Bottoms (2023)

Submission 3,414

About

Bottoms is a 2023 teen sex comedy movie co-written by Rachel Sennott and Emma Seligman, starring Senott and Ayo Edebiri. The film follows two unpopular high schoolers as they start an all-girls fight club in order to sleep with their school's cheerleaders. The movie received a limited domestic release in the United States in August 2023, with discussions and memes about the film internationally centered around the improbability of an international theatrical release.

History

According to articles discussing the conception of Bottoms, co-writers Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott began brainstorming ideas for a lesbian-centric teen sex comedy movie during their time at NYU in 2019.^[13] An August 25th, 2023, post shared by X^[1] user @sennottfiles also noted this, gathering over 15,000 likes in four days (seen below). The photo, which was taken in October 2019, shows the alternative titles being considered for Bottoms, including "Fuck Night At Knitting Club," "Girl Brawl" and "Gay Fuck Tussle."

In 2021, Seligman and Sennott landed a production deal with Orion Pictures and Brownstone Productions to create Bottoms, built off the success of the duo's critically acclaimed 2020 venture Shiva Baby.^[2] Seligman initially described Bottoms as a "campy queer high school comedy in the vein of Wet Hot American Summer but more for a Gen-Z queer audience."^[3]

On June 5th, X^[5] account @FilmUpdates posted a photo of the poster for the film, gathering over 17,000 likes in two months (seen below).

On June 6th, 2023, MGM's YouTube^[4] channel released a trailer for the film, gathering over 1.2 million views in two months (seen below).

Reception

Marketing Criticism

On August 15th, 2023, X^[6] user and creator of the 2016 film The Love Witch @missannabiller posted a series of tweets criticizing the tagline on the poster for the film Bottoms, which reads, "a movie about empowering women (the hot ones)." In the post, @missannabiller wrote, "How did the MeToo movement make its way back to sexploitation?? 'a movie about empowering women (the hot ones)'🙄," gathering over 390 likes and 1,400 quotes in two weeks.

The tweet was quoted by X^[7] user @SAMGREIS on August 16th, who wrote, "Joke literacy truly in its flop era," gathering over 19,000 likes in a week (seen below, left). On August 26th, X^[9] user @holdenfordfocus criticized the use of the word "incel" in a New York Magazine feature about the film, gathering over 80,000 likes in three days (seen below, right).

Critical Reception

The film saw a limited release on August 25th, 2023, screening in only 10 theaters for its opening weekend. On August 25th, X^[11] account FilmUpdates made a post about the film receiving a 99 percent fresh Rotten Tomatoes^[10] score (seen below, left) and on August 27th, FilmUpdates^[12] posted about the film gathering over $500,000 in earnings from its limited release.

On August 27th, X user @photonsmight^[8] posted quoted FilmUpdates to note fans' sentiments about the movie's limited release and received over 29,500 likes and 1,700 reposts in roughly 48 hours (seen below, right).

Online Reactions

Fan reactions regarding the movie tended to revolve around its limited release, with Tumblr^[14] user @kamala-khan posting a I don't care if something good happened to you meme about the film and gathering over 400 notes in four days (seen below, left). On August 28th, 2023, Twitter^[15] user @heroinadolixo posted a Stick Figure Violence meme about the film, gathering over 20,000 likes in two days (seen below).