"Bottoms" reframes the meaning of ugly

"It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question. The master had said, 'You are ugly people.' They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, every glance. 'Yes,' they had said. 'You are right.' And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it. Dealing with it each according to his way."   – Toni Morrison, "The Bluest Eye"

"Bottoms" begins with best friends PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) primping in front of a mirror with typical teenage self-involvement, prepping for a pre-senior year carnival where they hope to be noticed by the cheerleaders they're crushing on, Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber).  

These two are typical awkward high schoolers, which is to say they're horny and style deficient. Unlike Molly Ringwald's Andie Walsh, the creative outsider heroine of "Pretty in Pink," they don't have a knack for putting quirky outfits together, leaving the frills to other girls. PJ tosses together a busted homage to Britney Spears that the object of her lust describes as making her look like a Dutch boy.