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Speaker 1: I think that once I figured out that I was queer,

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Speaker 1: had lived a little bit of a queer life for

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Speaker 1: a few years, I think that that just changed every

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Speaker 1: sort of movie that I dreamed up in my head.

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Speaker 2: I'm Jessica Bennett and I'm Susie Bannacharum. And this is

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Speaker 2: in retrospect, where each week we revisit a cultural moment

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Speaker 2: that shaped.

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Speaker 3: Us and that we just can't stop thinking about.

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Speaker 2: Most of the time we look at the past, but

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Speaker 2: sometimes we want to hear from someone who is changing

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Speaker 2: the pop culture future. Today, we're handing over the pod

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Speaker 2: to our amazing associate producer, Sharona Tia. She's talking to

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Speaker 2: Emma Seligman, the director of the delightfully funny gay fight

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Speaker 2: club comedy Bottoms, which Harper's Bazaar called a horny masterpiece.

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Speaker 4: Hi, I'm Sharona Tia.

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Speaker 5: I'm the associate producer and researcher on the show, and

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Speaker 5: I also happened to be Emma Seligman's best friend. Emma

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Speaker 5: is the writer and director behind my favorite movies of

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Speaker 5: all time. She Have a Baby and Bottoms. Shiva Baby

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Speaker 5: is this claustrophobic indie hit that follows a college student

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Speaker 5: who runs into her sugar daddy and ex girlfriend while

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Speaker 5: at a shiva with her parents. And Bottoms is a

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Speaker 5: recent blockbuster about two lesbian losers who start a high

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Speaker 5: school fight club to try and lose their virginities to

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Speaker 5: the hot cheerleaders. Since Emma's films are redefining the canon

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Speaker 5: of queer comedies, movies that we'll for sure look back

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Speaker 5: on in retrospect, and because these are exactly the kinds

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Speaker 5: of things that Emma and I talk about, I invited

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Speaker 5: her on to chat about movie making today, queer representation

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Speaker 5: and how that's changing. Here's our conversation. Hi, Emma, Hello,

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Speaker 5: that's my intro for you.

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Speaker 6: I love that.

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Speaker 1: That's such a sweet intro.

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Speaker 5: So for our listeners who don't know your meteoric rise

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Speaker 5: and just every amazing thing that you've ever done, maybe

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Speaker 5: we'll give them just some brief background.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, I'm from Toronto where I am right now,

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Speaker 1: and I feel like I just grew up in a

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Speaker 1: family of film lovers, no one in the industry, but

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Speaker 1: in a community of people who love watching movies, which

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Speaker 1: is honestly most of the city of Toronto. I would say,

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Speaker 1: because of Tiff the film festival here. There's just something

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Speaker 1: about living here where everyone's very culturally in tuned with

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Speaker 1: what's out and I was always interested in movies. When

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Speaker 1: I was nine, I submitted a movie review for this

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Speaker 1: contest to become a juror for the kids Film festival

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Speaker 1: that tifferent.

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Speaker 4: Do you remember what the movie was for that you

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Speaker 4: wrote the review?

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Speaker 1: So my parents never took me to kids movies, and

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Speaker 1: they barely let me watch kids' TV shows if they

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Speaker 1: were in the room because they were bored by them.

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Speaker 1: So because this was my choice, because I got to

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Speaker 1: see the movie, I really wanted to see this ice

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Speaker 1: cube movie called Are We There Yet? Comedy about how

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Speaker 1: far one Man will go?

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Speaker 4: Hey, I want to say hi to the kids, I love.

