I Rewatched ‘Coyote Ugly’ As An Adult & I Have A Lot Of Loud Opinions

There is no denying that Coyote Ugly was one of the most iconic films of the noughties. A time in cinema where all you needed was a pretty girl from a small town with a good song and movie magic would be made.

Even before Britney Spears did it in Crossroads, we had Piper Perabo and ‘Can’t Fight The Moonlight’, which is still a banger and my fave karaoke song.

While I feel like I may have seen bits and pieces of Coyote Ugly over the years, I don’t think I’ve watched it in full since it first came out way back in… 2001. Coyote Ugly is older than the Cash Me Outside girl. Let that sink in.

I decided to give it a rewatch and hoeeee boy, it’s not how I remembered.

Here are some opinions I had while rewatching Coyote Ugly as an adult:

We open up at a pizza shop in New Jersey, and Violet (aka Piper) is leaving her friends and fam for the bright lights of New York City.

Some man makes her sign an autograph as he says that every girl that “leaves town” has to sign their autograph to attach to a wall. Some other man says the wall is cursed. Fun!

At her going away party, her friends make her sing ‘I Will Survive’ which seems to further hint they expect her to possibly be murdered. But oh well, anything to be A STAR. She whispers “goodbye forever” to John Goodman.

When she arrives in New York, her strategy to get her songs out there is just walking into a recording studio and handing over her tape to random admin staff. It doesn’t go well.

She meets Adam Garcia at a bar (his name is Kevin in the movie) and oh my, he was a babe.

He really was the Noah Centineo of 2001.

His character is a bit of a dick tho. He pretends he’s the music manager of a bar and all his friends watch on laughing. Identity fraud. Such fun.

Then he follows her home. This was romantic in 2001? Use the pepper spray, hon.

Anyways, Violet decides to stop giving tapes to random people on the street and get a real job. She’s sitting at a cafe and notices a bunch of hot women literally showing off all their money to each other.

Tyra Banks is there! Tyra dances. I’m not sure why.

It’s her longest scene in the whole film. Then in an incredibly badly aged exchange, Violet asks the cafe owner “Are they hookers?”. Ughh, let’s leave that in 2001.

She is told the women are in fact “coyotes.” I guess she assumes that’s a job description and not some kind of animorph situation, which would be a much more interesting movie.

Keen on all money the ladies are showing off, Violet decides to go to Coyote Ugly to look for a job. The owner says this incredibly gross thing:

“The average male is walking around with a toddler inside his pants. You look like a kindergarten teacher, the kids will love it.”

BRB, I must go take a quick shower to recover.

OK. At the bar, Tyra Banks screams into a man’s face. We meet two other bartenders, the Mean Coyote and the Flirty Coyote. They dance on the bar but Violet refuses.

She gets asked to leave but then breaks up a fight by giving money to two violent men. Boss Coyote is impressed.

The coyotes waste soo much alcohol pouring it all over the place. Have some RESPECT.

I really don’t get why everyone seems to enjoy having alcohol sprayed into their eyeballs.

When men grab at the bartenders’ legs, they throw a bucket of ice over them which sounds like a good solution to a lot of problems in my life.

Kevin shows up and to get him back for his identity fraud from earlier, Violet auctions him off like a house to any willing bidders. He dances on the bar to INXS’ ‘Need You Tonight’ and horny women go nuts.

I remember this being very sexual as a teen and tbh, it is still hot as hell.

After the blonde horny woman enjoys her winnings, Kevin and Violet go to a Turkish restaurant and Piper thinks this is where he deals drugs. Luckily he only deals comic books, ‘cos that makes even less sense.

Then my fave romantic moment ever happens. As Violet tells Kevin “you smell really bad” he replies:

I still love it so much. Give me dumb and funny over soppy any day.

Back at the bar, the shit is hitting the fan. The cops arrive amid the bar crowd descending into chaos, and one of the bartenders is literally carried away by a group of men.

It looks like the whole venue is about to be shut down UNTIL Violet lip syncs for her life, standing on the bar and singing along to ‘One Way Or Another’. This is so noteworthy she is photographed.

To celebrate her errr…performance, Kevin brings her to a place where he’s set up paper cutouts all around. Some of these are a real throwback.

That’s Dharma! Where’s Greg?

Piper finally sings in front of Kevin but only in the dark. She thinks she’s inherited stage fright from her mother which is definitely not a thing that makes sense.

At Coyote Ugly, Tyra Banks is back. She and the other coyotes decide to stand on the bar and soak themselves in water.

I guess it’s sexy but I’m worried someone’s getting an ear infection.

For some reason, Violet’s dad shows up amid the bar shower sesh and doesn’t seem impressed.

Kevin lines Violet up with a proper singing gig but Boss Coyote convinces her to stay and lip sync already existing songs rather than sing her own original songs. It makes a lot of sense.

Then Kevin stops a man from assaulting Violet and gets kicked out. Her boss scolds her because Kevin defended his girlfriend from the sexual predator.

This movie is incredibly backwards and has inspired me to have a stiff drink.

To make matters even more confusing, Violet’s dad tells her that her mum was actually great on stage and never had stage fright, so none of this movie makes any sense. Cool.

Finally without promoting her music for most of the film, Violet somehow gets invited to do a ‘Songwriters Showcase’. On the way there she almost causes two car accidents, possibly killing dozens.

She goes to perform, can’t, so they turn the lights off. She then sings in the dark. Okay.

More importantly she sings: The Good Song.

This is what we came for.

The film ends with entire bar chanting ‘Jersey! Jersey!’ That’s not even her name. Lol.

What a time.