Elizabeth Banks – Bitch Flicks

Does ‘Pitch Perfect’s Fat Amy Deserve to Be a Fat Positivity Mascot?

It’s great to see a character whose fatness is a part of her identity without being a point of dehumanization, but the films try to make Fat Amy likable at the expense of other characters, positioning her as acceptably quirky, in contrast to the women of color, who are portrayed in a more two-dimensional manner, or Stacie, who is unacceptable due to her promiscuity. Ultimately, the underlying current of stereotype-based humor puts the film’s fat positivity in a dubious light…

This guest post written by Tessa Racked appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions. An earlier version of this essay appears on Consistent Panda Bear Shape. | Spoilers ahead for Pitch Perfect and Pitch Perfect 2.

I’ve been writing about film from an intersectional feminist perspective for a little over two years now; most of that writing is unpacking how fat characters function in film on my blog, Consistent Panda Bear Shape. Multiple patterns have been emerging from that work; there are three trends in particular that make it difficult for me to write from an intersectional and/or optimistic perspective. I don’t think, reader, that you will find them too surprising:

Fat characters existing to receive the audience’s contempt, disgust, and/or pity. Mad Max: Fury Road is a great example, where the fat characters are autocrat Immortan Joe and his villainous ally, the People Eater, and the Milk Mothers, who exist as a grotesque example of how Immortan Joe objectifies and exploits the populace under his control.
Likable fat characters having some workaround where they aren’t “actually” fat, so when the character finds confidence or asserts themselves, it can be a feel-good moment without leading the audience to question established standards of acceptable bodies on a broad social scale. Two common workarounds are embodied by Olive in Little Miss Sunshine. While her story revolves around her transgression of physical beauty standards, these standards only apply to the strict, hyperfeminine pageant world; outside that context, her body is within the range of social acceptability. Additionally, actor Abigail Breslin wore a fat suit for the role, further disconnecting Olive’s story from the lived experiences of fat people.
Fat protagonists who are “actually” fat being men, usually of the straight, white variety. Of the 62 films featuring fat characters that I’ve written articles about thus far: 41 of the predominant fat characters were male, 35 of those male characters were white, and only 3 of them were identified as queer within the text of the film. Of the 2 non-human fat characters referred to male in their respective screenplays, both were voiced by white men. (The films I write about haven’t been curated in an objective manner, so take this anecdata with a grain of salt.)

The movies that I watch utilize at least one of these patterns time and time again, if they include fat characters at all. Considering this, when I do see a film featuring a decently-written character in a plot-significant role who is played by a fat actor and isn’t a straight white dude, I start having hopes for a bold new cinematic vision wherein fat people aren’t treated like garbage. Pitch Perfect is a perfect example of the kind of film that will stoke the flames of my high expectations, featuring Rebel Wilson as Fat Amy. When it was making its way into theaters, I remember seeing this exchange all over Tumblr:

This exchange says everything about why I and many others were excited: a female character, played by someone who looks like she gets relegated to the same measly section of clothing stores that I do, being funny and unapologetic about how she gets treated based on her size. (And on a more personal note, Fat Amy is also the cover girl for an AV Club article about humanized portrayals of fat characters that was an inspiration for Consistent Panda Bear Shape.) However, I didn’t actually get around to watching Pitch Perfect until it and its sequel, Pitch Perfect 2, were already out on DVD. I’ve seen a lot of positive press around Fat Amy, but for me, the viewing experience of the two films back-to-back was overall a four-hour anti-climax to my hopes for a new approach to fat representation in a mainstream comedy.

It isn’t all bad. There are some significantly refreshing aspects to how Fat Amy is represented, especially in the original movie. Where a fat body is often employed as visual shorthand for incompetence, she proves her ability as a singer in her introductory scene, impressing Aubrey (Anna Camp) and Chloe (Brittany Snow) with her voice despite their focus on finding women with “bikini-ready bodies” to audition for the Barden Bellas a capella choir. She is also the most self-assured of the Bellas by far. Her sense of humor is often outlandish but her deadpan delivery suggests that she gets more out of confusing the other characters than entertaining them. The majority of comments characterizing Fat Amy as fat are self-referential but, surprisingly, not self-deprecating. She casually remarks at her surprise that her “sexy fat ass” was chosen to be part of the Bellas. Fatness is part of how she sees herself, and isn’t a source of shame or something that needs to be sanitized; rather, it’s a part of her identity that she modifies appropriately to her mood and context. It felt oddly empowering as a fat viewer to hear her angrily threaten to “finish [someone] like a cheesecake.” Another detail that resonated with me was her fearlessness at calling attention to her body. She sprawls and flails. She has a habit of nonchalantly slapping a rhythm on her belly — a woman having fun with her fat! imagine! — or cupping her breasts during a performance. She inhabits her body and her personal space without apologizing or minimizing.

