilege eclipses so much that only an outsider (a new team member, played by Eliza Dushko) is able to draw attention to their shame.

The thing is, both movies — stories about lovely young blond white women — are built atop themes of shame. But ironically, it's Bring It On (seen as a shallow teen movie) that uses that shame properly. Torrence and the Toros deserve to be called out. They deserve to repent. Violet doesn't deserve the shame she's dealt by her dad and her boyfriend. She doesn't deserve to be treated poorly or left on the street after a fight or made to feel cheap and bad about herself for her job. But in Coyote Ugly's grown-up world, that's the price of finding oneself through dance. In Bring It On's, however, you find yourself after you accept your mistakes, own up to them, and then vow to do better. You use that movement and that music to become even more creative and to deserve the right to compete alongside a team like the Clovers.

Which, actually, is what adulthood should be: trying to do right by real wrongs, not lamenting over how sinful you are because you've publicly danced to the Charlie Daniels band.