Bottoms Up! Emma Seligman Is Reclaiming Fun Cinema For Queer Girls
Emma Seligman made an unforgettable impression on queer femmes and anxious twenty somethings – a Venn diagram that is almost a whole circle – with her directorial debut Shiva Baby (2020), expanded from a previous short film of the same name. Starring Rachel Sennott as a Jewish bisexual, the titular role, Seligman and Sennott join forces to present a comedy so finely written that it makes you slide down your chair and grit your teeth with second hand embarrassment. But you of course watch on, because it’s just so good. Danielle, played by Sennott, cemented the stereotype of what it means to be a woman in 2020; as one Letterboxd reviewer puts it: “all danielle knows is gender business, be gay, be sugar baby, eat bagel and lie.”
Logging onto Zoom, the Canadian born writer and director and I spend 45 minutes to talk over the new instalment of the Seliman and Sennott universe Bottoms (2023), making films with friends and reimagining genres.
“The more shitty female characters I see on screen, the more I want to write shitty female characters.” Seligman tells me over video chat, “I say shitty, and Rachel says shitty, but we just mean normal. When you see yourself on screen, there's just like no better feeling than that. You feel so human and validated.”
Bottoms follows PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), two “ugly and untalented gays” that decide to start a fight club – renamed as a “self defence club” to appease the teachers – as a pawn to get chicks. The pair lie about going to juvenile hall during their summer break and misconstrue punching each other in the face as female empowerment for their own advantage. Josie says to PJ: “You don’t care about feminism, your favourite show is Entourage,” and the stage is set. If the duo had been straight men, this movie could have come out in 2003 attempting to engage with audiences that adored American Pie.
Instead, the lesbian double act invite female viewers to bask in their imperfections. With queer and leftist media being expected to be solely positive, politically correct portrayals of women and non-binary people, Bottoms isn’t afraid to tap back into the world of early 00s comedy where sex and problematic behaviour rules all. “I love raunchy teen comedies. A lot of them haven't aged well, but teenagers are literally just that hormonal and horny and selfish.” says Seligman. “I feel support when making films to be bolder, for sure. To not be afraid. I think because it kind of feels like we're in the wild west in our everyday lives, so therefore just make whatever you want, put whatever political message you want into it, because it doesn't feel like there are rules.”
“The intention was specifically to make something raunchy and bloody for queer teen audiences. I'm getting sick of the tragic stuff, especially when queerness is the plot.”
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No rules equate to a better time, clearly. With Seligman refusing to sanitise her high school comedy, Bottoms embraces physical comedy and visceral violence. Punches that draw blood rack the film up to R-rated. “We wouldn't be doing the genre properly and we wouldn't be giving these female characters a chance to be raunchy and corny if we didn't let it have the things that would then give it an R rating,” explains Seligman. “In terms of the violence, we were honouring the Fight Club setup of the movie. I think that it would be really shitty if we made something about a Fight Club, and there wasn't actual fighting, or the fighting didn't look real, or the fighting was sanitised because the characters are female and queer. The intention was specifically to make something raunchy and bloody for queer teen audiences.”
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“They're so codependent that they mimic each other's personalities, but also act completely different within that codependency.”
Seligman continues “I'm getting sick of the tragic stuff, especially when queerness is the plot.” The excess of Bottoms offers queer teenagers a chance to be silly, to be messy, to get dirty in both meanings of the word. Bottoms is not only honouring the sex comedy films that came before it, but other genres that Seligman adores. “We also looked toward a lot of 90s and early 2000s campy teen movies, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Wet Hot American Summer, and Jawbreaker.”
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The friendship within Bottoms is what separates it from being just Another Teen Movie - Josie (Edebiri) and PJ (Sennott) bounce off each other's awfulness, but they also hold the special bond of unmatched female friendship. “We had a good conversation with our costume designer Eunice Jera Lee about how they're so codependent that they mimic each other's personalities, but also act completely different within that codependency.” Seligman details. “Josie is tame and laid back and PJ hasn't really figured out her identity. That’s represented in the clothes that she wears from scene to scene regarding how femme she is, the colours that she wears, the patterns and the style. We had a lot of fun with the styling.”
Knowing that Sennott, Edebiri and Seligman attended university together makes the tight knit camaraderie radiating off Bottoms make all the more sense. The audience can sense the cast’s kinship offset while watching the scenes develop. Bottoms is the best outcome you’d expect from combining improvisation, real life references and best mates on screen. The trios’ in jokes become the viewers, whether they know it or not.
“It's the best making stuff with your friends,” Seligman smiles. “Rachel is the best and getting to work with Ayo, who we'd always envisioned for the role, was so much fun. It’s great to watch the two of them play off of each other, they're such great improvisers. It’s hard to keep it together behind the camera.” The bloopers - another noughties throwback - during the credits cement this, letting the audience take a peek at a filmmaking process that was a blast to be a part of.
With the current US actors strike, the efforts to make the experience of creating a film a positive one is more important than ever. The authenticity of Edebri, Sennott and Seligman’s collaboration and the joy that comes from Bottoms stands out against this bleak time for studio films. With Shiva Baby being released during COVID and Bottoms being released during the strikes - Seligman hasn’t had the best luck with timing. She agrees: “It’s frustrating but I feel like I’m no stranger to it this time around. At least we got to show Bottoms at a handful of queer film festivals in person. It’s also so worth it - I’d rather the strikes be happening and for us to be fighting for what we need.”
With a sex comedy and a tension fuelled dramady under her belt, Seligman is rerouting her attention to another genre altogether for her third flick, "The older I get, the more I understand why people love escapism and going into another realm of reality so much - I'm craving doing more of that in my work.” Rejecting the pressure to define her work in one singular genre, Seligman is instead exploring the wealth of genres for her characters to flourish in. “I would love to do a horror movie,” Seligman gushes. “A true horror movie with a lot of blood, like an old school, body horror movie. I would love to do a fun, pure action movie. I don't know what that involves yet, because I don't drive but I feel like there's cars and action."
The Bottoms release has offered a second wind for Seligman’s first child, Shiva Baby: With a 2023 summer return tour in select theatres, Shiva Baby is finally getting the full cinema experience - and it’s almost like Seligman has two films out at once. The hype for both is justified, as Seligman, Sennott and Edabri are filling a much needed gap: films that tell young queer and/or female audiences that it’s fine to be problematic and have fun.
Once there was a time where only Superbad and Eurotrip lingered in the mainstream space of teenage hornbag filmmaking, telling boys everywhere that it's normal to be raunchy and it’s normal to be gross. With young girls targeted with Mary-Kate and Ashley and Hilary Duff movies, such as New York Minute and The Perfect Man, from the same era - there was an obvious difference between which gender was able to let loose and who had to behave themselves. Bottoms is changing this. The film is telling queer girls to embrace their faults too, it’s fine to want to score, and to have a laugh while doing so.
Outfit: Simone Rocha | Shoes: Ancuta Sacara
“Humour just makes films surrounding queerness so much more digestible and more relatable,” finishes Seligman. “When it comes to shittiness, horniness and even the darker stuff, the easiest way as a human to get through our struggles is to joke about it with your friends, and that's what feels normal. I often joke more about the frustrations of being a woman or queer person with my friends than we lament and stew over the sad parts about it together.”
Words: Charlotte Amy Landrum | Photographer & Director: Emma Craft | Digital Tech: Will Wang | 1st Assist: Tom Miller | 2nd Assist: Tanner Phillips | DoP: Emma Penrose | Song credit: CC Dust | Stylist: Brian Meller | Hair: Clara Leonard | Make up: Samantha Lau | Production Assistant: Jesse Crozier