Gabrielle Union Regrets “Muzzling” Isis In ‘Bring It On’

While promoting her second memoir, You Got Anything Stronger? on Good Morning America, Gabrielle Union touched on her personal and professional experiences. One of the things she revealed to the audience was her regret for holding back in the portrayal of Isis, Clovers’ cheerleading queen in Bring It On.

Union said she thinks she failed her character by making her the “appropriate” and the correct “kind of Black girl” instead of allowing her the freedom to express her emotions unapologetically.

“I was given full range to do whatever I wanted with Isis in Bring It On,” the 48-year old shared during the conversation, “and I chose respectability and to be classy and take the high road.” And she continued, “Black girls aren’t allowed to be angry, certainly not demonstratively angry, and I muzzled her.”

In the popular teen classic, Union played the captain of a Black high school cheer squad, a rival to the Toros, a team from an overwhelmingly white school, led by Torrance Shipman (Kirsten Dunst). And despite the fact that both teams got along at the end, Union said, according to a series of memes she saw, Isis was still the villain in the story.

When asked what she would do differently, the actress responded, “Oh, read the Toros for filth. I would have allowed [Isis] her full humanity, and part of being a full human is the ability to express rage when harmed. When you don’t really allow yourself your full range of emotion, and you muzzle your own emotions, it allows people to think, ‘Maybe what I did wasn’t that bad.’ I would have given her all the anger.” And she followed by relating herself to Isis, “I realized I was doing that to myself too. I wasn’t allowing myself the full range of my humanity.”

Union’s new book You Got Anything Stronger? is now available for purchase. Watch her full interview on Good Morning America below.