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Speaker 1: You, to become part of the family. And I ended

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Speaker 1: up writing a bad review, which I didn't expect to

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Speaker 1: do because I think I was so snobby from the

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Speaker 1: taste that my parents had instilled in me that I

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Speaker 1: was like, this was cheesy and unrealistic, and I think

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Speaker 1: I was the only kid that submitted a review that

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Speaker 1: was like a bad review. But yeah, I did that

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Speaker 1: that festival, and that was the first time I'd really

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Speaker 1: seen a lot of foreign films and independent films, and

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Speaker 1: so I don't know, I feel really lucky. My parents

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Speaker 1: encouraged me to like watch movies whenever I wanted. I

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Speaker 1: didn't do sports or anything like that, so it was

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Speaker 1: just like that was my hobby. Samela girl same. We

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Speaker 1: all had to find something. And then I started directing

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Speaker 1: theater in high school and because I really loved acting

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Speaker 1: for fun, and then I just learned more and more

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Speaker 1: about acting through our drama program. Even though it wasn't

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Speaker 1: like an art school, it was just had good teachers

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Speaker 1: and I was really My mom was very encouraging about

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Speaker 1: me going to a US school, which is not an

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Speaker 1: easy decision to make when you're not from the US,

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Speaker 1: But I just figured if I got in and if

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Speaker 1: they were going to spend that kind of money, then

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Speaker 1: like I really needed to be serious about whatever I

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Speaker 1: was choosing to pursue. And then that's how I sort

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Speaker 1: of came.

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Speaker 5: To movies, and how you came into my life because

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Speaker 5: you moved to New York to go to NYU and

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Speaker 5: we met, I want to say, within the first week

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Speaker 5: of school welcome week.

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Speaker 1: That was like the first time we hung out.

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Speaker 5: That was ten years ago, and since then we've both

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Speaker 5: come out as not straight.

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Speaker 4: Love that for us.

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Speaker 5: So let's talk about the intersection of those two things,

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Speaker 5: your queerness and your movie making. So your first film

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Speaker 5: was Shiva Baby, which was a short film, your thesis film,

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Speaker 5: and then you went on to make the feature the

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Speaker 5: set of which I got to beyond for a couple

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Speaker 5: of days, which was just so fun to be a

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Speaker 5: fly on the wall and see you make that film.

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Speaker 5: But it was so different from Bottoms, and that was

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Speaker 5: like a tiny, non existent budget indie and then Bottoms

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Speaker 5: was this like huge, your first big studio film. You

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Speaker 5: have a huge cast, so many extras, these big high

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Speaker 5: school scenes, but like at its center are these hilarious,

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Speaker 5: incredible queer characters. And Shiva Baby, which also stars Rachel Sennett,

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Speaker 5: also has a bisexual character as the lead. And so

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Speaker 5: did you always know that you wanted to make movies

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Speaker 5: with queer characters at the center, or that just kind

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Speaker 5: of happened organically.

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Speaker 1: I think that happened organically. I think that, especially for

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Speaker 1: Shiva Baby, what drew me to that story was the

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Speaker 1: jewishness of it. I mean, I've known that I'm Jewish

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Speaker 1: for far longer than I've known that I'm queer. I

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Speaker 1: think as a kid, I saw myself more in the

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Speaker 1: Jewish characters and got more excited and seeing Jewishness on screen.

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Speaker 4: That's so interesting.

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Speaker 1: I'd only seen Jewishness portrayed on screen with a little

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Speaker 1: bit of hokeiness and like stereotype, super stereotypical characters, especially

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Speaker 1: when it came to Jewish women, you know, like the

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Speaker 1: Jewish mart So I've always been driven by telling Jewish

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Speaker 1: stories because that's my world. Those are the characters that

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Speaker 1: I know the best. Especially going into college, like before

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Speaker 1: I really had a sense of myself and my identity

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Speaker 1: as a as a young person or as an adult,

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Speaker 1: or as a queer person, or as a woman. Even

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Speaker 1: like I think that I felt like, Okay, I got

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Speaker 1: this community down.

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Speaker 7: Who died?

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Speaker 1: Ibby, Uncle PORNI is stuck? And wife Schuster you don't remember.

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Speaker 4: No, I don't think so she used to play bride

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Speaker 4: with Bobby?

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Speaker 1: Really?

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Speaker 7: Yeah, Oh, mamma, can't eat that?

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Speaker 1: Why not? I'm vegetarian. You're killing I've told you so

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Speaker 1: many times.

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Speaker 4: You've not eaten a single thing. Old, that's because we

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Speaker 4: just got here. You look like Gwyneth Paltrow on food stamps.

