When I first saw the trailer for Emma Seligman’s “Bottoms” (2023), I had two main worries. First, I was worried that this queer-centered teen comedy would be solely focused on queerness. Too often in media, a queer person’s identity is so focused on their sexuality that you don’t know much about the character.
My second fear was that the film, which focuses on two lesbian best friends — masterfully played by rising stars Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott — who start a fight club at their high school in order to spend time with their crushes, would miss this opportunity to make a freshly comedic film in favor of recycling tired teen comedy tropes. The trailer’s introduction of the fight club aspect had me afraid that I was going to be watching the queer version of “American Pie” (1999) or “Revenge of the Nerds” (1984), and I very much did not want to witness that.
However, I realized that I had nothing to worry about.
“Bottoms” is not only a hilarious queer-focused film with witty and timely dialogue and countless colorful and eccentric characters, but it also deliberately satirizes and reinvents these teen comedy tropes in order to poke fun at the countless teen comedies that have come before it.
The plot of the movie is ludicrous. No high school would allow a fight club, let alone a poorly supervised club where countless girls punch each other until they’re bleeding. In order to enjoy this film, you need to abandon your sense of reality at the movie theater, because the film purposefully strays from as far from the reality of a typical high school experience as possible.
‘Bottoms’ magnifies traditional teen movie tropes to such an obnoxious degree that there is no mistaking that the exaggeration of these tropes is a deliberate choice.
From the strangely unprofessional relationships between teachers and students to the intense hierarchical structure where poorly dressed nerds are at the bottom while beautiful cheerleaders and football players are at the top, “Bottoms” magnifies traditional teen movie tropes to such an obnoxious degree that there is no mistaking that the exaggeration of these tropes is a deliberate choice.
My favorite way that Seligman satirizes teen movies is through her hilarious depiction of the high school’s football team. Similar to how football players are often put on a pedestal in numerous classic teen films, such as “Mean Girls” (2004) and “Bring It On” (2000), the football players in “Bottoms” are deified by the student body, the faculty and even by the school’s administration.
If the school’s football team is deified, then the team’s quarterback Jeff — hilariously played by Nicholas Galitzine — is the Messiah, worshiped by everyone. Jeff spends the whole film acting as a caricature of the stereotypically hyper-masculine and toxic football star. Highlights include Jeff whining for his cheerleader girlfriend to stop being mad at him, and his football teammates escorting him around campus like they are the servants to his king.
The principal calls Jeff “the most good-looking, All-American, red-blooded, muscular man this town has ever seen.” Meanwhile, two very normal-looking queer girls are referred to by the same principal over the intercom as “the ugly, untalented gays.”
Most teachers aren’t as egregiously unprofessional and profane as Mr. G — played by the talented Marshawn Lynch —, who supervises the fight club, and most students do not lie about going to juvie in order to impress their crushes, as the two main characters do.
“Bottoms” pokes fun at how teachers and principals are always portrayed as unprofessional and either overly friendly or mean with students, and how the football team is always both wildly popular and notoriously the worst bullies. These tropes that we’re fed as teenagers are at times frustrating, since we want a film we can relate to. “Bottoms” recognizes this frustration, and turns these tropes into an outrageous comedy that will have you laughing along with the many jabs thrown at Hollywood’s depiction of high school.
So if you’re like me and were originally afraid that “Bottoms” was just a queer version of “American Pie,” I promise you that it’s not. It is an enjoyable, action-packed and hilarious watch that gives stereotypical teen flicks like “American Pie” a run for their money.