Ugly, Untalented Gays.
Bottoms will punch you in the face, and you'll like it.
Welcome to this week’s edition of Stacks & Spoons, a weekly substack for bookish girls, gays and theys, written by author Jen Wilde. If you enjoy it, you can subscribe here.
Bottoms is like if Heathers f*cked Superbad and had a queer, feral baby.
It doesn’t care about positive representation. It’s not here to preach an aspirational message about being queer, it just wants to make us laugh and gasp and feel seen. It’s not for the girlbosses, it’s for the girlfailures.
It’s not about catering to straights, either. It doesn’t care if the heteros don’t understand the title or the jokes or think it’s too gay, because it’s literally not for them. It was made for us by people like us. Not to get all dramatic, but this feels like a turning point in LGBTQ+ cinema. And as a queer writer, I’m salivating to see the gay chaos this sparks in myself and other queer creators.
Every time someone like Emma Seligman (and her cinematic universe) comes along and pushes boundaries like this, it makes room for the rest of us to push too.
The two main characters, PJ (Rachel Sennott, who also co-wrote the film) and Josie (Ayo Adebiri) are snarky BFFs and loser lesbians with fantasies of hooking up with cheerleaders. They start an after-school fight club under the guise of self-defense and sisterhood, hoping to attract the attention of their crushes. Soon they find themselves entrenched in a chaotic revenge plot with their merry band of fellow dirtbags and outcasts, and it all just gets more absurd (and violent!) from there.
PJ and Josie are self-proclaimed ‘ugly, untalented gays.’ They are ruled by hormones and bonded by their own loserdom and hatred for the ruling class: the football team and its God-like leader, Jeff. With the help of sweet, slightly unhinged Hazel, they see the lack of solidarity and protection for girls at their school and use it to their advantage.
They are selfish, shitty sapphics, and I am obsessed with them.
There is so much pressure for queer characters, and even real-life queer humans, to be representative of the whole community. To be objectively good and unproblematic and likeable. To be gorgeous, talented gays. It’s a consequence of having fewer choices, I know. Cishet, white, nondisabled people have millions of stories about them to turn to, millions of chances to be every type of person. We don’t have that yet, so every story about us gets scrutinized.
Is it fair? Hell no. That’s why seeing a movie like Bottoms make such a splash is so thrilling.
The film is rated 95% with a 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, has expanded from 700 theatres to 1200+, has brought in $4.3 million so far, and is the best-reviewed comedy of the year.
Finally, shitty, loser lesbians are getting love too. I hope we get more stories about girlfailures who don’t have high aspirations, just huge crushes and bad grades. That was me when I was a teen. I could’ve used a movie like this to tell me it was normal to be a horny, hormonal, unhinged teenage girl who sometimes wanted to punch things. As much as I LOVE high school movies, it’s so liberating to finally see one about feral gay girls that doesn’t end with a makeover scene.
I hope studios are being punched in the face by the success of Bottoms. And publishers, too. All the gatekeepers and decision-makers who don’t think sapphic stories are worth telling or profitable (looking at you, Amazon). Bottoms is a queer, horny, absurd horror comedy about lesbians who start a fight club to have sex with cheerleaders, and it’s exploding like one of Hazel’s homemade bombs.
We need more lesbians beating the hell out of jocks. We need more shitty sapphics and crappy queers.
Bottoms proves there’s a demand for it, I know plenty of queer creators who can make those stories happen (me included!), so it would be great if studios, publishers, and platforms finally decided to back us up.
(All the more reason for AMTPT to stop dicking around and end the strike, huh?)
Listen, I’m not done talking about this movie but I don’t want to give too many spoilers. I’ve been devouring every interview and podcast with Emma Seligman, and I’m convinced she’s the Gen Z Judd Apatow. I could write a whole essay about Seligman, Sennott and Edebiri’s refusals to label their sexualities and how cool that is, and maybe I will.
Just go see it if you can. Grab a mask and a friend, and get ready for a wild, bloody ride. Then come back here so we can talk about it!
ICYMI…
Previously, on Stacks & Spoons:
August Round Up: Karma Is A Queen
Ignore Us At Your Peril: Sapphic Stories Won’t Be Erased
Loved The RWRB Movie? Add These Queer Books To Your TBR!
Barbie, Taylor, Beyoncé, and the Era of Joy
And now, for the Harry of the Week!
