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Being that the queer film canon remains shockingly scant after all this time, it goes without saying that the even more hyper-specific genre of satirical queer film is limited, in essence, to 1999’s But I’m A Cheerleader. Twenty-four years later, things haven’t gotten much more “ribald” or “perverse,” if we’re to go by what Bottoms is offering. Which is something to the effect of Fight Club meets Mean Girls with a dash of Heathers (that’s how the pitch would go, presumably). Compared to the latter movie solely because it, too, is set in high school and has a snarky, over-the-top (read: representative of reality, yet we must call it “over the top” to delude ourselves into thinking reality isn’t that grim) perspective. A.k.a. what people bill as a satire. This, of course, means caricatures of stereotypes. A stereotype, obviously, already being something of a caricature without needing to further amplify it. Unless it’s to make a point about some larger truth. Which Bottoms, in the end, fails to do.
In contrast, But I’m A Cheerleader makes its point from the very outset of the movie, with a title sequence that plays April March’s “Chick Habit” (long before Quentin Tarantino ever decided to use it) as quintessentially hot cheerleaders jump up and down in a manner befitting the male gaze. Except that, this time, it’s being seen through the female gaze of Jamie Babbit’s lens. And the images of those cheerleaders bobbing up and down will come back moments later, when Megan Bloomfield (Natasha Lyonne) needs to imagine them in order to seem even vaguely interested in the tongue-thrashing kisses of her football player boyfriend, Jared (Brandt Wille). When she finally makes it home for dinner, the plates prepared on the table tellingly all have meat on them, except for one, an empty space next to the peas and mashed potatoes where Megan’s mom will plop down her “vegetarian option.” Her father then engages in saying a very pointed prayer about giving people the strength to accept their “natural” roles in life. Feeling exposed by that statement, Megan does her best to sleep the lie of her life off in her room that night as a poster of Melissa Etheridge watches over her.
And so, within the first five minutes, But I’m A Cheerleader we’re given far more satire through visual cues than what we get at the beginning of Bottoms, directed by Emma Seligman, who co-wrote the script with her Shiva Baby star, Rachel Sennott. Going from a college-age girl to a high school girl for this role. But that can all be viewed as part of the satire (like Greta Gerwig casting a “too old” Ryan Gosling for the part of Ken, citing inspiration from Grease’s casting choices for high school students). Funnily enough, PJ (Sennott) seems to throw shade at that switch by saying, “We’re not gonna be sexy little high schoolers forever. Soon we’re gonna be old hags in college.” This said to her lifelong best friend, Josie (Ayo Edebiri, twenty-seven to Sennott’s twenty-eight), who is far less confident about being “hot” enough (according to PJ) to talk to the girls they’ve been crushing on for years. For Josie, that slow-burn pining is for a cheerleader (because, yes, the But I’m A Cheerleader connection) named Isabel (Hannah Rose Liu, no relation to Lucy, though still a nepo baby by way of being daughter to the founders of The Knot). For PJ, her more sexually-charged, less “in love” attraction is to another cheerleader named, what else, Brittany (Kaia Gerber, nepo baby numéro deux).
Rather than commencing with anything visually, the first few minutes are pure dialogue, starting with PJ saying, “Tonight is the fucking night, okay? We’ve looked like shit for years, and we are developing.” Their back and forth continues on the way to the school carnival PJ is forcing them to go to, the one that kicks off the school year, but, more to the point, serves as a way to glorify the football team through quaint notions of “school spirit.” These quaint notions are also present for a reason in But I’m A Cheerleader, thanks to Megan’s status as, duh, a cheerleader. As though hiding behind that ultimate emblem of “all-American-ness” will throw people off the scent of her true identity. Which should mark at least one notable change between 1999 and 2023: theoretically greater acceptance of queer people in high schools (just not Floridian ones). Which is why, when Josie says, “This school has such a gay problem,” PJ replies, “Okay, no. No one hates us for being gay. Everyone hates us for being gay, untalented and ugly.” In other words, being gay has never been “chicer,” common even, if you know how to wield it to your advantage.
And yet, since PJ and Josie haven’t been able to make their gayness “work” for them, they decide to capitalize on a fortuitous coalescing of events: 1) the assumption that they went to juvenile hall over the summer after PJ jokingly confirms a fellow reject’s guess about why Josie has a broken arm, 2) Isabel running away from Jeff in the middle of the carnival and seeking refuge in Josie’s car before the latter slowly starts the car and drives toward him, just barely grazing his knee, 3) Jeff milking this for all its worth (even though nothing happened) by showing up to school the next day on crutches and 4) the announcement that a football player from the Vikings’ rival team, the Huntington Golden Ferrets, attacked a girl to quench some of their bloodlust. All factors conspiring to make PJ’s idea to start a fight club in order to attract their scared fellow female students and therefore possibly lose their virginity to one of them (being a satire, whether or not any of these girls are actually lesbians seems to hold no importance for PJ and Josie—especially PJ, who perhaps rightfully assumes that everyone is gay). Yes, this is the entire far-fetched crux of the movie. Nonetheless, as it said, stranger things have happened.