Beyond how Fat Amy is portrayed as an individual, Pitch Perfect also has progressive aspects to how Fat Amy functions as part of the Bellas. As opposed to what one might expect from a fat character in an ensemble cast, Pitch Perfect doesn’t put Fat Amy in a position where she drags the group down. There is a requisite joke about her avoiding physical activity (while the other singers jog, Aubrey finds Fat Amy lying down, or as she calls it, “horizontal running”), but her sloth seems less sinful in contrast to Aubrey’s drill sergeant seriousness about their shared extracurricular activity. Instead, both films focus on Beca (Anna Kendrick) as the problematic member of the group due to her lack of commitment. As a group, the Bellas have to deal with a change in their image from normatively attractive young women to one that includes singers who don’t meet stereotypical sorority girl standards. They are the classic rag-tag underdogs in a story focuses on competition. “I wanted the hot Bellas,” complains a frat brother who books the group to perform at a mixer, when shutting them down mid-song, “not this barnyard explosion.” Even the senior Bellas, thin and preppy Aubrey and Chloe, have bodies that defy expectations of femininity. It’s common to see fat female characters in comedies as a focal point of gross or bizarre body humor, but Pitch Perfect takes a more democratic approach. Aubrey struggles with stress-induced projectile vomiting, and soprano Chloe gains the ability to sing deep bass notes after a surgery to remove nodes on her vocal cords.

Although Fat Amy isn’t presented as more grotesque or cartoonish than the other characters, Pitch Perfect doesn’t extend the favor to other Bellas who aren’t straight and white, as Fat Amy is. The most glaring contrast is Cynthia Rose (Ester Dean), a Black butch lesbian (with an incredible set of pipes) who is also larger-bodied than the average young woman seen in a mainstream comedy. We first meet her at auditions, where she is immediately misgendered. She doesn’t come out as gay to her chorus mates until towards the end of the movie, although we get “hints” to her sexuality via shots of her leering at or groping other women, or other characters making snide comments about her sexual orientation and/or gender presentation. The audition sequence where we meet Cynthia Rose also introduces Lilly (Hana Mae Lee), who embodies the stereotype of the quiet Asian girl through a running gag where she says disturbing things in a soft voice that none of the other characters are able to hear.

Although all of the characters are part of the same underdog team, mining tired caricatures for humor reifies divides in the group via racism and homophobia. And while Fat Amy transgresses stereotypes about fat women, she is straight and white, which within the world of the film, puts her in an uncriticizable position to make snarky comments about Cynthia Rose’s sexuality and other uncomfortable remarks at the expense of marginalized groups (e.g. a clunky improv moment referring to her hairstyle as an “Orthodox Jew ponytail”).

The “fat positive” aspects of Fat Amy’s depiction aren’t just positioned against other characters who don’t share her privileged social identities. Stacie’s (Alexis Knapp) function in the group as the humorously promiscuous Bella complicates the praise Pitch Perfect gets for showing Fat Amy’s active sex life. Stacie’s sexuality is coded as excessive, a joke that becomes the majority of her screen time, whether Aubrey is trying to get her to tone down her dance moves or she’s referring to her vagina as a “hunter.” However, we never see Stacie involved with anyone. Fat Amy, on the other hand, is shown in the company of two hunks on her spring break and also makes comments about her own sexual prowess. So why is the line drawn between Stacie and Fat Amy, where one’s sexuality is the butt of jokes and the other’s is an empowering aspect of her character? When we see Bumper (Adam Devine) flirting with Fat Amy and getting shot down or hear Fat Amy talk about how she joined the Bellas because she needed to step back from her busy love life, we see her defying the expectations that we have for fat girls in movies, the assumption that nobody will want to have sex with her or that she won’t have the confidence to approach someone. Stacie, however, is thin and normatively attractive. The audience expects that she has no shortage of willing sexual partners and doesn’t restrain herself in the way she is expected to; thus, she is deserving of ridicule. The inconsistency between how the two characters’ sex lives are valued demeans Stacie and condescends to Fat Amy.

As Pitch Perfect 2 is helmed by a female director and writer with some skin in the game (Elizabeth Banks, who is in a supporting role in both films, and Kay Cannon, who wrote the original), one might hope that the sequel would amend the issues in the original, perhaps by giving more screen time to find some depth in characters like Cynthia Rose and Lilly. Unfortunately, the franchise loses more feminist cred by doubling down on the cheap stereotypes. Cynthia Rose is still a source for jokes about lesbians creeping on straight women, Lilly is still the quiet Asian girl, and now Flo (Chrissie Fit) has joined the Bellas, a Latina woman whose every comment is about how harsh and dangerous her life was in her unspecified Latin American home country.

