Bring It On (2000) is an American coming-of-age sports comedy focused on the competition between two high school cheerleading troupes in California — the Toros, led by new captain, Torrance (Kirsten Dunst), and the East Compton Clovers, led by Isis (Gabrielle Union). Normally, the Toros win national competitions, but when Torrance discovers that their former captain filmed and stole all of their previous cheers from the Clovers (oh, hi cultural appropriation allegory), it is time to implement a new playbook.
This entry will focus on the supporting character of Les (Huntley Ridder), one of the few male cheerleaders on the Toros team. He is an amiable, capable cheerleader and occasionally funny when the script gives him enough time to voice his opinions. We do get to see him have a cute flirtation scene when the Toros make it to the finals, noting that his orientation is “controversial”. One would easily read this as him saying in a coded way that he is gay — and this is still possible since we do not witness Les displaying any attraction towards women or any other genders. However, the choice of “controversial” lets us give him a pass as queer and joking in a way to pass without raising too many flags.
That is not to say that his addition is not without merit, but it requires more social context than a passing glance or a first viewing. It is crucial to remember that this movie came not even two years after the tragic death of Matthew Shepard, a pivotal moment in LGBT history, and just at the time when Will & Grace (1998) was beginning to introduce broadly written gay characters to mainstream media — though full cultural acceptance of the LGBT community was still far from realized.
That said, while Huntley Ridder does not seem to have gone on the record about Les’s queerness, Clare Kramer, who played cheerleader Courtney in the film, in recent interviews has asserted that the homophobic slur-slinging character was, in fact, a closeted bi woman. From an interview with ESPN about the sports cult classic:
Courtney was bisexual […] I could easily see her and Missy getting together. Why not?
To wrap things up, while both Les and Courtney are rather tangential characters and do seem to bring us some much-needed bi representation for the era, it is razor-thin at best and more like a Drive-Bi mention than actually meaty representation.