Bottoms is The Closest Thing We’ll Ever Get to Another Heathers

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When I saw Emma Seligman’s sophomore film, Bottoms, being promoted as Fight Club meets Heathers, I was in between it. Not only because I was excited about the film but also because comparing a film to Heathers, my favorite film of all time, is a hard standard to reach. Sure, there are plenty of films that have marketed themselves as the next Heathers. Even adaptations of the 1989 film like Heathers the Musical and the failed Paramount television reboot have not lived up to or understood the intentions of the original film. However, while watching Bottoms it brought me back to being fifteen years old and gazing at Winona Ryder lighting her cigarette, sparking my sexuality crisis.

Now, does Bottoms try to be Heathers? Absolutely not. If anything, Bottoms, being its own strange and dark entity, is what brings it closer to Heathers. Both films were created to look at the teen experience that was going through a change and analyze the truth about high school through their strange and absurd dialogue and comedy. Heathers has various themes revolving around the depiction of teen mental health, the sexualization of women, abusive relationships, and unlikeable main characters. Bottoms shares the themes of the sexualization of women and the unlikeable main characters but joins them with sexuality, female friendship, and trust.

Heathers marks the beginning of the depiction of messy, unlikeable women characters in regards to eighties teen films. Even though Winona Ryder’s portrayal of Veronica is sympathetic, she still thinks she is the good one of the Heathers even though she treats people terribly and, you know, kills people (even though she is being manipulated and lied to). In addition, all the Heathers have a facade of being perfect, yet lack vulnerability because they have to rule the school. Bottoms takes the approach of PJ and Josie starting the fight club for selfish reasons (to hook up with hot women and lie constantly to get their way) before they realize their mistakes. Like any human, women can suck too. The majority of the time, women characters, especially those written by men, are flawless and the image of perfection. Teen films that end with the main characters drenched in blood and ashes instead of pampered up from prom break that mold.

In both films, homoeroticism is the center of the football team. In Bottoms, it’s Jeff and Tim. In Heathers, it’s Kurt and Ram. Tim is actively protecting and doing everything in the best interest of Jeff. On the other hand, Kurt and Ram are actively homophobic, using the f slur constantly around each other. But when JD and Veronica kill them, they cover it up with a note saying that Kurt and Ram committed suicide because they were “gay.” Both films aren’t making fun of queer people but more so, mocking homophobic ideas created from toxic masculinity.

However, compared to Heathers, Bottoms is explicitly queer and more inclusive in its casting. Heathers may mock homophobia, but there are no canon queer characters. The environment of Bottoms, contained like Heathers, normalizes queerness. Early in the film, Josie comments that the school has a homophobia problem, and PJ retorts about the acceptance of a gay student named Matthieu. She continues on that people don’t hate her and Josie because they’re gay but because they’re “gay, untalented and ugly.” It brings us full circle about PJ and Josie being unlikeable characters but also still reminds the audience that homophobia is still there, especially for queer women. In Heathers, there’s only one named Black character, portrayed by the young Mr. Moseby, Phill Lewis. But in Bottoms, Ayo Edebiri stars as Josie, a Black queer woman who has anxiety and can easily lie. Her love interest, Isabel, is played by Havana Rose Liu, an Asian American actress. The majority of interracial couples on screen are made up of a person of color and a white person, so to see an Asian woman and a Black woman in a queer relationship brings recognition to those communities.

These films exist in a similar sphere of using dark comedy and messy female characters to explore social themes. However, they differ enough to exist on their own and bring their own perspective to the teen genre. Heathers was there for me when I was an anxious teenager, figuring out my place in the world, and Bottoms came out to secure me in the confidence of my gender and sexuality. Both films have reminded me time and time again that mistakes can be made and that as long as you learn from your mistakes, you can grow and change.