"Bottoms" & the Importance of Queer Joy Representation
I am certainly aware that it must seem strange to most people, that I would watch a comedic film like Bottoms and be filled with a bit of sadness; that familiar twinge of regret. But here I am, on a weekday afternoon, having just watched a film that made me laugh til I cried, but that also reminded me of all the things I never had, and never will have.
If you don’t know the plot of Bottoms, the premise is quite simple, two lesbian best friends start a fight club at their high school. The plot of the film isn’t what is important here, though it is a fabulous plot and I highly recommend the film. What is important are the two main characters, out and openly queer. I went to high school between 2005-2009, I was out as bisexual, but most certainly not out as a lesbian. Even the bisexual label wasn’t really for me, it was for my peers. I used it as a mask to hide my Autism and make me more appealing to the opposite sex, something I was indoctrinated into thinking was a thing I needed to do. Everything I did in high school was in service to making myself more digestible to everyone else around me. Middle school had been a nightmare; constantly ostracized because I dared to be myself, and I refused to have the same experience in high school.
I was fourteen in 2005, being convinced by Tyra Banks that a 6 was “plus size”, watching girls on VH1 and MTV showing off their boobs to mediocre, washed up “stars” for nothing more than drunken applause and crude comments. It seemed to me, that all it took to be tolerated was to be skinny, slutty, and agreeable. Even though I grew up in a household mostly fine with all things LGBTQIA+, what I saw of queer people in media and life, was nothing but judgement and othering; or worse, cruelty followed by violence. The first movie I ever saw featuring a trans person was Boys Don’t Cry and the first movie I ever saw featuring a lesbian was Rent. While Rent is definitely sad, my teenage viewing of Boys Don’t Cry was and is still to this day, one of my most traumatic movie watching experiences. It wasn’t just that film though; during my formative years I also saw Last Exit to Brooklyn, Brokeback Mountain, Mysterious Skin, and read plays like Laramie Project and Angels in America. So much of being myself was being ostracized; was being intentionally misunderstood. I was not about to also be a fag. Bisexuality was fine because it made me palpable to the opposite sex. Making out with girls was like a party trick I could pull out of my back pocket, but afterwards I would go back to talking about boys as if I had any interest in them at all. Claiming crushes and puppy love, even though the mere touch of a guy would make my mouth fill with saliva and my skin begin to crawl. I was determined to be “normal” and it didn’t matter whether or not I thought there was a moral issue with queerness (which I didn’t), the point was that queer wasn’t “normal”. Queer didn’t have friends. Queer didn’t get to meet the love of their life. Queer meant never getting married, never having a family; always being the odd one out. Queer meant being different. I did not need to be anymore different than I already was. So I made out with girls at parties for the popularity points, and had stupid crushes on barely tolerable men with names like Chad, Eric, or Jared.
Fear kept me from being honest with myself; from living authentically. I saw all these devastating depictions of gay relationships and LGBTQIA+ life; even the moments of joy and celebration were punctured by what seemed to me like so much grief and suffering. If I did have peers in middle school or high school who couldn’t hide their queerness, they were bullied endlessly, and more often than not, also lived with the constant threat of physical assault by other classmates. When I would try to open up about my genuine attraction to women, my friends would clearly become uncomfortable, or even mean. I remember once trying to discuss a musician I was really into at the time and whether or not she was a lesbian based on some of her lyrics. My friends responded snidely that no, they didn’t think she was a dyke and I never brought it up again.
By my senior year of high school I had a steady boyfriend. David was gentle and kind and a truly good man. I swallowed all of my previous feelings of uncomfort with men and two months into our relationship we were fucking anywhere and everywhere we could get some privacy. While I would not describe our physical relationship as fireworks or anything like that, David made me feel warm; comfortable. Being intimate with him was safe and I learned to love him physically, as much as I did emotionally. I’m sure some people would argue that that very statement makes me less of a lesbian in some imaginary, gay hierarchy way; but that’s bullshit. He was the first man to treat me and my body with respect, the first person and I loved him for that. Our fire went out after I moved away for college, and in the end, I imagine when he looks back I’m the villain in that chapter of his story, but a part of me will always love him. Of all the terrible men and my profound regrets, David has never been among them.
After David there were other men. On my quest to find a family and a home, I even ended up marrying one of them. I had lived thirty long years before I had the courage to stop being scared and just be gay instead. I’m glad I finally “came out” or whatever, but I can’t help but wish for the time back. The time to be authentically me as a teenager. The time to be nervous and sweaty with a beautiful girl in the back of a car. The time to reject the things that made me uncomfortable instead of enduring them. My teen years are one thing, I suppose. I know lots of people struggle in high school to be authentic, to embrace themselves as they truly are; but my twenties feel wasted. An entire decade dedicated to living a lie and waiting to fucking die. I want it back, and I won’t ever be able to get it back.
Bottoms isn’t necessarily profound, or prestigious. It doesn’t have some pretentious message or somber political statement. It is pure comedy camp and like I said, I laughed until I cried. The reason it made me sad was because it was queer people just being queer. Yeah, maybe they aren’t the most popular and yeah, maybe they start a fight club to try to get girls…But they’re just being teenagers. I guess that makes me sad because, maybe if I had seen more of that when I was growing up instead of Hilary Swank being shot in the face for being trans, maybe it would have been easier for me to imagine a life for myself, for my real self. I’m glad I got here eventually, I just wish it hadn’t taken thirty years.