Even the progressive aspects of Fat Amy’s depiction in Pitch Perfect largely erode in the sequel. The opening sequence is perhaps the most telling, where Fat Amy experiences a costume malfunction during a performance at President Obama’s birthday gala and accidentally exposes her vulva to the TV cameras and the concert audience. Typical to a comedy film, the audience reacts with disgust and terror, some even running away. Although unintentional, her body is deemed excessive and the resulting outcry nearly destroys the Bellas.

A similar scene of disgust comes later in the film, where a romantic moment between Fat Amy and Bumper (Adam Devine) causes his friends to run away in order to avoid looking at the couple. (While Bumper isn’t as outside the normative range of bodies seen on-camera, he is larger-bodied than the other Treblemakers.) The plotline of their relationship doesn’t meet the standards of a romantic partner that Fat Amy sets in the first film, where she brushes off his advances (though she raises the eyebrows of the other Bellas by having his number in her phone). In Pitch Perfect 2, she and Bumper are hooking up. He asks her to date him officially with a romantic dinner; she initially turns him down, saying that she’s a “free range pony who can’t be tamed,” but eventually realizes that she’s in love with him (for no discernible reason) and wins him back with a rendition of Pat Benatar’s “We Belong.” The main conflict of Pitch Perfect is the competition between the Bellas and the Treblemakers, which sets up Fat Amy and Bumper as well-balanced adversaries, both confident and ambitious. Fat Amy disdains Bumper’s advances and flirts with aforementioned hunks; Bumper quits school for an opportunity to work for John Mayer. However, in the second film, former antagonist Bumper has been humbled, now working as a college security guard and desperately trying to hang on to his past glory days as a college a capella big shot. It is at this point that he becomes a suitable partner for Fat Amy.

In Pitch Perfect, the Bellas achieve a competitive edge by using Beca’s mash-up arrangements instead of more traditional medley formats in their performances. This works as an apt allegory for Pitch Perfect as feminist films: there are some welcome updates, but ultimately it’s the same song. It’s great to see a character whose fatness is a part of her identity without being a point of dehumanization, but the films try to make Fat Amy likable at the expense of other characters, positioning her as acceptably quirky, in contrast to the women of color, who are portrayed in a more two-dimensional manner, or Stacie, who is unacceptable due to her promiscuity. Ultimately, the underlying current of stereotype-based humor puts the film’s fat positivity in a dubious light, compounded by the erosion of Fat Amy’s status as kickass fat girl, as well as any thematic content about female friendship.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Pitch Perfect and Third Wave Feminism

Tessa Racked can be heard as a guest contributor to film podcasts including Directors Club and Tracks of the Damned, on the Now Playing Network. They are good at modern dance, olden dance, mermaid dancing, and peppering the Internet with cleverness. You can follow them on Twitter @tessa_racked.

Seed & Spark: Why I Have a Giant Lady Crush on Elizabeth Banks

This is a guest post by Jeanette Bonner, who is currently crowdfunding through Seed & Spark for her latest project.

I will admit it: I’m a beauty-magazine buyer. I want to be one of those people that shun them the way I shun impulse-buying those “Stars: They’re Just Like Us!” magazines at the grocery store. But there are certain times when it’s really ALL my brain wants to process, even though I know I should be learning about tragedy in China/ Supreme Court misdoings and failures/ who Amal Clooney is saving this month.

Occasionally, some of them have content worth reading. Many of them, like Allure and Marie Claire, have recently gone pro-fem and are really letting the world know who’s the most ass-kicking female of the moment.

May’s issue of Allure featured another gorgeous blonde starlet with fan-blown hair waves of envy, in a gorgeous dress none of us will ever own, looking wrinkle-less and flawless as usual. That lady was Elizabeth Banks.

I will begin by saying that Elizabeth Banks is totally on my radar. If you are a producer and an actress who does comedy (as I am), you will sit up and take notice when other ladies – especially comediennes – break the boy-code barrier and succeed at straddling that fine line between marketable (aka “attractive to audiences”) and powerful (aka running your own series and being a lady-boss). You can probably think of three straight off the bat. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are the Queens, Mindy Kaling comes next. Then I would suggest Jenny Slate (who went from SNL reject to Create-Your-Own-Content baller), and then I bet your next thought is for the two Best B*tches of the Moment: Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer. But I bet your thoughts don’t naturally then go to Elizabeth Banks, even though they should.

Sometimes as a producer, you have to physically lend some extra support.

