Coyote Ugly

Written by: Gina Wendkos Starring: Piper Perabo, Maria Bello, Tyra Banks, Bridget Moynahan, Izabella Miko, Adam Garcia, John Goodman

Apparently, there is--or was--a bar in New York much like the one depicted in “Coyote Ugly.” That is to say, a bar whose main attraction is sexy bartenders making a spectacle of themselves. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, but it must have penetrated the mind of even Jerry Bruckheimer (perhaps a kinder, gentler Jerry) that such a premise could carry you only so far in terms of narrative tension. So it behooved his writer, Ms. Wendkos, to fashion a tale of indomitable courage and undaunted talent, in the form of one Violet Sanford. Violet, it seems, is a small town (South Amboy, NJ) girl with a dream. It’s not a big dream, really, just a small one. She wants to be a songwriter. Mind you, she does not want to actually sing the songs herself (she is much too shy for that... except when she is dancing on a bar in front of a hundred drunken men--but more on that later). She wants to “sit in the dark” and hear her songs sung by someone else, someone good, presumably.

So she screws up her courage and, armed with only her cover-girl looks and plucky optimism, sets out to seek her fortune in the Big Apple. That is all you know, and all you need to know. You can probably write the rest of the script yourself. Once in New York, she struggles (briefly) to break into the biz, then winds up taking a job at the aforementioned bar in order to make ends meet. She meets a cute guy, and one thing leads to another, and so on and so forth. Does she get her big break? Do men like to look at Tyra Banks? They have done their darndest, the clever guys and gals who made this movie, to convince us that it’s not about sexy girls dancing on a bar, but rather about a young woman finding herself, overcoming her fears, and fighting for her dreams. I can’t say that they actually succeed, but they do manage to make the audience feel slightly less guilty about the hardbody ogling we are forced to endure. I suppose if there were such a thing as Disney porn, this would be it. There is no actual sex in the movie, and no nudity.

But the notion that portraying a group of gorgeous girls in slinky outfits pouring water on themselves to entertain men is not objectifying them is far harder to swallow than the notion of a small-town girl making good in the big city. Of course the movie is bad, at times embarrassingly so, with trite dialogue, mediocre acting, predictable plot developments, and the emotional depth of a cornflake. But it has some amusing moments, is blessedly short, and the dance scenes do have a “Flashdance” like energy to them (which is probably not a coincidence, given Bruckheimer’s involvement in that earlier picture). Piper Perabo, who has a million-dollar smile and reminds one of a young Julia Roberts, brings a certain awkward charm to the role of Violet. Adam Garcia (whose name makes his Australian accent suspect) underplays nicely as Violet’s love interest Kevin (plus, the young girls in the audience--and there were plenty--seemed to think he was to die for). The rest of the “coyotes” in the picture don’t really have to act so much as exist, and they do a smashing job of it. Make no mistake: there’s plenty of eye candy here if that’s what you’re after (Bruckheimer may be kinder and gentler, but he’s no idiot).

So, bearing all that in mind, does “Coyote Ugly” really provide an inspirational message to the young women of America? Does the fact that Violet makes it on the basis of her (putative) talent and grit compensate for the fact that the movie glorifies young women sexually manipulating men (uniformly drunken and boorish) to separate them from their money (while suggesting that this is really OK because--in the words of the ads--they’re “calling the shots”)? You can be the judge of that. (8/7/2000)