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Speaker 1: My God, and not in a good way. While developing

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Speaker 1: the short film in school, like my thesis, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: about this bisexual love story. It was about this girl,

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Speaker 1: you know, coming face to face with her lack of

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Speaker 1: self worth.

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Speaker 4: And running into her sugar daddy at a shiva.

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Speaker 1: Running into running into her sugar daddy at a shiva.

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Speaker 4: And incredible promise and sort of.

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Speaker 1: Letting that make her feel like a little child. And

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Speaker 1: that was the sort of main focus of that. And

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Speaker 1: then I started getting more curious about queer characters in

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Speaker 1: other genres of movies. I think Transparent really changed the

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Speaker 1: game in terms of.

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Speaker 5: Kind of that intersection of both of those things, right,

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Speaker 5: like seeing Jewish characters and different types of queerness, and

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Speaker 5: like different relationships with sex and real characters too.

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Speaker 3: Now that you want to be a woman all the time,

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Speaker 3: do you still want to date women?

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Speaker 1: If?

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Speaker 3: I mean, she's still me.

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Speaker 1: So you're a lesbian.

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Speaker 3: Well so we got gay married before it was fashionable.

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Speaker 1: That sort of was a real moment of feeling seen

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Speaker 1: in so many ways all in one, and that at

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Speaker 1: that point I was out. Yeah, I barely understood my

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Speaker 1: queerness yet, but I was aware of my identity and

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Speaker 1: also there's characters in that show who are discovering their

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Speaker 1: sexual identity, right, many of them are discovering their queerness

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Speaker 1: in different ways.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and so with Bottoms, did you know that you

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Speaker 5: wanted it to be this like queer teen comedy or

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Speaker 5: did you want to make a teen comedy and the

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Speaker 5: queerness just followed.

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Speaker 1: I knew that I wanted to make a teen comedy

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Speaker 1: and that I wanted it to be queer from the

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Speaker 1: get go. Yeah, there was no we'll see what the

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Speaker 1: sexualities of these characters are.

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Speaker 5: We teach a bunch of girls how to defend themselves

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Speaker 5: against the evil Huntington Killers.

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Speaker 7: They are grateful to us. We build the community, we bond,

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Speaker 7: we share, we connect or punching each other, adrenaline is flowing.

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Speaker 7: Next thing you know Isabelle and bringing all kissing as

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Speaker 7: on the mouse.

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Speaker 1: I think that once I figured out that I was queer,

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Speaker 1: had lived a little bit of a queer life for

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Speaker 1: a few years, I think that that just changed every

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Speaker 1: sort of movie that I dreamed up in my head.

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Speaker 1: But I really missed the teen movies of our childhood

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Speaker 1: and of just before our childhood that really honored the

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Speaker 1: teen characters as humans and as people and honored them

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Speaker 1: with quality filmmaking that at the time I don't think

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Speaker 1: we appreciated because teen movies would always get bad reviews,

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Speaker 1: especially if they were female driven, like it was geesy

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Speaker 1: and unrealistic, and they were repeating the same sort of

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Speaker 1: storyline about a bet or some sort of lie, or

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Speaker 1: you know, turning Shakespeare on its set or whatever. So

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Speaker 1: that was part of why I wanted to make a

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Speaker 1: teen movie, and I think also one of our producers,

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Banks say is something like, you can't underestimate how

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Speaker 1: much young people want to see themselves on screen. I

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Speaker 1: think that when it comes to seeing myself and seeing

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Speaker 1: other queer people on screen, then teen movies were the

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Speaker 1: first place that I went to, probably because those were

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Speaker 1: the movies that I like, loved the most growing up,

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Speaker 1: and also feel the most universal. I think that no

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Speaker 1: matter how old you are, or what your gender is

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Speaker 1: or your sexuality is, everyone can relate to a teen

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Speaker 1: movie to a certain degree.

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Speaker 4: I didn't even realize.