Elizabeth Banks first caught my attention in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, as the overtly promiscuous hot party-girl type. She has an orgasm in a bubble-bath in front of Steve Carrell, and I thought – “Man. That girl is fearless. It takes a lot to not only put aside your pride and have an orgasm in front of Steve Carrell, but do it in a funny way that doesn’t automatically make you want to slut-shame her and write her off. She’s a badass.” She was, of course, in a lot of things before that, Wet Hot American Summer being one of them, but after The 40-Year-Old Virgin, just like the way it seems everyone owns a green car the moment you think of buying a green car, she suddenly seemed to me to be everywhere.

I don’t need to list her credits to you to prove she’s awesome, and that’s not my point either. We all know she’s talented and Hollywood loves her and yeah she’s pretty and funny and held her own against Alec Baldwin in 30 Rock. Here’s why I have a lady-crush on her – this quote, from the aforementioned Allure interview:

“If I had to pick a theme of the things that I do,” Banks says, “it would be: Girls win.”

Pitch Perfect, a hard-core “girls win” -kinda movie, was Banks’ first hit of the production company she started with her husband. When the original director wasn’t available for Pitch Perfect 2, the studio asked Banks to direct it herself:

“Once you get offered a studio job, as a woman, it’s really hard to say no because they don’t let women do this very often,” she says. “So I knew I needed to embrace it and I couldn’t mess it up. Because if you mess it up, they don’t let you do it again, and you become representative of female directors as a whole. Like, ‘See, girls can’t do it!’’ [Allure, June 2015]

BOOM. They asked, and she stepped up to the plate. Without reservation. No one asked politely. No one had to convince her. She did not seek out permission. They offered her something with a TON of responsibility and she accepted, despite probably already being overwhelmed with producing the damn thing AS WELL AS acting in it (it’s not an easy feat to wear all three hats, as I learned with my web series, Ghost Light, for which I’m the writer, producer, and also actor).

I have often found in my life – and certainly this is true when it comes to producing my own web series – that I seek permission before I do anything. It takes me a long time to wrap my mind around a new idea. I consider myself spontaneous and risk-taking yes, but if someone offers me something outside of my comfort zone, anything that I haven’t previously decided that I can do, I don’t take action immediately. I wobble, waiting for someone to convince me. Skiing? “I’m not sure I can, I’ve never been and I hear a lot of adults have accidents their first time.” Malaysian food? “I’ll go if you tell me what to order.” How about doing something crazy, like moving to North Carolina to start a business? “What! I don’t know the first thing about starting a business. Or North Carolina!” You see what I mean.

We all do this. Psychologists say this is our ego keeping us safe, because risk equals danger, and danger equals death. I know that if some huge studio head asked me to direct a $30 million dollar movie with a cast and crew of nearly 300, I’d balk. I’d make excuses. I’d say, “I don’t know how, I don’t have enough experience, I don’t have time.” Instead, Elizabeth Banks said, “Of course I’ll do it. Because if I don’t, just by saying no, as a woman – I fail.”

Her next project as a producer is an HBO movie based on the life of tennis star Billie Jean King. In her Allure interview Banks said, “Billie Jean King’s activism is mind-boggling. She has a Presidential Medal of Freedom. She’s so inspirational.” And just like that, she’s off and running again, no doubts in her mind that anyone could tackle this film better. Because why would they? She’s a kickass, empowered, inspired, strong woman who makes her own path in this crazy industry and in her life.

As are we all, right? AS ARE WE ALL.

Jeanette Bonner is an award-winning actor, writer, and producer in NYC. She has been writing informally since the age of 5, and is now combining her love for writing with her passion for theater. In addition to Ghost Light she has written and produced the one-woman show Love. Guts. High School. It premiered at the 2012 Midtown International Theatre Festival, where it won nominations for Best Actress and Best Solo Show, and then went on to the Chicago Fringe Festival, where it was named a top ten “Critic’s Pick” by Time Out Chicago. Last year it received top reviews at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where she performed it 23 times (whew!). As an actor in New York, she has performed with Magic Futurebox, Manhattan Theatre Source, and Vital Theatre Company, and workshopped plays with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Abingdon Theatre, and Primary Stages. She has been a company member of improv troupe National Comedy Theater for seven years, and in her downtime she shows tourists around town as a licensed NYC tour guide.

‘Pitch Perfect 2’: Tuning Up for an Aca-Trilogy?

Non-white characters get the short end of the stick in other ways, too: Cynthia Rose (Ester Dean) amps up the predatory lesbian angle (an outdated, unfortunate motif); Lilly (Hana Mae Lee) keeps whispering shockers as if that joke never gets old (it does); and the only lines Guatemalan Flo (Chrissie Fit), another new Bella, gets are about how she prefers the United States to her native country. Can you say aca-propaganda? Such political incorrectness is an unfortunate default to early second-wave feminism, which marginalized women who weren’t straight and Caucasian.

