Fired Up

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details of classification and consumer advice lines for Fired Up
• a review of Fired Up completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 23 April 2012.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie’s message

A synopsis of the story

High-school buddies Shawn (Nicholas D’Agosto) and Nick (Eric Christian Olson) decide that rather attending the annual summer football camp, they will join the school’s cheerleaders team the “Tigers”. They enlist the aid of Shawn’s sister Poppy (Juliette Goglia) to teach them some basic cheerleading moves and, after a staged display of their newly acquired skills, make it on to the team. However, the head cheerleader Carly (Sarah Roemer) mistrusts the pair, rightly believing them to be there for only one reason: scoring girls.
At cheerleaders camp, Shawn and Nick have no trouble winning the affections of the cheerleaders and make many conquests. While Nick lusts after the camp coach’s wife Diora (Molly Sims), Shawn finds himself becoming seriously attracted to Carly, who after some initial hesitation begins to respond to Shawn.

Unfortunately for Shawn, Carly’s boyfriend, a pre-med student, who calls himself Dr. Rick (David Walton) arrives on the scene, making it clear that he wants Shawn to stay away from Carly. Dr. Rick steals Nick’s diary which details Shawn and Nick’s plans to abandon cheerleader camp once they have had their fill of cheerleaders and uses the diary to expose them. Carly, who is furious with Shawn for betraying her and the team, orders both Shawn and Nick to leave immediately.
Shawn and Nick then have to work hard to get back into the squad.

High school football; cheerleaders; teenage sexual behaviour.

Fired Up contains some slapstick violence and accidental harm. Examples include:

• A football coach yells at Shawn and Nick in a hostile and threatening manner; using a number of obscenities.
• At a beach party a teenage boy falls into a camp fire and his sleeve catches on fire. A second boy tackles the boy to the ground and puts out his burning sleeve. Both boys appear uninjured. 
• A cheerleader is thrown high into the air and falls heavily onto the ground. She is uninjured.
• Nick, in jest, hits Shawn over the head several times with a heavy book.
• A cheerleader says that she wants to “cut” a cheerleader from a rival team.
• A group of teenage boys throw raw hamburger meat at each other during a fight.
• After performing a dangerous manoeuvre called “The Fountain of Troy”, Shawn flips several times and crashes into a pool of shallow water where he floats as if unconscious. He then recovers and stands up, speaking briefly before falling over in the water again. Later Shawn appears to be uninjured by the incident.
• Rick attempts to punch Shawn in the face, but misses and punches Nick in the face, knocking him to the ground. In retaliation, Shawn knocks Rick to the ground by punching him in the face and one of the cheerleaders then kicks Rick in the head. Rick appears to be unconscious.
• A cheerleader punches another cheerleader in the face, knocking her to the ground.

Material that may scare or disturb children

• Nothing further noted.

• Nothing further noted.

• Nothing further noted.

Product placement

Fired Up parodies product placement in sports but some real products are also displayed, including:

• Burger King
• BMW.

Sexual references

Fired Up contains continuous sexual innuendo, double entendres and crude sexual references. Examples include:

• In reference to being sexually stimulated, we hear a teenage girl say to a boy “I think I’m ready to go off”.
• In reference to going to cheerleader camp, Nick and Shawn make the comments: “three hundred girls who want it”; “three hundred hotties we’re never been with before” and “three hundred honeys on our biscuit”.
• A teenage boy asks another if he is “coming on” to him. He responds that he is “too straight to be gay” providing several examples to prove this.
• A girl tells a boy. “you love every bone in my body, especially yours”
• In reference to a girl’s breasts, we hear a boy say, “Man she’s got nice lumps”
• In reference to contracting STDs, a boy makes a remark about taking another ride to the clinic. 
• Shawn and Nick make a reference to “leaving no girl unturned”.
• A reference is made to the President of the United States as having visited “Titty Bars”.     
• In one scene, Nick approaches Diora and asks her “What are you doing later?” To which Diora responds, “Not you”.
• In reference to the abilities of a cheerleading squad, a teenage boy says to a second teenage boy “They suck”, the second boy responds with “So did she”
• Carla refers to Shawn and Nick as “Heartless boob grabbers”.
• Dr. Rick insinuates that Carla will perform oral sex on him at a restaurant.
• A girl is referred to as, “the dirty blond you were making time with”.
• In reference to having sex with cheerleaders at cheerleading camp, we hear a boy make the comment “…like banging fish in a barrel”.
• A teenage boy says that he likes to be bitten on the “donk be donk”.
• the expression, “My horse is peeing whipped cream”.    
• Shawn’s little sister Poppy asks him if he is in love and then tells him to “stay safe”
• In reference to recognising being gay, a boy says to another, “Closet doors are made out of all sorts of wood.
• The end credits feature bloopers containing partially bleeped out coarse language and crude sexual references. 