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Speaker 5: I guess I had associated teen movies so near and

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Speaker 5: dear to my heart because I watched them semi around

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Speaker 5: that age, But in reality, I actually still hold them

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Speaker 5: close to my heart because I think that that time

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Speaker 5: in your life, the stakes feel so high, and so

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Speaker 5: everything just feels important and it is important, and so

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Speaker 5: playing within that world and that genre is just so

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Speaker 5: fun because I think everyone's on board.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's why Olivia Rodrigo music like hits so hard

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Speaker 1: for anyone of any age, but older millennials especially.

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Speaker 6: Because Ali, if you're listening, no, because it's like that

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Speaker 6: time just feels so oh unnecessarily emotional, and it's easy

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Speaker 6: for people to put themselves back in those or maybe

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Speaker 6: not easy, but there's a frame of reference that you can,

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Speaker 6: you know, put yourself back in when you're watching these

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Speaker 6: youthful stories.

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Speaker 5: Speaking of teen movies and how we're growing up during

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Speaker 5: what I would say is like a golden age of

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Speaker 5: the teen movie cannon in the nineties and early two thousands.

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Speaker 5: Can you talk to us a bit about some of

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Speaker 5: your references for bottoms or any sort of inspo that

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Speaker 5: you had.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I do think the late nineties, early

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Speaker 1: two thousands, the Kirsten Duntz era was the heyday of

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Speaker 1: teen movies. Everything from the super campy cult classics like

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Speaker 1: Dropped at Gorgeous.

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Speaker 2: I never liked her but she didn't deserve to die

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Speaker 2: in the belly of a swim like that.

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Speaker 1: And Dick.

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Speaker 2: You can't let Dick run your life.

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Speaker 1: Bring it on, it's not a democracy, it's a cheerocracy. Jawbreakers,

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Speaker 1: Like there's those like can't be female driven, often dark

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Speaker 1: kind of movie. Yeah, and then there were like the

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Speaker 1: male driven comedies like American Pie, which I loved growing up.

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Speaker 1: And then I Love you know, I mean ten days

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Speaker 1: I hit about you. She's all that. I think that

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Speaker 1: as we got into the early two or the mid

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Speaker 1: two thousands, you know, we were very lucky and I

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Speaker 1: mean it like She's the Man, and Mean Girls felt

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Speaker 1: really female driven in a strong way that was like

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Speaker 1: complicated and fun and silly and stupid, and yeah, got

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Speaker 1: to sort of place these women at the center of

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Speaker 1: these like funny ensemble movies that had also like a

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Speaker 1: little bit of edgy humor to them despite the fact

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Speaker 1: that they were PG. Thirteen, you know, like especially Mean Girls.

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Speaker 1: And then there were still more not Broie, but there

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Speaker 1: were more boy driven teen adventure movies also around that time,

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Speaker 1: like kick Ass is one of my favorite movies in

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Speaker 1: Scott Pilgrim.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you love an adventure movie.

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Speaker 1: I love any say the day, fighting to get the girl,

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Speaker 1: fighting to save the world and doing it with your

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Speaker 1: friends and being stupid, and then of course super Bad,

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Speaker 1: which just changed the game in terms of just how

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Speaker 1: funny teen movies can be. Yeah, just how funny the

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Speaker 1: teen sex comedy can be. I mean, American Pie was hilarious,

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Speaker 1: but super Bad that changed the genre as well.

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Speaker 2: This guy's either gonna think here's another kid with a

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Speaker 2: fake ID.

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Speaker 1: Or here's mclovin, the twenty five year old Hawaiian organ donors.

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Speaker 7: So what's it gonna be?

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Speaker 1: I am mclovin.

