By Deirdre Cunniffe
Editors: Amy Li and Alloe Mak

I saw Bottoms (dir. Emma Seligman) for the second time in October, in a tiny theater in Galway City. Despite already having seen it before, I still giggled at all of the jokes. Afterward, over drinks with the friends I saw it with, we discussed the movie. By that, I mean that 8 queers sat around a table in a bar and talked about who the most attractive person in the film was (I was personally partial to Ayo Edebiri, especially after watching her in “The Bear” as well. Incredible character range, spectacular portrayals, and that she’s so goddamn hot I want her to hit me with her car).

Described as a “satirical sex comedy,” Bottoms combines the classic coming of age tropes of John Hughes with the dramatics of cult classics like Mean Girls and Clueless with a cast that plays up the campiness of the script. The movie follows two lesbian best friends Josie (played by Edebiri) and PJ (played by Rachel Sennot, who also co-wrote the movie) on their mission to finally get some pussy. They decide the best way to get some cooch is to start a “self-defense club” for the girls at their school. Some highlights include Jeff (the star quarterback) cheating on Isabel (his hot cheerleader girlfriend) by sleeping with Hazel’s mother (a recently divorced PTA M.I.L.F), a car bomb, and a slo-mo fight scene in which Josie fireman-carries Jeff off of the football field. Several people die in this movie. There is a sword, a cage, and sprinklers full of pineapple juice. It explores those classic aspects of teenage love and uses its absurdity to comment on how, when you are young, everything feels immensely intense to the highest degree. All in all, the whole movie feels like a fever dream.

A friend of mine mentioned that she thought that “the third act was underdeveloped,” the first five words of what was to be a more complex thought interrupted by a collective groan that drowned out the rest of it.

This isn’t an impartial analysis of whether Bottoms was good. I am not a film critic, I wouldn’t even consider myself a film buff. My only credentials are that I’m a product of the American public school system, an 18-year-old queer kid, and a young woman raised by media that never represented herself as happy. I, as a person, fucking loved this movie. I nearly peed my pants laughing several times, mostly because I am extremely susceptible to sex jokes. This isn’t an impartial analysis of Bottoms because it’s not about the movie. The plot of Bottoms seems like just a vehicle for sex jokes. That, however, is what makes it so important.

Bottoms is important because straight people have an unlimited number of shitty, non-plot-driven, ridiculous movies. Queer people do not, and queer people deserve shitty movies. Often, queer representation centers around struggle. It’s either a tragic love story or a display of the trials and hardships of being queer. Even more lighthearted queer representation like Heartstopper has underlying currents of larger ideals—of the constant fight in a world turned against you. It’s exhausting to only see yourself represented in stories of tragedy, or stories that force a life lesson on the characters. These films are made clean-cut and neat in an attempt to make them appealing (or at least palatable) to everyone, often watering down the queer experience to be digestible, glamorized, and commodified. Though all types of queer representation are crucial, it’s difficult to only see the kind of person that straight people want to see featured on big screens. To be queer is to be different, to be “othered.” But to share in something joyful, something silly, something crude and purely for entertainment, is something we should be able to experience.

Bottoms is a stupid fucking movie; that’s what makes it beautiful. It is by no means reflective of real-life experiences, but at the same time, it is. It is fantastical and camp, but accurate in its depiction of platonic interactions and extreme horniness it is. It is feminine solidarity, not in the “girls standing up for other girls” way, but in the “let’s all go blow up my ex’s car” way. It’s queer solidarity in orchestrating a whole club in order to help your friend sleep with someone. It’s hitting the boyfriend of the girl you have a crush on with your car.

The importance of Bottoms is summarized in a quote from the movie itself: “They don’t hate us because we’re gay, they hate us because we’re ugly, and untalented.” In other words; they haven’t been ostracized from their peers for their queerness, they’ve been ostracized from their peers because they’re fucking losers. Sitting in a movie theater full of other queer people getting to laugh with each other, to finally see each other and ourselves in media without the weight of the world, is pure, unadulterated joy.

So, my friend was right; the third act was “underdeveloped.” That doesn’t matter, though. What does matter is the joy and laughter, the community and connection, the anger and sheer horniness of being young and queer. Bottoms matters because we’re finally in on the joke. It matters because we’re 18 and leaning against each other in the theater and giggling, and finally, we have something so bad, it’s revolutionary.