I watched Pitch Perfect 2 just a couple of days
after watching The Celluloid Closet, and the week after our discussions and
readings about representations of race in the media. Pitch Perfect is a comedy about a group of girls who are an a capella singing
group. One of the reasons that it is funny is that it over-plays stereotypes of
all kinds to poke fun at them. Rebel Wilson plays a character who calls herself
"Fat Amy" and her size is a big part of her quirky personality. Hana
Mae Lee plays an Asian girl who speaks so quietly you can never hear what she's
saying. Chrissie Fit plays a girl from Guatemala who is always concerned about
being deported. Ester Dean plays an African American lesbian girl who is
very butch and claims to be the biggest minority out there because she’s black,
a woman, and gay.
After watching The Celluloid Closet and thinking
about our discussions about race and the way people are represented in the
media, this movie got me thinking about how homosexual people or people of
color might feel about this movie. One of the things The Celluloid Closet
pointed out was that not every gay person feels the same way about movies. For
example, one man hated the “sissy” characterization and another liked it. This article from the Canadian Centre for Digital and Media Literacy points out the
same thing and says that it should be considered whether the makers of the media product are
gay and whether the gay community at large has accepted the product.
I would guess that some people of color and some
gay people would laugh at this movie and see that it is pointing out the
absurdity of stereotypes, while others may feel that it’s perpetuating those
stereotypes. What do you think?
The movie Pitch Perfect is like totally awesome. The couple of things that stood out to me was the gay girl was stereotyped by fat Amy. Fat Amy automatically assumed that the black girl was gay because of how she was acting and how she dressed but she never came out and said it until one part when she was talking about her girlfriend. I think that was a awkward moment because its like they wanted the audience to know "hey look we are adding gays in here, they sing to" instead of just having her in the show like everyone else. She also didn't have a lot of air time either. Another one would be the guy acuplella singer that was able to join the group after the fact. They wanted us to believe he was gay to because of how he acted. He was a awesome singer but because he wasn't as manly as the other singers he did not make the team the first time.
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