25 fun facts you didn’t know about your favorite teen movies

Sugar & Spice – Cheerleading drama and Hollywood racism 

From one cheerleading movie to the next! Sugar & Spice may not be as well known as Bring It On, but it definitely found its spot as a cult classic dark teen comedy.

The movie is about a tight-knit group of high school cheerleaders who come up with a plan to rob a bank after team captain Diane finds herself pregnant and kicked out of her parent’s house. The girls get in over their heads, but a deal is a deal, so armed with guns and rubber doll masks, they use their acrobatic cheerleading moves to rob a bank.

Like Bring It On, there was a bit of confusion over what is and isn’t legal within high school cheerleading routines. In this case, a character mistakenly calls one of the squad’s dismounts illegal, which helps her realize who is committing the crime.

But in reality, it’s not illegal. A cradle with two catchers from shoulder height does not require separate head and shoulders spotters. Stunts that involve arms extended up over their heads require an extra spotter. For us non-cheerleaders, that just means to say, they didn’t do anything wrong… except rob a bank.

The movie was also guilty of something a little more serious: racism. Gabrielle Union, who played the Clovers captain in Bring It On, originally went for a role in Sugar & Spice. Obviously, she didn’t get that role, and she later revealed that the reason for that was because the studio didn’t plan to “go black” for any of the characters.

In the end, it worked out in Union’s favor. She got the role of Isis, and Bring It On went on to become a teen classic.