Emma Seligman’s Bottoms (2023) is the queer high school sex comedy we all wish we could’ve seen in high school. It’s about two lesbians, PJ and Josie, who decided to start a fight club at their high school to seduce their long-time cheerleader crushes. I’m a rabid consumer of queer/lesbian media, so I feel equipped to recommend this movie highly. Ever since I watched it in theaters a few weeks ago, I’ve had too much to say about it and have been talking my roommates’ ears off about what exactly makes this a perfect film. On the heels of its official digital release, I thought I’d share exactly why I can’t get it off my mind. 

What I love most about this movie is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. In a lot of queer media, the characters are either undergoing trauma or are portrayed as innocent, pure, and sexless. Usually, the main dramatic plot revolves around the queer character figuring out their sexuality and coming to terms with it. Bottoms resists every single one of those tropes. Not only are 90% of the characters in the film queer, they are also all sure of their sexuality from the moment we’re introduced to them. The plot is not about struggling with sexuality; it's about living in it truthfully. Its campy and hilarious tone is refreshing for a truthful queer story. 

I also adore the parody of the straight characters in the film, particularly the satirization of the football players and cheerleaders. In a typical rom-com-style movie, these characters would be the plot’s focus. In Bottoms, they’re the comedic relief. The football players are absurdly subservient to the quarterback. The players are never shown actually playing football, instead they gallop around the field, flamboyantly, and grunt at each other. The cheerleaders never have a choreographed routine; they just stand and flail their bodies around and then dump water over themselves. Seligman and her co-writer Rachel Sennott (who plays PJ in the movie, as well) have figured out a way to comment on straight stereotypes, as well as queer ones.

This movie is absurd and urges you to buy into the world Seligman and Sennott have built. It encapsulates the campy tone of an early 2000s rom-com while also drawing upon the real, truthful experience of growing up queer. This movie is by and for the gays, and it was refreshing to see something like this in theaters. I’ll probably watch it one million more times now that it’s available to stream, and I suggest you do the same.

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