Stick It (2006)

Jessica Bendinger's Stick It is a 2006 teen comedy-drama about Haley Graham, a former gymnastics prodigy sentenced to an elite academy after a construction-site bike race. The film has a female lead, a female director, and a gym full of young women whose frustrations with scoring, coaching, and parental pressure drive the plot. Several non-white gymnasts appear in supporting roles, though the film never frames their presence as a statement. That diversity is simply part of the ensemble, not a thesis.

The film's strongest progressive current is feminist: it treats arbitrary judging and dress-code policing as legitimate objects of rage. The bra-strap protest is the clearest example, a small rebellion over bodily autonomy that lands with more force than the script's speeches. Female solidarity builds across the final act. Beyond that, the film is quiet. There is no LGBTQ material, no climate concern, no economic critique, no neurodivergent arc, and no historical revision. Race exists on screen without racial consciousness. The villains are judges and rules, not capitalism.

When Stick It finally argues, it argues loudly. The third act turns into a coordinated protest, complete with speeches about unfair scoring and a gymnast insurrection that forces the judges to bend. The message is on-the-nose, but it is aimed at a broken sport, not a broken society. The film wants us to cheer for the athletes, and we do. It is a modest, era-bound artifact: a teen comedy with a rebellious pulse and a limited political imagination.