Criticism of Bottoms' absurdity is missing the point

She’s met with silence — that is, until she adds, "Grey area stuff counts, too."

In another scene, Hazel (Ruby Cruz) suggests putting a bomb under football jock Jeff’s (Nicholas Galitzine) car as revenge for him sleeping with her mother. "Yeah, Hazel, let’s do terrorism," PJ says.

The film is marked by this flippant, irreverent humour, with jokes that lean into taboo topics flying around more freely than the punches.

It's not just Bottoms' humour that is absurd – the plot is too. In a departure from Seligman’s debut feature, Shiva Baby, which was grounded in realism and captured the visceral anxiety of its young Jewish protagonist when she runs into her sugar daddy at a funeral service, Bottoms is almost completely divorced from reality.

We follow PJ and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), two queer outcasts who decide to launch a fight club under the guise of female solidarity, in the hopes it will enable them to seduce cheerleaders.

Much to their surprise, the scheme proves effective – that is, until a member of the school football team exposes their true (and horny) motives.

Fortunately, a long-standing rivalry with another school puts Jeff’s life in danger and gives PJ, Josie and the fight club a chance to come together to save the day – and their reputation – in a rage-filled and nonsensical climax involving pineapple juice.

Plenty of criticism has been levelled at the film’s absurdity and its irreverent humour, with some complaining that its jokes miss the mark, that it doesn’t boast the complexity of its raunchy teen comedy forebears (such as Superbad and American Pie) and that it’s too over the top and meaningless.

But these criticisms are missing the point. Bottoms isn’t just a female-driven version of the early 2000s teen comedies Seligman and Sennott – who co-wrote the film – grew up with. It’s also a satire of the genre (in the same vein as Not Another Teen Movie and But I’m a Cheerleader, but with a more vicious satirical tone) that really leans into its absurdity.

And it’s through this absurdity that the film pushes boundaries.

Bottoms is set in a universe where there are no ramifications for blowing up a car, where the school bell rings a few minutes into class (and someone off-screen actually points this out) and where the footballers march around high school in their sports gear.

Yet amid this absurdity, misogynistic and homophobic behaviours are frequent and normalised – fight club members make light of topics such as rape and abusive stepfathers, a teacher’s (Marshawn Lynch) sexist remarks and inappropriate magazines go unchallenged, and Josie and PJ are unphased to find "F***ot #1" and "F***ot #2" graffitied on their lockers.

"I'm F***ot #2 this time?" is the only thing PJ says in response.

The result is a clever and very funny mockery of the absurdity of existing as a young queer woman in our culture.

Bottoms might be far from perfect – and there are certainly some questionable narrative turns – but criticisms of its stupidity also fail to take into account that the film is, like the characters at its centre, simply here to have a good time.

Queer narratives are often required to focus on the hardships of being LGBTQ+, or coming out, or activism (think Happiest Season or Love, Simon) in order to be palatable to mainstream society.

Bottoms, by contrast, isn't trying to make any grand political statement – PJ and Josie are just here to be dumb, have fun and make us laugh. And they're the flawed, selfish and stupid LGBTQ+ representation we've been missing.

The need for queer people to make themselves palatable to their straight counterparts is actually a running joke throughout the film.

In one scene, Josie points out that they’re not, in fact, unpopular solely for being gay, but because they’re gay and "ugly and untalented", while in another the football team are quick to praise a gay student for his performance in a musical.

"I just wanted to have relatable queer characters on-screen," Seligman told Rolling Stone.

"We’ve made so many strides in queer representation, but I’m excited to see more, especially teen queer characters that have sex drives and are horny and flawed and not just these innocent beings that are either being traumatised or having the most sweet, PG love story."

Meanwhile, Edebiri told the publication in relation to Bottoms that "it's a political act to be [gay and] stupid", which could – for those looking for one – ultimately serve as the message of the film.

Bottoms will be available to watch in UK cinemas from Friday 3rd November 2023.

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