Raunchy sex comedies have explored losing one’s virginity since the early ’80s when flicks like Porky’s (1981) and, later, American Pie (1999) celebrated teen boys popping their cherries to high fives from their peers. Meanwhile, high school girls in films from Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) to Easy A (2010) have paid for their sexual escapades, even when merely lying about losing it. But Hulu’s new hit comedy, Summer of 69 (which has nothing to do with hippies or Woodstock and everything to do with that notoriously reciprocal sex act), turns the sex comedy trope on its head.
The comedy centers on Abby (Sam Morelos), a teen girl desperate to learn how to 69 to win over the guy of her dreams, Max (Matt Cornett). When Abby enlists a stripper (her preferred term), Chloe Fineman’s Santa Monica, as a sex pedagogue, the disparate duo discover true friendship. Beyond that central platonic love story, Santa Monica’s goal is to save the strip club Diamond Dolls, owned by the louche Betty Spaghetti (Girls5Eva’s Paula Pell) and the sisterhood of dancers there before it’s sold to Rick (Charlie Day). He's a bombastic loser who cares nothing for the chosen family the women have made there.
“I originally got the script, and I was sort of like, Huh, a film about 69-ing. I would never picture that would be my directorial debut,” director and cowriter Jillian Bell tells Out. "And then the more I got into it, I was like, This can be a weird metaphor for what these ladies end up doing for each other and how they end up helping each other on their journey.”
Sam Morelos as Abby and Chloe Fineman as Santa Monica in Summer of 69Disney/Brett Roedel
“Hopefully we can start the movie off and sort of give them a typical teen comedy of what you've seen before, of Will the girl get the guy will the guy get the girl? kind of a thing,” Bell says of the script she wrote with Liz Nico and Jules Byrne. “And then it sort of detours into a film about a female relationship and about sexuality and about how much shame there can be around what women don't know about their own bodies and sex. And that to me felt like a story we're telling.”
The movie is rife with raunchy sex comedy staples like drunken house parties and gross-out gags while Sam endeavors to perfect the art of the 69 (since her high school mascot informed her it’s Max’s favorite position). She and Santa Monica enter into a business relationship with daily training sessions, readying Sam for the main event with Max one day. As in any rom-com setup, though this one is platonic, they’re opposites who barely endure one another until, one day, they realize how much they mean to each other.
Liza Koshy, Paula Pell, Nicole Byer, and Chloe Fineman in Summer of 69Disney/Brett Roedel
Morelos (That ’90s Show) was drawn to the friendship that develops between Abby and her pole-dancing mentor.
“It's my favorite part of the movie because female friendship, too, is just so fulfilling and lovely,” Morelos says. … "To have that on-screen, it's just something that needs to be seen a little more, not just in a Bechdel test way, but showing younger people or showing the world that platonic relationships are just as important, if not more important than romantic relationships.”
One of Saturday Night Live’s MVP’s, Fineman played alongside one of her heroes, groundbreaking SNL writer Pell, a lesbian who penned enduring sketches including the Spartan Cheerleaders and Debbie Downer.
“Weirdly, there's so much natural empowerment in the relationships that are in the movie. [And] weirdly also kind of were inspired from real stuff that would happen on set. When Paula started at SNL, it was like Paula, another gal, and then Adam McKay and all the Harvard guys," Fineman says. And I feel like it's so hard to get certain points of view on my own forever [on SNL]. But the mountain that Paula climbed. And to be that much of a legend when you're one of two women. I was empowered just by Paula as a person, and then that was translated into the strip club [scenes].”
Chloe Fineman, Sam Morelos, and Jillian Bell in Summer of 69Disney/Brett Roedel
The denouement in Summer of 69 isn’t what happens between Abby and Max, though he’s another character who smashes stereotypes and ends up being a good guy who wants more than sex. In a grand gesture to win back her friend Santa Monica, Abby performs (a PG-rated dance) at Diamond Dolls to raise money to save it and the jobs of other dancers, played by Nicole Byer and Liza Koshy. When that fails, Santa Monica’s former classmate and would-be rival Robin, played by out actor Natalie Morales, saves the day with an 11th-hour investment. Again, the movie subverts a tired trope, this time the notion that women can't be friends and won't support each other.
“What was so special about the script and also just the making of this movie is sisterhood and how different it feels to be on a set where you have a female DP and you have Jillian Bell and Jillian's producer is her sister [Breanna Bell],” Fineman says. “There's just a language of women that is comfortable and safe and funny, and a lot of humor comes from that, and trust.”
“There’s this notion [that] strippers are just for men and pleasure, but it's actually, there's this whole other side of it where it's like so empowering. You feel sexy for yourself, you're doing it for you,” Fineman adds. “I felt like we really touched on that and the making of the movie and the whole experience felt very empowering.”
Watch the full interview with Bell, Morelos, and Fineman above. Summer of 69 is now streaming on Hulu.
