I’m Lucy and I’m a Film Studies and English: Writing major at Winona State University. This semester, I’ll be releasing content for my series “Helpful or Harmful? The Depiction of LGBTQIA+ People in Contemporary Film.” I will be giving my thoughts and critiquing representation of the LGBTQIA+ community in movies today as a member of the community myself. I hope you’ll stick around! I’ll be releasing new content every Friday alternating between written and video film reviews. 

WARNING: DISCUSSION OF MATURE CONTENT AND VIOLENCE

Bottoms follows Josie (Ayo Edebiri) and PJ (Rachel Sennott) who are two self proclaimed misfit “ugly and untalented gays.” The movie begins with them recounting their disastrous high school experience thus far and laying out their plan to make two cheerleaders, Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Jordan Gerber), fall in love with them. Josie and PJ see Isabel and her boyfriend, Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine), having a fight and offer to give her a ride home. Jeff refuses to move out of the way of the car and then claims Josie broke his knee when the car only taps it. Due to a miscommunication, Josie and PJ gain a reputation for being the girls who went to juvie over the summer. This leads them to create a fight club that they hope will impress their crushes. The fight club succeeds, as it coincides with an upcoming football game that has a history of violent rivalry between their school and another school called Huntington. Jeff’s “injury” inspires a feud between the football players and the fight club which creates obstacles for Josie and PJ. It’s all very outrageous and the film is as self aware as one would hope it would be. This is why I think that Bottoms is one of the best movies of 2023 and an outstanding example of LGBTQIA+ representation. 

There wasn’t one lackluster performance in this film. Everybody in this cast killed it, pun intended (iykyk). Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott did a great job at being hilarious and lovable leads. Josie and PJ are not perfect people which makes them even more realistic characters. When they convey sadness or anger, it’s underscored with comedy which is right for this film and functions very effectively. Nicholas Galitzine as Jeff was so unbelievably funny. He played every stereotype to the extreme as a popular high school jock with wearing his football jersey and shoulder pads to class, eating lunch at a long table with all the other jocks in front of a large painted portrait of himself, and being plastered on posters around the school to promote the game, shirtless, with the phrase “get horny” on them. Jeff’s whiny and childish attitude also felt perfect for his character. Another standout for me was Slyvie (Summer Joy Campbell) who became a member of the fight club. Her exaggeration and sheer craziness was so funny to watch. Her character was purely funny and enjoyable. Mr. G (Marshawn Lynch) was a teacher at the high school and the fight club’s advisor. He was also purely funny and played all the scenes perfectly. Another major character was named Hazel (Ruby Cruz) who was often the voice of reason in Josie and PJ’s antics. At other times, Hazel was even more unhinged than them, as she had an obsession with creating bombs. The cast overall was just perfect. 

The beauty of this film was the stereotypes that were played to the extreme and how self aware the film was as a whole. This is in no way a realistic movie. It is entirely poking fun at high school stereotypes, LGBTQIA+ stereotypes (which I’ll discuss later), and coming of age movie stereotypes. Josie and PJ sit in a class for about two minutes before the bell rings and class is over. What made this so funny was that they acknowledged it and then just moved on. I think this is poking fun at how unrealistic the concept of time can be in coming of age movies. For example, if class were to start and end within two minutes just so the main character can have an interaction with their crush. Another hilarious detail in Bottoms was when the principal called Josie and PJ down to the office, but instead of using their names, he said, “Will the ugly and untalented gays please report to the office?” This was one of the many moments that caught me off guard and made me laugh out loud. There’s also the painted portrait of Jeff in the lunchroom that I mentioned earlier, as well as the fact that the football players only ever wear their uniforms. The only time we see Jeff without his uniform on is when Hazel catches him and her mom having sex (though he is still wearing his shoulder pads) or on the posters around school that say, “Get horny!” and have a picture of him shirtless on them. 

If all of this isn’t enough to convince you to watch this revolutionary film, I think that the ending of the movie seals the deal. Bottoms does a great job keeping the viewer on their toes. You’ll never know what’s coming next because ANYTHING goes in this movie and the ending proves this. Something that I think is important to note is that this film isn’t for the faint of heart, especially if you get queasy at the sight of blood. There are very graphic scenes all throughout the movie. The ending is by far the most graphic but absolutely necessary to watch if you are able. It kept me on the edge of my seat but it was also hilarious. Not to mention that this movie has a fabulous original score including lots of music by Charlie XCX! 

This representation was great. Just being able to see a comedy this good where the two main characters are gay is a rarity, but is becoming more common and it’s about time. Being gay felt very normalized in this film, but some stereotypes were also poked fun at. There was a moment where Josie and PJ were discussing why they’re unpopular. One of them makes the point that it might be because they’re gay and the other says that it’s not because they’re gay, but because they’re gay and untalented, implying that it’s not socially acceptable today to dislike people just because they’re gay. This made it all the more funny and was a delightful reminder at how far the LGBTQIA+ community has come so far. There were some good examples of queer joy in the movie as well emphasis on some struggles that queer people face. 

Overall this movie is fabulous and was enjoyable all the way through. It offered shock value, excellent comedic moments, and a very positive depiction of the LGBTQIA+ community. It’s full of brilliant performances and challenges the status quo of film today. Tackling many important themes, Bottoms is a film that everybody should see because they surely won’t regret it.