And since “weird shit” is more accepted by the mainstream than it was in 1999, it bears noting that Lionsgate Films, known at that time for distributing more “indie” fare instead of low-budget horror or high-grossing franchise movies (e.g., Twilight and The Hunger Games), was the company willing to pick up But I’m A Cheerleader. In the present, things seem to have gotten slightly friendlier toward queers in that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (more specifically, its revived Orion Pictures imprint) chose to distribute Bottoms. Then again, that studio has been queer-friendly since at least the days of Some Like It Hot. Thus, what Bottoms posits about being a lesbian in high school in the twenty-first century is that it’s so normalized now that homo girls are perhaps saddled with the worse fate of actually having to make themselves interesting and cool beyond “just” their sexuality.
Enter the fight club, sponsored by PJ and Josie’s horrendously uneducated English (?) teacher, Mr. G (Marshawn Lynch, a former football running back himself). Who doesn’t show up until after the first meeting, where PJ takes the inaugural punch from Josie to prove they’re “legit.” Knocked to the ground, she rises up with a bloody face and an expression that mimics the sentiment behind, “One time she punched me. It was awesome.” It doesn’t take long for word about the club to travel around, and, just as PJ planned, Isabel and Brittany start to show up. Before they know it, the bonds of sisterhood are being forged—complete with “sharing trauma” time as they all sit in a circle and express themselves emotionally after already doing so physically.
In But I’m A Cheerleader, that form of sharing comes in the “re-orientation” meetings, the first of which prompts Megan to finally admit she’s a lesbian. After all, the film is divided into the five steps of the “recovery” program at True Directions, the first being: “Admitting You’re A Homosexual.” Megan doesn’t feel all that great after the admission, looked upon by Graham Eaton (Clea DuVall), another lesbian she shares a room with, as delusional for thinking that she can be “fixed” now that she knows. For this isn’t Graham’s first time at the rodeo, having been harshly judged by her family for years, and currently threatened with being disowned and disinherited (the ultimate power play). Hence, the jadedness…and the freedom with which she eats sushi (done for the sake of the line: “She’s just upset because the fish on her plate is the only kind she can eat”).
Additionally, the hyper-saturated color palette and overall “are we in the 1950s?” vibe of the movie is part of its genius. And what amplifies its ability to expose heteronormativity for its absurdity (particularly during the scenes of “Step 2: Rediscovering Your Gender Identity”). Bottoms, instead, already too easily benefits from the Gen Z assumption that being gay is “no big.” Never seeming to stop and look back at what all the homos who came before had to endure for them to be in this place of “levity.” Which is why the idea that one could “make light” of homophobia in the late 90s is automatically more powerful than any satirical slant Bottoms could ever hope to offer. With existing further in the pop culture timeline so often being a bane rather than a boon, at least where innovation is concerned.
And it seems like Seligman knows, on some level, that Brian Wayne Peterson’s script is the standard for satirizing what it means to be queer in a world “built for” the straights. Ergo, a subtle nod to But I’m A Cheerleader that comes in the form of a diner called But I’m A Diner, where Josie goes on her first “date” with Isabel. Who is, again, a cheerleader. One who eventually shows us that she swings her pom-poms both ways. Indeed, in the same way that But I’m A Cheerleader ends with Megan making a grand gesture to Graham, so, too, does Bottoms end with Josie (and PJ) engaging in the grand gesture of beating up the Huntington football team as a way say they’re sorry for lying about going to juvie and starting a fight club solely for the hope of getting some snatch (which, of course, makes them no better than men). And while this might be more elaborate than Megan’s simple cheer at Graham’s “I’m Straight Now” graduation ceremony, it doesn’t change the fact that But I’m A Cheerleader remains the crème de la crème of queer satire, right down to RuPaul as an “ex-gay”/True Directions employee wearing a “Straight Is Great” t-shirt.
This, in part, is because But I’m A Cheerleader had (and has) the advantage of being of its time. Therefore, coming across as more avant-garde and powerful than Bottoms could ever hope to. By the same token, were Bottoms not released in the present, it wouldn’t have enjoyed the undeniable value of queer ally Charli XCX scoring the entire soundtrack, in addition to adding some of her own already-in-existence tracks, like “party 4 u” from How I’m Feeling Now. That said, the But I’m A Cheerleader Soundtrack is nothing to balk at, featuring such dance floor anthems as Saint Etienne’s “We’re in the City” and Miisa’s “All or Nothing.” And so, while Bottoms is a welcome addition to the lacking and challenging genre of gay and lesbian satire, it still can’t quite hold a candle to the masterwork of the category. Coming in as a close tie with 2004’s Saved!, itself riffing on the premise of But I’m A Cheerleader via the gay boyfriend who’s also sent to a “conversion therapy” camp plotline. Whoever releases the next effort, however, will now have to at least top Bottoms.
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Genna Rivieccio
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