Bottoms
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Bottoms |
| Abbreviation(s): | |
| Creator: | Emma Seligman & Rachel Sennott |
| Date(s): | March 11, 2023 (SXSW release), August 25, 2023 (US release) |
| Medium: | Live Action Film |
| Country of Origin: | United States |
| External Links: | at Wikipedia at IMDb |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
This article or section needs expansion. |
Bottoms was a 2023 satirical comedy film released in 2023 starring Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri in the lead roles as two unpopular lesbians in high school who set up a fight club to win the attention of the cheerleaders they pine after.
Canon
PJ, played by Sennott, and Josie, played by Edebiri, play lesbian best friends who hang out at the bottom of the high school hierarchy and pine after the cheerleaders they've had crushes on for years. After an altercation at the local fair involving Josie's crush, Isabel, and Isabel's boyfriend, Jeff, gets blown completely out of proportion, rumours spread about PJ and Josie spending time in juvie over summer.
In the aftermath of those rumours and amidst threats of suspension, PJ and Josie set up a self-defense club, claiming it's to help female empowerment, but really intending to use it to meet girls. Events escalate throughout the movie, with the others from their self-defense club eventually finding out the truth and leaving the pair, before coming back together as a team at the end to face off against the school's rival American football team.
There are a number of wildly ridiculous aspects to the film which are never explained and are simply just accepted by the viewer as part of the film's wider lore. For example, it is tradition for the rival football team, Huntington High School, to murder a member of Rockbridge Falls High School's team.
Fandom
A moderate fandom for the film had already began to develop when the trailer for the film came out.
Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri both had lead or significant roles in other well-received films and TV shows such as Shiva Baby, and The Bear and Abbott Elementary respectively, and secondary character Hazel was played by Ruby Cruz who starred as lead in Willow (TV series); this drew some fans of their other work to the film, interested to see how they would approach a very different genre of work to their other roles. Supporting character, Jeff, was played by Nicholas Galitzine who had just starred in the Red, White & Royal Blue film and his presence seemed to pique the interest of fans of his, too.
When the film released in cinemas, the fandom grew significantly and there was a lot of delight amongst lesbian and other sapphic fans that they had characters fitting into the trope of both useless lesbians and girl failures all in completely different ways.
there is literally nothing in this world more endearing than a girl who is an absolute loser #wlw#lesbian#sapphic#bottoms movie#bottoms 2023
hazel, pj and josie are the loser lesbian trio cinema needed
The ridiculousness of the film was celebrated, especially as it was a genre of film that women, and particularly sapphic women, rarely got to feature in, and clips and GIFs of many scenes were shared regularly on Tumblr. The canon pairings of the show were also popular within these social media spaces.
As of December 2023, there are 232 fanworks for the film on Archive of Our Own.
Pairings
The fandom on AO3 is overwhelmingly sapphic, with 222 of the 232 works tagged as F/F. All other categories of fanworks are very rare, though platonic pairings do appear with more regularity that the 8 in Gen works would indicate.
Sapphic
Platonic
Example Fanworks
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
Fanfic
- AITA for starting a fight club to date a cheerleader? by falsenine - The movie from the perspective of PJ, written in the style of an 'Am I The Asshole' post including responses from other characters.
- Combative by Peanutbutterassistant - After a few weeks have past and PJ still can’t get that one kiss out of her head, she decides to just keep kissing Hazel until the problem goes away
- baby lips by ladybundle - She’s known Josie since kindergarten. Of course she has. Everyone knows everyone else in this town.
Fan vids
- So What (I am a Rockstar) by isabrella
- Rebel just for kicks by Purey
Fan art
Resources and Archives
- Bottoms tag at AO3
- Bottoms tag at Tumblr