This guest post by Lisa Rosman previously appeared at Word and Film and on her website Signs and Sirens. Cross-posted with permission.

Here at Word and Film, we are not in the business of grading movies. But if I were to grade Pitch Perfect 2, the much-anticipated follow-up to the breakout 2012 musical comedy, I’d give it a solid B. As sequels go, that’s not bad, and the film deserves extra points for sidestepping the meta-movie trap into which so many comedic sequels fall. (Here’s looking at you, 22 Jump Street.) But, though I’m a huge fan of its pop-feminism and hip a cappella (no, that’s not an oxymoron), Pitch Perfect 2 doesn’t quite hit the high notes of its predecessor. Chalk that up to a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen plot and a disappointing profusion of micro-aggression.

The film begins as the Barden Bellas, the prize-winning all-female a cappella group from a fictional Georgia college, become a national joke when Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) suffers a spectacular wardrobe malfunction during a concert for the Obamas and Shonda Rhimes. (Insert Scandal joke here.) In order to claw their way back to good standing, the girls have to win the a cappella world title. The problem? No one’s been able to beat Das Sound Machine, a German group led by Kommissar (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen), a sort of BDSM Barbie.

Most of the gang from the first movie is still in place – Chloe (Brittany Snow) is now in her third senior year – and there’s a new Bella, legacy Emily (Hailee Steinfeld, sunnier than we’ve ever seen her), who is bummed the group is in such disrepute. Also still in attendance: commentators John (John Michael Higgins) and Gail (Elizabeth Banks, who now doubles as director). John’s bad-taste humor, a throwback to Fred Willard’s shtick in the dog mockumentary Best in Show, is more problematic in this film, especially at the international competition, where he throws out nearly every ugly stereotype about minorities under the sun. Because Banks has fewer good lines this time around (in the spirit of ill-advised modesty?), John’s racism goes unchecked. The effect, for example when an Indian group leaves the stage, is a tacit endorsement of such comments as “they’re running offstage to take more of our jobs.”

At times, Pitch Perfect 2 is so diffuse and so packed with random cameos that it seems like a mildly funny SNL 40. An underground aca-contest between Das Sound Machine, some (real-life) Green Bay Packers, the Bellas, and the “Tone Hangers” (featuring such comedians as Reggie Watts and John Hodgman) is admittedly hilarious, especially with a Southern-fried David Cross at the helm. But other sidebars fall flat, as they draw focus from the barely there main story: Beca (Anna Kendrick) tries to keep her recording internship secret; Fat Amy and Bumper (Adam DeVine) embark on a surprisingly dull courtship (who knew there could be too much Fat Amy?); and we’re subjected to a super-dull flirtation between Benji (Ben Platt) and Emily, which feels like a sidebar to a sidebar. One plot that gets no screen time this go-round: the romance between Jesse (Skylar Astin) and Beca, which is just as well as their chemistry always seems forced. (Sexually, Beca only perks up when Kommissar comes onscreen; now there’s a plotline that could’ve been interesting.) In general, Beca seems incapable of connecting with others although she’d supposedly cleared that hurdle in the first movie. Kendrick plays this suspiciously convincingly, as if a sequel wasn’t exactly her bright idea.

But sisterhood is still powerful, and it all gels whenever the girls sing and dance together. Despite my misgivings, I teared up when the Bellas performed an original song co-written by Beca and Emily – “Flashlight” is the new “Cups,” trust me – especially when other generations of the group joined the stage; the idea of celebrating an “old girls network” on the big screen is still revolutionary. So maybe it’s good news that, given this film’s blockbuster opening weekend (it edged out Mad Max domestically), we can expect a Pitch Perfect 3 – ideally with those sophomore-slump kinks worked out. Hollywood can always use more ladies-first ladies.

A former labor organizer, Lisa Rosman has reviewed film for such outlets as Time Out New York, Salon, Us Magazine, Flavorwire, LA Weekly, RogerEbert.com, and CBS News. She appears weekly on the NY1 film review show Talking Pictures and writes on film, feminism, and eavesdropping for SignsandSirens.com. Most notably, she once served as an assistant for Elmo on Sesame Street.

‘Pitch Perfect’ and Third-Wave Feminism

Written by Leigh Kolb

Social movements are not without their problems. America’s second- and third-wave feminists (the mothers from the 60s and 70s and their literal and figurative daughters, who have come to age in the 80s, 90s and 2000s) have often appeared to be at odds with one another, and even within themselves. Even though the “women’s movement” is often marketed as a monolith in our culture, it is far from that.

