LOS ANGELES, May 8 (UPI) -- Jillian Bell says her comedy Summer of 69, premiering Friday on Hulu, contains valuable information for young women. Bell co-wrote and directed the film, which stars Chloe Fineman as a stripper hired by a teenager to teach her about sex.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Bell, 41, said it was important to show that women have sexual desires. Teen comedies have typically been dominated by horny guys, from Fast Times at Ridgemont High to American Pie.
"It's so refreshing to show that women have sexual feelings," Bell said. "They're sexual beings."
Furthermore, Fineman's Santa Monica teaches high schooler Abby (Sam Morelos) things Bell wishes she knew as a teen. Abby wants to learn the sexual position 69 to impress her longtime crush Max (Matt Cornett) but Santa Monica realizes she needs to teach Abby the basics first.
"It's not as fun for the guy if he's just getting off," Bell said. "Of course, [for] some selfish guys it is, but they actually would love for you to enjoy yourself too and that's actually the best sex possible. If I was a young woman and heard that, that would be a total game changer."
Bell related to virginal gamer Abby in the script from Jules Byrne and Liz Nico. She contributed to the script when Hulu asked her to direct the film.
"We were both late bloomers," Bell said of Abby. "We're both socially awkward. I definitely like to make people laugh so I was probably a little bit more of an extrovert."
Bell's additions to the story were partially inspired by her older sister, Breanna Bell-Singer, who is a producer on Summer of 69. Santa Monica teaches Abby many of the basics of female adulthood that Breanna taught Bell growing up.
"She is the person who I went to to ask any question that I was scared to ask anyone else," Bell said. "You know, why is my body changing? What's happening? Why do my armpits smell? What is a 69? That genuinely was a question I asked her."
Santa Monica agrees to help Abby after the teen offers to pay her $20,000 she was saving up from her video game livestream. Santa Monica plans to use the money to save her strip club.
The other strippers are played by Liza Koshy, Nicole Byer and Paula Pell. Koshy and Byer had dance experience and Fineman took lessons, with Pell providing the film's requisite gratuitous nudity.
"She's like, 'Do you want to show my boobs? They're great,'" Bell said. "And I was like, 'That's the coolest sentence I've ever heard and absolutely, we would love to show one.'"
The film's actual nudity is a punchline, while the other dances are legitimately sexy because Abby sees how enthralled the male patrons are by them.
"I'm all about comfort over anything else," Bell said. "So whatever they wanted to wear, however they wanted to look. It was just important to me they felt however they felt the sexiest. I just wanted them to feel good in their own skin."
Bell herself is an actress and comedian who trained in the comedy group The Groundlings and starred on Workaholics for seven seasons. She appeared in movies like 22 Jump Street, Office Christmas Party and Bill & Ted Face the Music and starred in Brittany Runs a Marathon and Godmothered.
Today, Bell says directing is "all I want to do now." She got the bug after directing a music video for Ben Abraham.
"Everything that could've gone wrong basically did and it was still my most favorite day of working," Bell said. "So I figured maybe I will like directing as much as I feel I might. Shooting Summer of 69 was just absolutely life changing."
