- "Bring It On" director Peyton Reed talks about the scene that almost got the movie an R-rating.
- The famous finger "slip" scene was supposed to end with male cheerleader Jan smelling his finger.
- That part was taken out so the movie would keep its PG-13 rating.
- "Bring It On" screenwriter Jessica Bendinger learned about a finger slip from both male and female cheerleaders during her research.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
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When "Bring It On" opened in 2000, the teen comedy about the world of high school cheerleading showed it wasn't shy to delve into topics like sexuality and race. It also didn't have a problem being risque, either.
Though the movie was rated PG-13, it still very much leaned into the high school raunchiness that was showcased in the genre at the time thanks to the huge success of 1999's "American Pie."
Everything from a bikini car wash scene to one female student giving a striptease performance while auditioning for the team is on full display. But one of the movie's most memorable dirty scenes almost got "Bring It On" an R-rating.
When Torrance (Kirsten Dunst) and her Rancho Carne Toros squad cheer at a football game during the movie, Jan (Nathan West), one of the male cheerleaders, finger "slips" while holding up Courtney (Clare Kramer). The scene ends with Courtney playfully slapping Jan on the arm and running off. The movie's executive producer Max Wong told MTV in 2015 that originally the scene then had Jan smell his finger, but cut that out so the movie didn't get an R-rating.
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"Bring It On" director Peyton Reed told Insider in an interview for the movie's 20th anniversary that that story "has gotten blown out of proportion over the years," but did admit the scene had to be trimmed by a few frames to keep that part out.
"This was definitely in the era, post-'American Pie,' where teen comedies were trying to push PG-13," Reed said.
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The director also pointed out that the sequence is accurate to what can go on amongst cheerleaders. Reed said screenwriter Jessica Bendinger learned about the finger slip move while doing her research.
"Jessica through her research solicited all these insane stories, and that was an actual story that she had heard from more than one male and female cheerleader," Reed said. "So we wanted to do it in a way that acknowledged all the inherent weirdness and specificity of the cheer world."
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The sequence certainly wasn't one that the studio that released the movie, Universal, shied away from. The finger slip was included in the movie's trailer.
"I think the thing in the marketing was to represent the movie accurately in terms of the fact that it was not a Disney Channel cheerleading-competition movie," Reed said.
It certainly was not.
More from "Bring It On" 20th anniversary:
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Read our entire 20th anniversary "Bring It On" interview with Peyton Reed.
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