Pitch Perfect, a new musical comedy, is about the all-female a cappella group the Barden Bellas, who are vying for respect among their peers and for the title of best college a cappella group in the nation at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. The core problem for them (besides the vomiting–we’ll get to that in a minute) is that they are stuck in the past. While other groups are showing off creative arrangements and flashy dance choreography, the Bellas have rigid movements, dress like stewardesses and only sing “classics” from the 80s and 90s (“The Sign,” “Eternal Flame,” and “Turn the Beat Around” is their standard set list). The Bellas are also uniform in their looks and body types–light-skinned and thin.

The original Bellas are uniform in appearance and skin tone.

As the two matriarchs of the group–Chloe (Brittany Snow) and Aubrey (Anna Camp)–recruit young women to audition at the back-to-school activities fair, Aubrey makes it clear that they are looking for women with “bikini-perfect bodies.” Chloe responds quietly with “How about we just get good singers?” Thus begins the Bellas’ journey into a new world filled with women of color, overweight women, “alternative” brunettes with lots of eyeliner and lesbians.

Aubrey remains steadfast in her traditionalism until almost the bitter end. Her insistence on the value of tradition, and how it’s always been and how they’ve always looked, could represent second-wave feminism, which was criticized for its lack of inclusion for women of color and lesbians.

The protagonist in the film, Beca (Anna Kendrick), desperately wants to be in LA to be a DJ, but is stuck at Barden University because her father is a professor there and she has a free ride (we’ll get to that in a minute, too). She represents third-wave feminism, which has been criticized for a lack of female camaraderie and a disregard for the past.

Beca as the “alternative” girl (black nail polish is a dead giveaway).

Pitch Perfect, on its surface (and even mostly below the surface), is a fun female-centered comedy with good music. It’s clearly co-produced by a woman (Hollywood feminist Elizabeth Banks) and written by a woman (30 Rock and The New Girl’s Kay Cannon). However, a feminist reading of the film suggests that far below the surface, viewers can take the plot of the film as an allegory of second- and third-wave feminism in America.

The new members of the Bellas see early on that they have no chance of winning with their old routine. They learn it, they go through the motions, but it simply doesn’t work. Aubrey stands firm in the old choreography–she becomes more and more uncomfortable with the concept of changing their form, no matter how “tired” it is.

When the group arrives at their first competition of the season, the commentators (Gail, played by Banks, and John, played by John Michael Higgins) comment on their looks. “This does not look like the fresh-faced nubile Bellas…” John says. They are “refreshing, yet displeasing to the eye,”says Gail. (The interplay between these two judges provides some great one-liners throughout the film.)

John and Gail provide funny, and poignant, Christopher Guest-style play-by-plays.

The Bellas get on stage and perform the same, tired routine. Toward the end, however, Fat Amy (yes, we’ll get to that in a minute) shakes things up during her “Turn the Beat Around” solo, ripping off her jacket and growl-singing the once demure lines. The audiences and the judges love it, and they manage to place. At regionals, Beca sees the audience getting bored and injects some mash-up vocals toward the end of their set (“Titanium,” a bullet-proof anthem that weaves its way throughout the film). The audience enjoys it, but Aubrey is enraged and kicks her out.

The group suffers, but they have to pull it together because they need to perform at nationals after another team was disqualified. Beca comes back, and tells the fractured group, “I’ve never been one of those girls who had a lot of friends who were girls–now I do, and it’s pretty cool.” Aubrey hands Beca the reigns, and they perform Beca’s own mash-up of modern and older songs. She has been turned on, at first reluctantly, to The Breakfast Club by her love interest, Jesse, and includes “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” by Simple Minds, and also includes tween anthem “Party in the U.S.A.” Notably, Fat Amy interjects a line from “Turn the Beat Around” at the climax of their set.

The women have collaborated, and evolved. They’ve kept their individualism, and been frank about their desires and motivations. They dress differently, and they sing new music. However, they don’t leave the past in the dark, and become better and closer when they decide to move forward. At the end, they’re not dressed like one another, they don’t look the same, and they win (on stage and off).

As with the social movement, the film isn’t without its problematic aspects, which ultimately speak to the current state of feminism in our culture.

Gross-out humor: The Bellas are humiliated on the national stage at the beginning of the film when Aubrey projectile vomits on the stage and audience. Later, during the Bellas’ “let it all out” moment that brought them back together, Aubrey does it again. One member gets pushed into it, and makes a snow angel in it. Is this necessary? Was there no other way to symbolize Aubrey’s anal, yet out of control, nature? These scenes felt exactly like the gross-out scenes in Bridesmaids, which were written in by Judd Apatow to appeal to the male viewer. Women, at this point, surely have proven that they’re funny, and that women’s stories can be universally entertaining. OK, maybe we’re not there yet, but the only way into the boys’ club doesn’t have to be to play exactly like them. It’s not a matter of being prude, it’s simply a matter of these scenes–Pitch Perfect‘s vomit or Bridesmaids‘s diarrhea–feeling utterly out of place in the films. What could be more appropriate, and Pitch Perfect does enter into this territory, are jokes about gynecological visits or Gail’s college group, which was called the “Menstrual Cycles.”