Nudity and sexual activity

While Nick and Shawn appear obsessed with engaging in as many sexual escapades as possible, their engagement in sexual acts is implied rather than depicted. The film contains some nudity and brief clothing. Examples include:

• Nick and a girl kiss while on a sofa, after which the girl leads Nick out of the room. Shawn is kissing a second girl on a sofa and the girl removes her top to reveal a camisole underneath. Before the two couples get any further, the fathers of the two girls arrive home unexpectedly and stop the activity.
• Shawn and Nick watch a group of teenage girls performing a cheerleading routine. From where the two boys are standing it appears as if one girl is performing oral sex on a second girl. A second pose depicts one girl with her face nearly resting on the clothed breast of a second girl.
• While travelling on a bus, Carly stumbles and lands on Shawn’s lap with Shawn calling Carly “handsy”. A few seconds later the same thing happens, but this time Carly’s fingers manage to land in Shawn’s mouth.
• At cheerleader camp we see dozens of teenage girls, dressed in tight fitting and brief sportswear.
• A middle aged male coach slaps a teenage boy on his clothed buttocks.
• At the camp Nick and Shawn are seen kissing several different girls and performing stretching exercises with a number of girls in an intimate manner
• several images of two girls kissing each other on the lips                 
• Shawn, Nick and several others go to a lake for a swim. The girls remove their clothing leaving on underwear, with Nick and Shawn doing the same. The third boy removes all of his clothing and stands naked.  We see a rear view of him rotating his hips while the girls, Shawn and Nick look on.
• A girl swims towards Nick, removes her bra underwater, then pulls off Nick’s boxer shorts underwater and kisses him on the lips. Two girls swim towards Shawn and remove his boxer shorts underwater.
• Nick and Shawn’s clothes are stolen, forcing the boys to walk back to their room naked. They run through campus grounds naked, covering their genitals with their hands. They are stopped by a male coach, who asks the boys to perform a cheerleading routine. Shawn and Nick perform the routine naked, using large pom-poms to cover their genitals.
• After Carly kisses her boyfriend Dr. Rick on the lips, we see Dr. Rick wiping his lips with his fingers and then lick them.
• A teenage boy urinates against a tree (seen from behind).
• We see Nick playing with another boy’s string of beads putting them in his mouth. Shawn tells Nick that the beads are the other boy’s sex aids and that the boy is gay.
• Scenes of a girl making sexual advances to another girl
• In the final competition, we see a cheerleading pose that places teenage girls with their crotches in Shawn and Nick’s faces.
• At the start of the film’s end credits Diora approaches Nick and tells him to “lose the clothes”. Diora in her bra and a short skirt lies on top of Nick, who is wearing only his underwear, they kiss and we hear Diora moaning. We hear Diora say “O my god it’s my husband’ and she gets up and runs away. Upon discovering Nick in his underwear, Diora’s husband appears to make sexual advances towards him   

Use of substances

Fired Up contains implied substance use (alcohol), brief references to drug use, and behaviour that infers intoxication:

• At a beach party we see numerous teenagers, mainly male, holding drinks, and while no alcohol was visible, the inference is that the cups contain alcohol.
• One of the cheerleaders indicates that she would be willing to take steroids to improve her performance but no one takes her seriously.
• A male cheerleader who has just arrived at camp tells Nick and Shawn that he has bought beer with him.
• reference to the President of the United States snorting cocaine in titty bars.
• reference to the French allowing eight-year-old children drink wine
• Dr. Rick and two of his friends sing along with a drinking song being played on the car stereo.
• At football camp we see a number of teenage boy partying in a somewhat out of control manner, stumbling around, falling over and passing out. In the morning following the party we see them lying in what appears to be a drunken unconscious state in a living room.  
• During the end credits we hear bloopers where Nick says “I can smoke… and still be straight”  

Coarse language

Fired Up contains frequent coarse language and putdowns. Examples include:

• “Shit yourselves; wack-arse cheerleaders; kick the shit out of you; shit dick; hotter than your shit-hole; sweating our balls off; mongoloid; screw football; coach is going to screw us; sweet Mary in a D cup; FU; you don’t  poop where you eat; drove your fat arse; suck buckets; big arse titties; cocky arseholes; get cocky bitches; pissed about me; next time you screw up; you still suck arse.
• During the end credits we hear bloopers with the F word used but trailing off so that it is not distinguishable.              

In a nutshell

Fired Up is a high school sex comedy that targets a teenage audience and is likely to appeal to older adolescents, although the lead actors look older than the teenagers they are playing.

The main messages from this movie are that:

• you’ve got to take risks in life if you want to achieve and improve.
• improving your own performance is more important than coming first.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• perseverance and determination
• empathy and respect
• being prepared to make sacrifices for friends.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with older children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as the promiscuous behaviour of the film’s lead characters and their attitude to women.