Pitch Perfect 2
When Representation Goes Horribly Wrong
The Plot: This won’t be a spoiler-filled review like my previous review for Avengers 2. The issues I feel strongest about aren’t even relevant to the plot so that shouldn’t be a problem. Basically, if you’ve seen the trailers, then you know what’s going to happen. The Barden Bellas have been on a roll since we last saw them, winning the national championships at Lincoln Center three years in a row. In fact, they’ve become such a dynasty that Chloe (Brittany Snow) has purposely failed college three years in a row to stay with the group. However, things go very wrong at a performance for the president where Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) has a wardrobe malfunction that gets the Bellas banned from collegiate competition. Their only hope is to win the world championships in Copenhagen against Das Sound Machine, a German supergroup that performs with military precision.
To be honest, the movie oddly shares a lot of plot similarities with D2: The Mighty Ducks. In both films, our returning champions are underdogs on the international stage, need fresh blood to survive (for the Bellas, it’s in the form of legacy member Emily whose original songs might give them the edge at the big showdown), and they compete against a Aryan ideal powerhouse team (just put in Iceland for Germany and you have D2, I swear).
I won’t tell you if they win or lose, but if you know how comedies work, you can probably guess.
I will say, overall, the lead character subplots are interesting. Emily Junk, the new girl, is played with aplomb and cute awkwardness by Hailee Steinfeld and I enjoyed veteran actress Katey Sagal as her mother and a legendary Bella from days of old. Emily is clearly being groomed to be the lead in the third installment and I could get behind her college adventures. Second, I like that Beca’s (Anna Kendrick) big plot is about her career. She’s torn between her time with the Bellas and the needs of a new internship for her record producer boss, played by Keegan-Michael Key in a scene stealing role. College films about freshman year and partying are common; those that address the anxiety seniors face when graduating and “What next” are rare, and this handled that story line well. Finally, Fat Amy, fleshed out to basically a co-lead of the film, struggles with commitment issues and agonizes over a decision whether or not to officially date Bumper (Adam Devine).
Overall, this is used as the thin plot and subplots for key set pieces that are bigger and better than the original. This time around, the riff-off shouldn’t work at all and has a nonsensical yet hilarious cameo by the Green Bay Packers, but it’s far more enjoyable than the first film’s version. Similarly, the interlude where the girls go to an executive retreat camp to team build to me is the best part of the film because we feel grounded again with Aubrey (Anna Camp) in the lead. Moreover, the fire scene, where they’re genuinely sharing their fears about graduation with each other, is moving. It’s especially gratifying to see the new group twist on the staple of the first film: it’s breakout single “Cups.” The final performance in Copenhagen is especially moving and focuses on sisterhood, girl power songs, and really hits the heart of a legacy like the Bellas or a sorority-like group.
So what’s my problem?
Oh dear lord, we’ll get there.
The Good:
- The music is even better this time around. I really can’t help but laugh at hip-hop and country songs sung well with thick German accents. The original Bellas’ song is catchy and elicits a bit of misty tears at their big performance. The stand out for me is Fat Amy and her use of a Pat Benatar classic to woo Bumper.
- Any scene with Beca at work. Her boss is hilarious, but incredibly competent and honest. He’s a jerk, but only because he’s always on a deadline with lots of pressure. He’s honest and pushes her to be better by digging into her original voice. Similarly, work scenes allow us to see her boss yell at his hipster nephew (and resident office idiot Dax), and it’s hysterical.
- The men of Pitch Perfect. Bumper gets fleshed out as that poor guy who couldn’t make it in the real world and, after learning some humility, legitimately seems to be an open, vulnerable and decent person. Benji is back with a cute and awkward flirtation with Emily. One that actually leads to rephrasing Sir Mix-a-Lot lyrics to be respectful toward women. Jesse has a much reduced role, and I wonder if some of Skylar Astin’s scenes were left on the cutting room floor. However, he’s supportive and I’m glad he and Beca don’t have some reset or rehash of issues via sequelitis. He’s great and confident in himself, yet supportive of his successful girlfriend.
- Aubrey. The film doesn’t feel full until we see her in all her drill sergeant like glory. Then the Bellas are very much back.
- The announcers to an extent. I understand what first-time director Elizabeth Banks and screenwriter Kay Cannon were going for. John Michael Higgins as co-leader of the collegiate a capella association and the podcast host is supposed to be a send-up of the bigoted and misogynistic commentary you often hear from sportscasters. I think some people misread some of the cold remarks he makes to an extent as endorsing that behavior when he’s clearly written as a villain character (he’s issued an order that could destroy our Bellas, after all). The social commentary is on point when it sticks to things that the screenwriter and director must know well from personal experience, like how Fat Amy’s “Muffgate” sounds like every victim blaming scenario I’ve ever heard, down to having a Morning Joe cameo to talk about “well, what was she wearing?” Similarly, when Higgins’s character says “Ladies, what does it matter [that you’ve been expelled]? Most of you will be pregnant soon,” which frankly reflects the type of job discrimination women face. Sometimes the announcers work, but when they don’t then it’s awful.
The Bad:
- Intersectional representation in this movie is non-existent, and that seems to be a trend in the spring and summer comedies as well per The Daily Beast.
- I want to give this movie a good review. If they’d stuck to the spirit of most of the first film (not unproblematic in itself, to be fair), and the production team had left out side jokes that don’t add to the plot in order to trot out the same tired racist and LGBTQ-phobic jokes we’ve seen before, then they’d have gotten a good recommendation from me. It’s so rare to see a movie produced, directed, written and acted by a gifted ensemble of women, let alone a comedy that’s a franchise success by now. As of my writing this, it’s made over seventy million dollars in its opening weekend and beat out Mad Max:Fury Road. However, I can’t endorse any film that is this racist and LGBTQ-phobic and the most maddening thing is that none of the dated, awful, predjudicial jokes added a damn thing to the plot. They could have been excised to give the film a sleeker running time with NO ill effect.