Fathers as idols: Yet again, we have multiple narratives of influential fathers and absent mothers. Beca’s father is the most prominent, as he is a literature professor at BU. Beca is surly and angsty toward him, and references her “stepmonster” and his divorce from her mother, yet doesn’t talk about her mother. Even when she goes to her father during spring break and they bond over tea, it’s all about him. He visits her in her dorm room more than once, which feels awkward, and clearly controls her future (bargaining with her that he’ll send her to LA after one year at BU). Aubrey, in the transformative scene where the Bellas bond, says that “My father always said, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, pack your bags.'” The two characters who most clearly represent the old and the new, in regard to the feminist movement allegory, are driven and inspired/controlled by their fathers. This trope is relentless with female protagonists–fathers are almost always more visible and more important than the characters’ mothers. This consistent story line makes sense if we examine opportunities for men and women in the decades leading up to these young women’s formative years. Girls are taught they can be anything, and too often it’s the man of the house who is represented as powerful, in work and at play. They are who are to be emulated in this culture.

Fat Amy is a star performer on stage and off.

Fat acceptance: Fat Amy (played by the the amazing Rebel Wilson) introduces herself as Fat Amy to Chloe and Aubrey at the activities fair so “twig bitches like you don’t do it behind my back.” Although jokes are made about her size (by her and by others), Amy has solos, sex and friends. Her body is used for comedy, as is the fat body of the male sidekick of the college’s a cappella organizer. It’s still acceptable in our culture to demonize and discriminate against people who are overweight (or use them as comic relief). Amy’s character skewered that with humor (while also reaffirming it), but audiences seem really happy to see a woman of size on screen. While these casting decisions provide great fodder for entertainment writers (and who doesn’t love clever word play: “In a sea of size-0 starlets, Wilson has the confidence of a performer twice her age and half her size”). While some coverage is obviously cringe-worthy at best and fat-shaming at worst, reviewers (and certainly feminists) are embracing this representation. Even if representation is problematic, or has “mixed messages,” it’s representing reality. Would it be believable to have a fat woman on screen and no one comment on it? Unfortunately, we’re not at that point yet.

Race issues: From early on in the film, the portrayal of Asian women is problematic. Beca’s roommate is Korean, and tinkers with a bonsai tree while quietly, solemnly glaring at Beca. She only opens up when around her Korean peers (although she does seem to warm to Beca toward the end of the film). She scowls one evening, “The white girl is back,” when Beca gets back to her room. The Bellas also have a Korean member, who is awkward, speaks in a muted whisper (and when she is audible she’s saying strange things) and only really opens up during their last number. There’s no clear defense for these character portrayals, but they do seem to line up with what’s happening in the greater world of entertainment and feminist conversations even in 2012. Visit the comments section on a feminist blog defending Girls (or simply read about the show’s problematic history). Too often the face of third-wave feminism–especially the early 20s crowd–is white and privileged. This is in lock step with second-wave feminism, which caused a rift with women of color (Alice Walker claimed the title “womanism” because of this), and even first-wave feminism, when early suffragists used racism to further their cause. It was a problem then, and it’s a problem now.

Sex and sexuality: When Beca first arrives on campus, she’s handed an “official BU rape whistle” by a perky upperclassman. She warns, “Don’t blow it unless it’s actually happening!” While many reviewers found this joke tasteless, the audience can’t help but think that it’s supposed to be startling and tasteless. We’re supposed to think, “That’s insane,” and then immediately think about how “legitimate rape” has been a talking point and male legislators have had to re-write laws to change “rape” to “forcible rape.” Instead of just being offensive, that joke has the possibility of satirizing how we are discussing rape on a wide scale.

The “original” Bellas have a rule that no Bella can be romantically involved with a Treblemaker (their all-male rival group). This strict sexual gatekeeping causes them to lose members at the beginning, but Beca speaks out against the rules and continues to fraternize with Jesse (a Treblemaker). The two don’t embrace and kiss until the end, but it’s another traditional rule broken. Women don’t want male legislators policing their bodies, but they also don’t want other women doing so either (in the name of tradition and virtue, or competition with men).

The group has one member who frequently makes jokes about her sexual exploits (“dude’s a hunter,” she says of her vagina, adapting to the double standard of being a stud) and wears revealing clothing and dances provocatively. She is not punished for this, and doesn’t have to change. Even Chloe is seen showering with a young man at the beginning of the film, with no judgment.

