You know the setup: one boy, the underdog, is compelled to face off with a boy with extra social clout — and, probably, extra muscle mass. They’re within the health club, the hallway, or the schoolyard, and by the point the final punch is thrown, the underdog, our hero, has taken his first steps into manhood.

For a long time the college scrap was a prevailing coming-of-age trope in films and TV. The ’80s produced a number of the most memorable scenes, whether or not it was Clifford versus Moody in “My Bodyguard” or Ralphie versus Scut in “A Christmas Story.” Then in 1993, Richard Linklater gave us the memorable freshmen versus the paddle-swinging Fred O’Bannion and his cohort of sadistic seniors in “Dazed and Confused”; and in 2002, Sam Raimi provided Peter Parker decking Flash Thomspon in highschool. Even SpongeBob has discovered himself caught in a boating school scuffle with a classmate.

But teen brawling onscreen has since advanced to turning into greater than only a metaphor for boys on the cusp of maturity studying to claim their masculinity. Nowhere is that this extra obvious than within the queer intercourse comedy “Bottoms,” which de-genders and subverts the boorish maleness of the college tussle as a male developmental milestone, finally making it about younger girls asserting their identities and pushing again towards conference.

PJ and Josie are greatest associates who begin a feminine battle membership at their highschool, with the objective of dropping their virginity to 2 in style cheerleaders. The whole premise of this delightfully absurd offbeat comedy is based on two younger girls utilizing a story typically tied to masculinity to their benefit. PJ particularly fashions the idea of the extracurricular on “Fight Club,” which additionally works as a meta-commentary: The women in “Bottoms” are flipping gender in the identical approach “Bottoms” itself is remodeling the testosterone-pumped, fist-bumping, male-targeted style of battle films like that much-worshipped movie. (“I love David Fincher,” one of many women gushes concerning the “Fight Club” director in passing as she walks into the first club meeting.)

Whereas that Brad Pitt car rewards the savagery of its virile males with intercourse, violence and destruction, their aggression brimming with homoerotic undertones, “Bottoms” gives its women the identical gratification, however with extra comedy and specific queerness.

PJ and Josie take male posturing to the acute, capitalizing on a rumor about their being hardened juvenile delinquents. Even when it appears they’ll be referred to as on their bluff, they double down, as when, early of their charade, PJ goads Josie into punching her in entrance of the group of their friends and Josie finally ends up on the ground smiling, blood streaking down her chin. The women’ recognition soars. So does their self-confidence. Somehow, these women aimlessly bruise and bloody each other into a way of camaraderie, even newfound power.

The film’s wry gender subversions prolong to its ridiculous depiction of PJ and Josie’s male friends, particularly the jocks, who spend the complete film of their soccer uniforms. Despite these guys sporting the armor of masculine dude-bros — actually, protecting shoulder pads included — “Bottoms” typically makes them effeminate. They match extra squarely right into a misogynist’s stereotype of girls: They’re petty, delicate, underhanded and, finally, those who want saving by the top of the film. (The one notable exception is an instance of the other excessive, masculinity gone wild within the type of a feral male scholar who spends his faculty days locked in a cage.)

Another current movie, “Miguel Wants to Fight,” on Hulu, additionally pokes holes in shows of violent masculinity, albeit with much less of a payoff. Miguel is a teenage boy who additionally doesn’t actually meet the factors for the uber-masculine Tyler Durden kind. He lives in a neighborhood the place combating is every little thing: Kids get into brawls on the common, and guys who dominate within the boxing ring are revered as native heroes. Despite all this, and the truth that his father is a boxing coach, Miguel is the one one among his associates who hasn’t been in a battle. When Miguel learns his household’s transferring in per week, he decides he should get right into a battle earlier than he leaves.

But Miguel hesitates on the sidelines as his three buddies come to blows with one other group of friends. The one scuffle he will get into includes extra awkward embraces than punches. Miguel is extra apt to make associates with an opponent than battle them. Even his fantasy battle sequences, by which he imagines himself because the star of his personal anime or martial arts film, generally finish with him emasculated. In one, he wears a yellow tracksuit like Bruce Lee’s in “Game of Death” as he faces off towards a bully; even after Miguel lands a strike the bully merely laughs and asks why he’s “dressed like the chick from ‘Kill Bill.’”

Instead of framing the battle as Miguel’s nice hurdle to self-assurance and maturity, the film reveals how Miguel’s obsession with combating is misguided, only a distraction from the nervousness and sorrow he feels about transferring away from his associates. The strain Miguel places on himself is all inside; he thinks his father desires a fighter son when his father simply desires him to be pleased and protected. Every battle state of affairs both causes Miguel embarrassment or ends with him selfishly alienating his associates. And when Miguel does lastly get right into a battle, it’s not the heroic, cinematic expertise he imagined. In reality, he says to his buddy, “It sucked,” throwing in an expletive for good measure.

This is the final word subversion that the 2 movies pull off: While “Bottoms” ends with its feminine protagonists entering into a large, bloody gladiator-esque battle and reigning victorious, the coming-of-age film that’s truly a couple of boy getting right into a battle ends with a 36-second tussle and a candy reconciliation between bros.

So maybe that previous saying is improper: Fighting is generally the reply. It simply will depend on who’s throwing the punches — and what’s at stake.