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Female Friendships in Pitch Perfect Hit All the Right Notes
Pitch Perfect is one of those fun movies I watch whenever it’s on TV. While I wouldn’t recommend the two sequels, the original 2012 movie is definitely worth a watch. The movie revolves around Beca, a college freshman who joins the campus all-female a cappella group. When it first came out, I thought it seemed fluffy, so when my sister initially suggested seeing it, I imagined it would be entertaining but didn’t expect too much. That’s why I was completely taken aback by my whole-hearted enjoyment of it. I was having such a good time that I actually smiled throughout the entire movie.
Since I’m usually kind of a curmudgeon, I wondered why I liked it so much. Although fun, the music and dancing were nothing spectacular, the plot was highly predictable and the actors — while good — were not required by the script to turn in Oscar caliber performances. Then it hit me. Most of the movie was about the members of the all-female group. They were unique, diverse, confident, and, most importantly, they were interested in female friendship. In fact, the vast majority of their conversations didn’t revolve around men at all but were instead about themselves and their goals! This is a much bigger deal than it might seem.
Although the status of women may be improving (at least, it was until recently), a lot of mainstream movies and television shows keep women characters on the backburner. Many of them exist solely for romantic purposes and aren’t fully developed characters in their own right. This has been so much the case that, in 1985, cartoonist Alison Bechdel drew a strip called The Rule describing what’s now called the Bechdel Test. In order to pass the test, the movie or television show has to follow three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it; (2) who talk to each other; (3) about something besides a man. It seems like such a simple test but you’d be surprised how many television shows and movies fail it.
Perfect Pitch passed with flying colors.
Not only was the movie focused on women but it emphasized a specific type of woman. Although all of the characters had their flaws, overall they were incredibly self-confident. They knew what they wanted to achieve, they owned their sexuality, and many of them were self-assured about their bodies…
