I have a relationship to COYOTE UGLY. I know it sounds strange. Certain movies just hurl themselves into your life like a bowling ball and make you fond of their blunt approach. I was 17 when I've watched COYOTE UGLY for the first time and I immediatly fell in love with Violet, Rachel and Zoe. I could not decide who I loved the most, not even with a gun against my head. That was probably the case for several 17 year olds. I've watched the movie four or five times in a little over a decade. Sometimes willingly, sometimes by walking into a situation where other people were watching it. Truth is, my opinion of COYOTE UGLY changed with every viewing. It's a movie that isn't what it pretends to be, yet that isn't what it wants to be. A movie that reflects the human condition so unwillingly is fascinating to me. But is it a good movie? That's another ball game...
Violet Sanford (Piper Perabo) is a small town Jersey girl with dreams of making it big in New York as a songwriter. She doesn't want to be famous, she just want to write songs for famous people because she has a wicked case of stage fright. Since she can't sell her own songs by singing them and can't get an record label to listen to her demo tapes, she gets a jobat Coyote Ugly, a bar where sexy, sassy waitresses make a living out of their patrons' fantasies. Violet breaks out of her shell under the tutelage of her boss Lill (Maria Bello), but the level of commitment the job asks out of her clashes with her personal life, especially her blossoming love story with Australian expatriate Kevin (Adam Garcia) who would love to see her achieve her dreams rather than make a living out of the lust of lonely men.
COYOTE UGLY is kind of a wolf in sheep's clothing. It's actually Josie who asked me to watch it last week. She didn't understand what was so special about this chick flick that made me want to watch it with her. Of course, I knew better. COYOTE UGLY is not a chick flick. It was marketed as such, but it really is a teenage male fantasy. See, my measuring stick for sexism goes as follows : If it would be silly for a man to do, it's sexist to have a woman do it. Would you image a movie where a young male songwriter has a life-affirming good time teasing lustful middle-aged women by dancing on a bar in provocative apparatus and serving shots? Insecure little Violet needing approval of the crowd for both her body and her mind strike me as a bit of a reductive portrait of what a woman should want. I mean, COYOTE UGLY is not responsible for the fate of womanhood, but its priorities are questionable.
That was a promo shot for the movie...who are we kidding here?
Female desires seen through the male deforming prism are a strange, strange thing. In COYOTE UGLY, it's disturbing at times. There is a scene where Violet literally fucks Kevin instead of facing her stage fright.What is so endearing about that movie, then? Well, it works as an erotic adolescent male fable, I guess? Piper Perabo has always been gifted and she plays the blossoming innocent girl with a subtlety few other actresses would have. COYOTE UGLY is a movie that confronts young men to what they believe they want. It does a poor job at taking a realistic stance, but it ages well for that reason. As one takes perspective over his desires, he realizes that hip swaying on a bar doesn't fill the existential gaps in a girl's heart or the throbbing in his own pants. It's just consuming a state of suspended reality, whether you're watching COYOTE UGLY on your television or are a client of the actual bar.
I had a good laugh at Josie's horrified faces during our viewing of COYOTE UGLY. If you're expecting a girl movie out of it, it's going to be a pretty bad experience. In that regard, watching COYOTE UGLY is perverse, like hiding into your sister's closet and playing your own fantasies in your mind while she's hanging out with her friends in her bedroom. There is nothing feminine in COYOTE UGLY, the movie or the bar. It's a product that banks on male lust. The movie is actually aiming at a younger clientele with its false sense of innocence, but don't be fooled. It's a story crafted for young men to fall in love with their own fantasies of what a women is. That's what makes it a fascinating viewing experience to me. Every young male dreams and believe himself entitled to a Violet Sanford, but she exists only in his own mind and on celluloid. COYOTE UGLY is an iteration of a rare phenomenon: the dick flick *.
* Dick flicks, unlike porn, feeds of a man's self-righteous fantasy of happiness alongside a submissive trophy wife that doesn't exist.