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Speaker 5: I feel like a lot of the things that I'm

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Speaker 5: seeing because I famously will consume absolutely any piece of

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Speaker 5: content that is both teen and queer. Is that a

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Speaker 5: lot of the storyline are kind of moving away from

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Speaker 5: showing sex or horny characters. And maybe this is because

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Speaker 5: for so long that was like the only thing that

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Speaker 5: was focused on, Like people are just obsessed with like,

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Speaker 5: but how do queer people have sex? So it's either

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Speaker 5: like a coming out or traumatic story or it's like

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Speaker 5: so dripping in sexuality that there's no nuance and they're

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Speaker 5: not complete human characters. Is that something that you're noticing

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Speaker 5: as well in terms of queer representation, horniness, first, innocence,

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Speaker 5: all that jazz.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, I understand that critique of sort of telling

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Speaker 1: queer stories that go beyond what our sex lives look

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Speaker 1: like and how sex works and trying to explain that

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Speaker 1: to a straight audience. But I think that when it

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Speaker 1: comes to telling queer stories for young characters, with young characters,

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Speaker 1: I'm very grateful for the amount of progress we've made

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Speaker 1: in queer representation over the last even like five to

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Speaker 1: ten years, you know, But I think that there's almost

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Speaker 1: been a little bit of a course correction because is

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Speaker 1: for so long not to get like too deep into it,

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Speaker 1: but queers were in media or in our culture seen

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Speaker 1: as perverted and mentally ill and on the outskirts of

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Speaker 1: society and fucked up, And so our media representation has

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Speaker 1: done a one to eighty where we're trying to showcase

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Speaker 1: that queers, especially queer teens, are human too and right

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Speaker 1: just sex obsessed perverts and have emotions and have crushes

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Speaker 1: and have innocence and have sweetness and have problems in

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Speaker 1: our lives. But I just don't know, especially in the

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Speaker 1: world we live in today, any teens that aren't having

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Speaker 1: sex shoved down their metaphorical throats. Like sex is everywhere,

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Speaker 1: and it's talked about so much, and it's fed to

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Speaker 1: us through so much media when we're young, and the

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Speaker 1: talking about sex, whether or not you're having it, or

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Speaker 1: wanting to have sex or not wanting to have sex,

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Speaker 1: or thinking about the to have sex or whatever like,

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Speaker 1: is so pushed upon young people. So I can't relate

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Speaker 1: to a world in which you're a teen and you

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Speaker 1: don't know about sex or have any interest in talking

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Speaker 1: about it or thinking about it, And so in telling

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Speaker 1: stories about teens in general, I just think that that

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Speaker 1: sex is part of it.

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Speaker 5: You said that, like you definitely saw yourself in Jewish characters,

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Speaker 5: but was there, ever, like, even before you were out,

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Speaker 5: any sort of like queer representation that made you think, oh,

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Speaker 5: that's something else. Because I feel that way sometimes when

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Speaker 5: I'm watching things now, or I'm like, I wonder would

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Speaker 5: I have come out sooner if I had all of

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Speaker 5: these shows and movies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not as simple as like, oh, I'm in

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Speaker 1: high school and I see a gay movie and I go, oh,

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Speaker 1: that makes.

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Speaker 5: Sense, that's me, right, which is often the conversation about representation,

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Speaker 5: like it is so important and it does matter, but

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Speaker 5: it's not so simple as like and then I see

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Speaker 5: myself represented and now I know who I am and

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Speaker 5: I'm okay.

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Speaker 1: With it, and I'm so okay with it.

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Speaker 5: No, it's going to introduce a lot of questioning existential crises.

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Speaker 5: But did you was there anything that kind of sent

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Speaker 5: you spiraling like that that you watched when you were younger.

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Speaker 1: I didn't have anything that sent me spiraling, but I

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Speaker 1: definitely felt like when I would catch moments of queer

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Speaker 1: women on screen, it would freak me out and make

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Speaker 1: me feel like, honestly like disgusted a little bit. I

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Speaker 1: would never say that a loud or anything, but I yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that one that probably has to do with

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Speaker 1: the lack of just a lack of representation, like queer

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Speaker 1: men have been advancing on screen quicker or you know,

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Speaker 1: historically more than queer women. And two also because clearly

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Speaker 1: there was something deep down that was ashamed or something. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I remember catching like bits of but

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Speaker 1: I'm a cheerleader or Debs on TV and being like, eugh.

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Speaker 1: I think the biggest moment, which is such a cliche.