The Bellas’ token lesbian, a black woman, is whispered about and assumed to be gay. When they are all bonding toward the end of the film, they have a moment of honesty, when the members admit to secrets about themselves. Her secret isn’t that she’s gay, but that she has a gambling problem (that started after she and her girlfriend broke up, she says cavalierly, as it’s revealed that this ex-girlfriend is also a Bella). No big deal. Even if there were whispers at first, she didn’t find that to be part of her identity worth hiding. The joke about her sexuality was ultimately on the rest of the women.

As the Bellas wow the crowd at the finals, John says, surprised, “I would never expect it from an all-female group!” Gail responds, “Well, you are a misogynist at heart.” Even with its problems, Pitch Perfect ends on a note of women’s power. John gets put in his place, and while the all-male Treblemakers don’t win, they’re all working together at the beginning of the next school year.

There are always tensions between generations, and when these generations are women who have essentially been at battle for rights and representation for hundreds–really thousands–of years, there are not going to be perfect transitions and easy paths.

Eight years ago, Bitch magazine co-founder Lisa Jarvis wrote a piece for Ms. entitled, “The End of Feminism’s Third Wave” (adapted from a speech she’d given to the National Women’s Studies Association). She adeptly breaks down the dichotomy of second- and third-wave, and argues that the “master narratives” are largely false, and no one can seem to focus on the similarities. She says:

The rap goes something like this: Older women drained their movement of sexuality; younger women are uncritically sexualized. Older women won’t recognize the importance of pop culture; younger women are obsessed with media representation. Older women have too narrow a definition of what makes a feminist issue; younger women are scattered and don’t know what’s important.Stodgy versus frivolous. Won’t share power versus spoiled and ignorant.

The Bellas at the end break out and win.

There are many similarities, though. And while Pitch Perfect isn’t perfect, it is not tone-deaf to feminism’s struggles, problems and potential. It passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, and even challenges the idea of masculinity (Jesse’s roommate gushes about the Treblemakers, “That’s what being a man is all about”). The Bellas ultimately win because they blend the old with the new, and allow themselves to move past their guarded individualism and work together. At the end, the women of color get a strong voice, and Aubrey embraces the changes (and Fat Amy proudly sings, “Can you feel the passion?”).

Jarvis goes on:

We may not all agree on exactly what it looks like or how to get it. We should never expect to agree. Feminism has always thrived on and grown from internal discussions and disagreements. Our many different and often opposing perspectives are what push us forward… I want to see these internal disagreements continue. I want to see as much wrangling over them as ever. But I want them articulated accurately. And that means recognizing the generational divide for what it is — an illusion.

Jarvis’s words ring true for the larger feminist movement in 2012, and for what allows the Bellas to win the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella at Lincoln Center.

What feminism needs now is for everyone to get on stage.

—

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

Actor Elizabeth Banks Advocates for Planned Parenthood and Reproductive Rights

Check out Elizabeth Banks talking about reproductive rights in the video below. In this Obama for America PSA, she shares how Planned Parenthood was her healthcare provider after college when she couldn’t afford health insurance. Banks obtained birth control and says she doesn’t want to and shouldn’t have to discuss her “heavy flow” with her employer or anyone else other than her doctor. And she astutely asserts Planned Parenthood helps working class women obtain affordable healthcare.

While I wish she didn’t downplay abortion (abortion is healthcare, people), it’s fantastic to see a celebrity speaking out to support reproductive rights. Right fucking on, Elizabeth!

Elizabeth Banks on a Porno

The number two movie at the box office this past weekend was Kevin Smith’s comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Classically-trained actress, Elizabeth Banks, calls the role the best she’s ever played, and enthuses that director Kevin Smith “actually put a woman’s name in the title of a movie.”

Yeah, but he also put the word “porno” as the title’s direct object.

Read the LA Times interview with Banks, titled “Actress Elizabeth Banks is as versatile as they’ll let her be.”

About Banks, Smith says “She’s got that ‘guy’s girl’ thing going for her, so she can roll with dudes and be funny, but scrape that away and you realize this chick is way better than an R-rated comedy.”

I’ve heard the movie is funny and sweet, but I can’t help but to be skeptical of a celebration of this role, particularly with the bizarre and sexist statements that pop up in the very positive article.

Banks, like many actors in Hollywood, struggles with her desire to be taken seriously and do important work, but to be successful, too.

“You can go be in a female-driven indie and make two cents and maybe get an Independent Spirit Award, but then you can’t pay your car lease,” she says. “So Vince Vaughn makes movies, he needs a girl to be in it with him, it might be me.”