- Let’s take this one by one:
- Racism — While the first one was relatively ethnically diverse (albeit with African American Cynthia Rose and Korean Lilly being more minor parts of the ensemble), it lacked a character of Hispanic descent. They decided to “remedy” this by adding in Chrissie Fit’s Flo. They shouldn’t have bothered. I’d rather see no Latina or Hispanic actress in a film than one who is used from start to end as a series of terrible illegal immigrant punchlines. No kidding. There are over twenty Spanish-speaking countries and territories, over 440 million people on the planet speak it as their first language, and it encompasses people of diverse races, culture backgrounds and heritages. Easily the part written for Emily could have been a Latina or Hispanic girl coming in to give the Bellas new life, but it was easier and “funnier” to make the one Hispanic character an illegal Guatemalan immigrant sure to be deported after graduation cause, gee, aren’t all Hispanics and Latin@s here illegally in the U.S. Ha-ha.
- Transphobia — The announcers’ commentary (even if they are the villains to an extent) goes over the line is at one point in Copenhagen. John makes a comment that he really was impressed by the “Ladyboy” team from Singapore, basically implying a joke about transsexual sex workers in that part of the world. Ugh.
- Queer-Baiting — There were small elements in this before with Chloe discovering Beca in the shower in the first film. However, they play it hard and for laughs with Chloe on the camping trip talking about how she regrets “not experimenting enough in college” to Beca, just inches form her face as if to kiss her. There’s an online fandom for this ship, and it sucks to see it teased but only played for laughs and titillation.
- Bisexuality mocked — Beca has an odd reaction to meeting The Kommissar leader of Das Sound Machine, a tall Aryan beauty. She can’t insult her, can only compliment and hit on her. Again, her sexual confusion and lines like “Oh yeah! Well I bet your sweat smells like cinnamon!” are played only for laughs.
- Perpetuating harmful gay stereotypes — The film would be bad enough if it only had David Cross’s flamboyant riff-off host. It’s not that he’s eccentric and flaming, but more that he’s portrayed as weakly effeminate too, so pathetic that he can’t even swing his own gong’s gavel. No, that’s just annoying but the worst offender is Cynthia Rose (Ester Dean). She was sort of there as an “is she/isn’t she” foil for Fat Amy to guess at her sexuailty in the orignal. Also, while in the finale melee of chaos before the Bellas pull their shit together in Pitch Perfect, she seems to use the disruption’s chance to grope Stacie’s breasts, that scene is still played partially ambiguously as her maybe trying to help save Stacie from the river of vomit Aubrey puked out. Here, Cynthia Rose’s groping and molesting of Stacie is blatant. Cynthia Rose is played as the leering lesbian of the group of women who can’t wait for her chance to prey on the other girls. This is beyond inexcusable. It’s a harmful, false stereotype and completely loathsome. It also adds nothing to the damn plot so why is it even there? Additionally, as far as representation goes, why is it that the white, heteronormative women get their own solo songs and chances onscreen during the film, but Cynthia Rose does not? Ester Dean is talented singer and writer, but her big featuring song of the film is relegated to being played over the closing credits.
The Bechdel Test:
- Let’s look at it this way. Sure it passes and often, but that’s not the point here. That doesn’t make it a good or a feminist movie in and of itself. I’d like to also ask if this film passes this adapted prompt: “Do two characters of color have a conversation together when no white characters are present, and it is that conversation about something else besides the white characters?” We have Lilly, Cynthia Rose, and Flo, but they are all used as offensive one-note jokes and props, and it’s disgusting. When they make the inevitable threequel, the film series needs to really rethink what it’s going to do with a film most likely anchored around Emily and new Bellas. They need to go back to the drawing board to have real representation and not damaging stereotypes played for completely offensive and unfunny “laughs.”
The Verdict: I wanted to love this movie. Frankly, I love the musical numbers, all the Beca at work scenes, Emily’s story line, and even the romance subplots. When the film stays on point, it’s very good. While those aspects are still not as good as the original, they don’t suffer from sequelitis either. HOWEVER, When the film goes out of its way to make the racist jokes or demean its characters of color or LGBTQ characters for no reason but crass shock humor, it fails so badly. I don’t know why they didn’t excise these plot cul-de-sacs and rewrite Flo to be a character and not a punchline and a punching bag. Cynthia Rose and Lilly had interesting sides to their characters in the first film that could have been expanded on (they did it for Fat Amy), but they were also made into mere caricatures in the sequel.
Let me put it this way, if the movie overall wasn’t a racist, transphobic, homphobic mess, it would have earned a solid B+ from me as a fun film with great numbers and heart. However, since it just shits on so many types of people to be “funny,” I have to give it an F! Overall, I’m sorely disappointed, and maybe they’ll listen to complaints and turn it around with most likely in a third film with a new cast now that the original Bellas have graduated, one where a potentially diverse cast isn’t mocked but is as well-rounded as the white, straight, cisgender characters.
However, I’m not sure this production crew is capable of that or would even bother.
Currently, as far as this franchise goes, skip Pitch Perfect 2 and see the feminist-bent Mad Max: Fury Road, instead. After all, if feminist representation isn’t LGBTQ and racially inclusive, then it’s not worth supporting.
The images used here are not property of Legendary Women, Inc. but belong to Universal Pictures.
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