The Queue:
Writers are back! Late night shows returned last night, Drewey B. is slated to return in October, and SNL is rumored to air in weeks. As we patiently await agreements for SAG-AFTRA, I’m tuned into the backlash, commentary, and jokes as our dutiful soldiers return to their keyboards.
Apples: mealy. soft. slightly acidic. Yet somehow, we embrace them every season.
Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is juicy this season. The conflict is fall off the bone, finger-licking good. Even my boyfriend noted the authenticity of the drama, questioning if the producers are doing anything. The answer is yes, they are tending to Mary Cosby’s McDonald’s requests. Plus, Trixie Mattel graces the screen.
Fall Movies: Spooky, romantic, both, who cares! This month I’ve watched Heathers and When Harry Met Sally, and on queue, we have Scream and The Witches of Eastwick. Let spooky season begin.
Bottoms Review:
So the time has come, and I’ve been sitting on this review for awhile. It’s the Bottoms review. Let’s get into it.
Bottoms premiered at the beginning of September, and has since been making bloody waves across the internet. To reference the stats, the movie has been doing incredibly well. It made a bit over $500k with only 10 theaters on its opening weekend, beating the record set by Everything Everywhere All at Once. Since then, it has expanded to hundreds of screens and has made over $3 million.
The film takes place in an exaggerated high school fantasyland. Within this, the trailer promised three things: gore, gay, and silly. It delivers on all three fronts (to the extreme relief of queers everywhere), and does so with an extreme individuality and campy playfulness. To begin, the gore: there was enough blood to make a vampire’s Thanksgiving. The humor is absolutely ludicrous, which didn’t pose a problem in a theater full of slaphappy college kids. I saw the movie opening weekend in a crowd full of 20-year-old Emerson students who cackled at anything, pushing me to laugh even when my brain wanted to say, “wait what?” The gay part is self-explanatory, but it is the defining cable that connects this narrative back to Earth. In all the outlandish dressing of the film, the high school longing gives the film the gravity it needs to make its viewers feel a wee bit connected to themselves.
“Camp for Zillenials / Straight Horror for all other Generations”
Like any work of art, Bottoms has its critics, one of which is Richard Brody. Do I think this movie appealed to all audiences? Absolutely not. Both the lingo and the aesthetic are generational. Secondly, you have to like silly high school dramedies—Heathers, Sixteen Candles, Bring it On, Mean Girls, etc. Now this is a niche interest, but history shows that it's a lucrative one, and Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott were aware of what they were tapping. But not only were they playing off this, they also were giving it a modern gay twist, reintroducing the mainstream to a type of campy comedy that’s been off the radar for several years.
Under the Umbrella: 2023 and the Curse of Compartmentalization
Jodi Walker wrote a Ringer article, “Introducing the Zillennial Cult Comedy Cinematic Universe,” in which she describes a new cinematic universe that is connected by Rachel Sennott, Molly Gordon, and Ayo Edebiri. She describes their work as female-focused and queer-driven, a new type of comedy that is both eccentric and endearing, wacky and relevant. The article astutely points out the years of work that these women have put into their collaboration and lays down how this creativity evolved. This piece contributes a lot of well-deserved praise, but in doing so, puts them in a box. By placing these tabs on them, by obsessing over their connectedness, by fangirling their work, will the fanfare reach a point at which our admiration limits the expanse of their work? Richard Brody titled his review, “Bottoms is a Major Film but Not a Good one.” Is typecasting a style as “generational” a compliment or a death sentence? Time will tell.
Eras 2.0: The Stadium Tour Continues
Two weekends in a row, Taylor Swift has made appearances at Kansas City Chiefs games in support of her rumored beau, Travis Kelce. This week, she invited a hefty guest list including Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Sophie Turner, Sabrina Carpenter, and more. The resurgence of Taylor in gossipy headlines feels nostalgic. I applaud her PR team the woman because never once has she asked herself, “how can I stay relevant?” and did not have an impactful answer.
Yet out of all the boyfriends and the PR stunts and the covers and the tours, this has by far has caused the biggest waves for a few reasons:
The Unexpectedness: nobody saw this coming. The rebound from Joe Alwyn happened fast. Similarly, Taylor is not Kendall Jenner, and her type has never included boys in jerseys. None of this could have been predicted.
The Magnitude: We’re talking top 5 sports podcasts on Spotify and we’re talking primetime ABC, Fox, NBC, and CBS with over 17M viewers. We’re also talking an artist who has one of the highest grossing tours of 2023, who has 273M Instagram followers, and whose newest original album had the most streams on Spotify in a 24 hour period.
The Overlap: Travis Kelce gained an additional million followers after the Taylor launch. T&T are doing something crazy here, in which they’ve identified that they can expand their network from highly similar, yet slightly different audiences. Will NFL fans think of Taylor Swift more highly? Probably. Will Taylor’s fans now find themselves rooting for the Chiefs? Maybe. They are both maximizing their spotlight, and bringing their fame to a new playing pool.
Kendall Jenner and her NBA boyfriends couldn’t do it, Gizelle and Tom couldn’t do it, but Taylor can do it. She can possibly bring herself to a higher level of fame by connecting her status to a different American obsession. Both Taylor Swift and football have a similar level of loyal hysteria and faithful patrons. It’s a master move, and frankly surprising that it hasn't been done yet. Why? If she dated an athlete any younger she would have sacrificed her star quality for a passenger seat, and the media would have destroyed her for it. At the ripe age of 33, dating a star NFL player is a power move, one that touts independence and brazen confidence. I love a bold move.
Thanks for reading.