An audacious film necessitates audacious writing and, in the case of Joy Ride, audacious brainstorming sessions. When the comedy’s screenwriters, Teresa Hsiao and Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, were developing a sex scene involving a Theragun and a basketball, they decided to test out the sequence themselves. (Incorporating unique props required unraveling some complex physics.) Hsiao grabbed a basketball, positioned it between her legs, lay down on her back, and Chevapravatdumrong went to town with the Theragun. “We believe in being authentic… I mean, it’s like, ‘Write what you know’,” deadpanned Chevapravatdumrong during our Zoom conversation. “So we had to know it first.”
Joy Ride, a road-trip comedy currently playing in theaters, skillfully weaves together different tones and locations as it follows the journey of Audrey (portrayed by Ashley Park), a lawyer who embarks on a trip to China with a group of mismatched friends to finalize a business deal and search for her birth mother. The film is part of a flourishing summer lineup of sex comedies, which represents a once-dominant genre in need of revival. No Hard Feelings, which dominated the box office upon its release in June, follows Maddie (played by Jennifer Lawrence in a screwball role), a 32-year-old Uber driver who pretends to date a wealthy 19-year-old in order to save her family home. Bottoms, a forthcoming film from Emma Seligman, the writer-director of Shiva Baby, tells the story of two teenagers who go to extreme lengths to sleep with the most popular cheerleaders at their high school, including starting a female fight club. Bottoms hits theaters in August.
Out of these films, Joy Ride—despite the Theragun incident—may be the most explicit, particularly when contrasted with the surprisingly heartfelt No Hard Feelings. Nevertheless, all three movies challenge stereotypes about women in sex comedies and, within a post-#MeToo and pandemic-tested landscape, question the notion that exploring evolving social norms around sex can’t be enjoyable. Moreover, they provide a thoroughly satisfying viewing experience—especially in a theater, where one can gasp and gape at the most absurd moments alongside a packed crowd. The resurgence of R-rated raunch in cinemas “truly feels like a pivotal moment for humanity,” marveled Hsiao, “in an absolutely insane way.” These films are much more than a mere collection of crude jokes; they reflect the evolving attitudes towards sex—the most primal and taboo of human impulses.
When it comes to creating a successful modern sex comedy, infusing it with a layer of meaningful emotion may be the most crucial ingredient. Just examine the films that served as touchstones for the writers of Joy Ride and Bottoms. Girls Trip revolves around a protagonist trying to navigate a troubled marriage. Bridesmaids derives its humor from the main character’s fear of being left behind as her friends embrace adulthood. Superbad delves into the separation anxiety that accompanies graduation and the transition to college. Seligman explained over the phone that finding the emotional core of Bottoms transformed the movie into something “slightly more grounded than we initially intended,” with crude humor and absurdity serving as a Trojan horse for a deeper storyline.
Consider the most outrageous scenes in Joy Ride. When Kat (Stephanie Hsu), Audrey’s college friend, accidentally reveals an explicit tattoo on her private area, the revelation shocks and alters the dynamics within the group of friends, subverting Kat’s self-righteous attitude. When the buttoned-up, career-driven Audrey engages in a wild threesome, the chaos is delightful because she finally breaks free from her inhibitions. “If a scene is rooted in a genuine character moment,” noted Chevapravatdumrong, “it’s not just a joke for the sake of being offensive.”
Thankfully, the writers of Joy Ride and Bottoms are also grappling with the pressure of being considered groundbreaking in the realm of Hollywood. The former is the first major studio sex comedy led by an Asian ensemble, while the latter is a rare teenage-centered project that handles queer desire, particularly between female partners, with both gravity and riotous humor. Navigating the inclusion of sex as a prominent element in these stories while also addressing the unsexy topic of representation posed a unique challenge during the writing process. “I wouldn’t say prudish,” Seligman shared, “but I do think we find ourselves in a peculiar turning point where, as a female director creating movies about sex, I feel extra cautious.”
When I mentioned that Joy Ride is considered a groundbreaking film, Hsiao and Chevapravatdumrong chuckled, as they had heard this statement so often that it had become an inside joke among the cast and crew. They aimed to make their script amusing to a wide audience by utilizing their characters’ racial backgrounds as a source of humor, but not the punchline. In one scene, the friends pretend to be members of a K-pop band, providing a special treat for fanatics who can appreciate the nuances of the parody, while also extracting laughter from the exaggerated commitment of the ensemble and their subsequent inability to convince anyone that they are highly-trained performers. “If someone who is less familiar with Asian culture watches our movie and laughs heartily but also feels like they’ve learned something along the way, that’s incredible,” said Chevapravatdumrong. Hsiao added that the goal is to encourage viewers to seek out further knowledge if they don’t immediately grasp a punchline.
Bottoms takes a different approach. The film follows the story of two best friends, PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), who, after a rumor circulates that they spent their summer in prison, seize the opportunity to exploit their newfound tough-girl personas by starting a fight club. Although their initial aim is to teach self-defense, the entire endeavor is a ploy to attract their crushes. The film’s high-concept plot contributes to its hyper-specific tone, drawing inspiration from not only raunchy comedies, but also action-packed romps, dark comedies, and satires like Heathers, Shaun of the Dead, and But I’m a Cheerleader. PJ and Josie’s club is an outrageously violent operation, involving bombs and an escalating body count, supported by a script that layers multilayered jokes that are both mischievous and incisive.
One scene, in particular, surprises audiences during screenings, according to Seligman. Ecstatic that the cheerleaders they have their eyes on have joined their club, PJ and Josie attempt to foster deeper connections by encouraging everyone to share their personal traumas. They ask the members to raise their hands if they’ve experienced sexual assault, explicitly noting that “gray-area stuff counts too.” In response, each member raises their hand, creating a moment that is simultaneously solemn and funny. PJ and Josie never intended for their venture to be empowering; they were simply seeking gratification. Yet, their pursuit of emotional connection inadvertently leads to the exposure of harsh realities.
Seligman believes that the audience’s laughter stems from the scene’s unexpected candidness. “Sex is a massive part of our culture and world,” she explained. “From our perspective, if we can’t make movies that make us laugh about a subject that affects all of us, it feels incredibly inhibiting… Far too often, female characters in sex comedies are portrayed as clueless, exclaiming, ‘Oh my God, this is insane! What’s a vibrator?'” Bottoms defies that naivety. By delivering its most risqué jokes with sincerity, the film satirizes the absurdity of high school dynamics while reminding viewers that teenage girls have seldom been realistically portrayed in prior films of a similar nature.
The release of these films demonstrates that a fresh perspective within a familiar genre can greatly expand the cultural narrative. However, the greatest pleasure in watching them, particularly when viewed consecutively, lies in their distinctive qualities. No Hard Feelings, the mildest entry, showcases a movie star who clearly sought a lively and lighthearted project. Joy Ride boasts an abundance of crass jokes and flamboyant set pieces that showcase the depth of its characters. Bottoms, with its over-the-top premise, allows for astute observations about teenage desire. Writing a sex comedy has been a cathartic experience for Chevapravatdumrong, Hsiao, and Seligman, something that “came naturally,” as Chevapravatdumrong put it, because they were writing from a genuinely human perspective.
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