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Speaker 1: But when I saw Jennifer's body in theaters, I think

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Speaker 1: I was twelve or thirteen, and during that kiss between

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Speaker 1: Megan Fox and Amanda Siphred, I remember feeling horny and

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Speaker 1: was freaked out. I was like, this is not.

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Speaker 4: Good, and you're very we have a problem.

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Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. I was like, m this is not appropriate.

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Speaker 1: Like I see men and women kissing all the time,

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Speaker 1: I don't have this feeling. Not that I was thinking

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Speaker 1: that consciously about it, but I was like, oh, you

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Speaker 1: know that sound. I think that I found it easier

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Speaker 1: to watch and enjoy storylines with queer male characters because

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Speaker 1: it allowed me to see something I hadn't seen where

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Speaker 1: it was like touching a part of my soul and heart,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't so close to home where I saw

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Speaker 1: myself and got freaked out.

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Speaker 5: So as we're wrapping up from the super fun and

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Speaker 5: flirty convo with my bestie, I guess my question to you,

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Speaker 5: Emma is like, what do you hope to see from

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Speaker 5: queer filmmakers? Like moving forward? Like what are you kind

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Speaker 5: of excited about? What do you want to see on screen?

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Speaker 1: Honestly like I don't. I'm just more excited I'm just

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Speaker 1: so excited for queer filmmakers to make whatever they want

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Speaker 1: to make and to indulge in whatever their imagination wants

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Speaker 1: to to sort of provide to us that we're lucky

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Speaker 1: enough to receive. I think that I would love to

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Speaker 1: see more queer characters just like live in their lives.

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Speaker 1: I know that sounds so basic, but I think that

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Speaker 1: the more specific the representation is, the more universal it is.

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Speaker 4: For sure.

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Speaker 1: I think I'm most interested in seeing career stories that

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Speaker 1: are highly specific that give us windows and peaks into

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Speaker 1: queer people's lives, in their relationships and in their communities

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Speaker 1: and in their friendships, because that is the way that

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Speaker 1: I sort of discover my queerness and more about myself

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Speaker 1: and what it means to, you know, to be queer

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Speaker 1: or be in a community that's that's that's not part

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Speaker 1: of the mainstream. So again, I'm excited to see whatever

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Speaker 1: it is that queer filmmakers want to do in the

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Speaker 1: next generation. But I'm most excited, I think, into continuing

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Speaker 1: to tell intimate queer stories that feel highly specific and

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Speaker 1: therefore more authentic and universal.

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Speaker 4: I love that.

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Speaker 2: I love that too, Susie, You and I are back

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Speaker 2: next week. What do we have in store?

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Speaker 3: I've been dying to talk about a scene in Devilwaar's

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Speaker 3: product that has me thinking about women and work and

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Speaker 3: ambition and honestly my own ambition. So that's what we're going.

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Speaker 2: To get into. Ooh, can't wait.

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Speaker 4: This is in Retrospect.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. Is there a pop culture moment you

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Speaker 3: can't stop thinking about and want us to explore in

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Speaker 3: a future episode? Email us at in retropod at email

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Speaker 3: dot com or find us on Instagram at in retropod.

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Speaker 2: If you love this podcast, please rate and review us

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Speaker 2: on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you

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Speaker 2: hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,

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Speaker 2: which we may or may not delete.

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Speaker 3: You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett

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Speaker 3: and at Susie b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books Feminist,

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Speaker 3: Fike Club, and This Is eighteen.

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Speaker 2: In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and the Media.

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Speaker 2: Lauren Hanson is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our

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Speaker 2: engineer and sound designer. Emily Meronoff is our producer. Jaron

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Speaker 2: Atia is our researcher and associate producer.

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Speaker 3: Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our

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Speaker 3: executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stemp and Katrina Norbel.

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Speaker 3: Our artwork is from Pentagrieve. Our mixing engineer is Amanda Rosemith.

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Speaker 3: Additional editing help from Mary Do. We are your hosts

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Speaker 3: Susie Bannacarum and Jessica Bennett.

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Speaker 2: We are also executive producers. For even more, check out

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Speaker 2: inretropod dot dot com. See you next week, MHM.