Like - Smooth Brain Masterpieces
This Sunday, I watched an all-time smooth brain masterpiece: Coyote Ugly. Now, for loyal readers of Things I Like And Don’t Like, a smooth brain masterpiece is different from an outrageously dumb masterpiece. The latter is ridiculous and filled with holes but builds a credible world and attempts to make sense, the former makes no sense inside and out—nor does it try to—but it is entertaining enough to hold it all together. Coyote Ugly does just that. It’s pretty much a Disney Channel movie pushed to PG-13’s conceivable limits. It’s about Violet Sanford from a small town in New Jersey who leaves all her friends and father to move to New York to make it in the big city as a songwriter.1 Except…. things don’t go as planned.
To start, she moves into the worst, most cockroach infested apartment she can find. Then the record labels don’t want her tape, her apartment gets broken into, and she gets impossible stage fright when she tries to sing her songs while trying to get discovered. The good news is that because she has no idea what she’s doing, she accidentally gets introduced to a handsome young Australian2 man named Kevin O'Donnell who is a grill cook at a restaurant (among several other jobs) and who is also a passionate comic book collector. If that feels like a weird detail for his character, well it is. Anyway, so when she’s broke and in desperate need of a job she hears three “Coyotes” flaunt big wads of cash and talk about how good they have it working at the titular Coyote Ugly. As she listens to them talk, she learns that one of the girls (Tyra Banks) is leaving her job at the bar to enroll in law school. Sensing her opportunity, she wanders over to the bar the next day and talks herself into a gig, although it doesn’t hurt that she looks like Julia Roberts. Once she starts, the usual antics ensue. She’s a fish out of water and has to prove her worth against all odds to her fellow intrepid group of coyotes.
These women do not play games. Coyote Ugly is not a real bar, even though it’s based on one; instead it’s a fever dream of what a bar is supposed to be. It’s always packed to the point of people violating the fire code, more people endlessly taking shots, and then getting into fights with no repercussions for the patrons or the owners so long as the jukebox keeps playing. It’s also, as we know, a cash cow and Violet needs money. She does whatever it takes, including auctioning off Kevin to the highest bidder. She has no trepidation about that because she’s got that fire in her eyes. There’s something inside of her that she must awaken to be successful, which is the ultimate goal of this movie: that to be successful you have to go for it no matter what is thrown your way. That’s right, wrapped inside the low rise jeans and spaghetti string straps is a conventional tale of girl boss feminism where you can do anything you want to if you work hard enough and believe in yourself enough because you’ll get your chance. For Violet, this comes during a particularly tough fight where she picks up a stray mic and sings karaoke-style, capturing the attention of everyone in the bar and becoming a sensation. After that night, she fully leans in to her work to become one of the girls in the process.
This proves to be the biggest challenge, however, because she 1) came to the city to be a star and 2) her dad Bill, played by John Goodman, finds out when a picture of her dancing on a bar gets taped up by his coworkers. Unsurprisingly, he’s not pleased with her choices. This, and some more life disruptions, including breaking up with her now boyfriend, prompts her to move back home, especially once her dad gets hit by a car. Luckily for her, and the movie, he still unconditionally loves her because he really just wants the best for her and most importantly doesn’t want to repeat the same mistake he made with her mom: not supporting her. So in a daring climax, they make a big drive from Jersey to the Bowery Ballroom where she’s supposed to perform after one A&R rep finally listens to and loves her tape. The way there includes two massive U-turns and a final bout of stage fright, which she is saved from by Kevin who magically appears to turn the lights off so she can sing like no one’s watching. Once she does, she rocks the crowd and lands the record deal of her dreams as a songwriter whose first song gets recorded by none other than LeAnn Rimes. Then before the movie ends, she gives Kevin a copy of this rare comic book that’s made several cameos at different points throughout the movie.
Fin.
Wow, what a movie. It’s got it all, even though it doesn’t all deserve to be there. It’s a completely silly and farfetched maximalist exercise in Americana. It’s one big party that you want to be at, even though in actuality the experience of being a sardine in a sweaty room with constant fights would not fun. As a viewer though, you get to appreciate the sass, moxie, and poise of the Coyotes and marvel at how much time they can spend dancing on a bar. But, and make no mistake here, there’s no substance to this movie. It’s pure unimaginative fantasy of how you can find success. Unlike say Showgirls (1995) or Magic Mike (2012), there is no critique of society, social structures, or moral strictures. There is no questioning of social hierarchies or the demands that are placed upon people to succeed. There is no interrogation of sexism and sexuality, and what women are forced to endure in a patriarchal society. In this movie, you just have to go out and show the world what you’re made of. That’s why the only villain in Coyote Ugly is giving up and not following your dreams, which maybe is only the villain if you’re a beautiful, talented, young, white woman who moves to New York to make it. This ultimately turns the movie into a pretty smooth brain affair, which is buoyed by the relentless optimism and earnestness of the year 2000, a year in which we’d survived Y2K and 9/11 hadn’t yet happened. The result is a movie that’s a time capsule of a society that now feels foreign.3
This was one of the most interesting parts of Coyote Ugly to me, that it takes place in New York. I had always imagined it was set in a road house in Texas.
Why he’s Australian is never explained, except that his life was awful down under and he too is in New York to create a new life for himself.
For a modern take on a similar theme, check out Support The Girls by Andrew Bujalski from 2018.