Pitch Perfect Representation

'Pitch Perfect' is a comedy movie about an about an all-female, acappella group called the Barden Bella's, who thrive off singing traditional female pop songs and having perfect looks, all while attending college. After a disasterous fail in last year's national acappella final, the Barden Bella's have to regroup and are now attempting to win the competition that in the past, has only been won by all-male acappella groups. The main character Becca is an independent, aspiring DJ with no interest in the college life what so ever. But after she meets a guy called Jesse, from the Barden Bella's rival all-male a cappella group, the Treble Makers, she begins to realise that being the traditional, all-female group that they have been in the past will not get her and her fellow Bella's the placing that they deserve. She gains a new outlook and takes it upon herself to help the Barden Bella's to find their new look and sound to get back into the competition to win. 

I personally found that Pitch perfect is an incredibly humorous movie and I loved watching it. However, as the movie progressed I began to realise how much it actually relies on stereotypes to get people to laugh and how these stereotypes affect not only me personally, but also other teenage girls and young woman around the world. What we see on television, in the newspapers and magazines can effect our choices, the way we act and the way we think immensely. The media stereotype people all the time and portray them in a certain way in order to gain popularity or audience appeal. They make people believe that they have to have certain things or look a certain way to be cool and accepted. However after watching this movie I soon found that this stereotype of 'looking prefect' and 'fitting in' is actually the exact opposite to what happens in Pitch Perfect. 

At the start of the movie we see how costumes is used with the Barden Bella's to portray them as a group of beautiful, skinny, model like girls with perfect hair, perfect teeth and perfect skin. There are close-up camera shots used to show that they are all dressed in matching outfits which are tight and show off their bodies to the viewers. There is not a single hair out of place and they also all have perfectly applied makeup and just look very feminine in general. This stereotype that Pitch Perfect has portrayed to their viewers at the beginning of the movie has given teenage girls and young women the message that looking like the Barden Bella's or similar is normal and that in order to be popular, pretty or even liked you must make yourself look the least like yourself as possible. This can have an extremely detrimental effect on society, particularly as teenage girls because we are led to believe that we have to look like this and act feminine to be accepted by anyone and everyone. This can not only create self-doubt but also self-harm too. Because of these stereotypes we often find now that a lot of teenage girls are changing themselves to become this so called 'beautiful' which actually isn't realistic or retainable at all.

The lengths that teenage girls go to to become beautiful are outrageous. Eating disorders, unhealthy diets, calorie counting, wearing excessive amounts of makeup, hair extensions, revealing clothing, painfully high shoes and some even go as far as plastic surgery to make themselves look 'stereotypically beautiful'. Now I'm not saying that people who make these decisions are complete idiots because everyone is entitled to their own opinion. However, I do feel that the media has set the expectations of how teenage girls and young women should look way to high! It is completely unrealistic that everyone can look  stereotypically beautiful and the same as these pretty, skinny girls in the media, like the Barden Bella's. We as young adults need to realise that it is not acceptable to constantly compare ourselves to what we seen on a screen or in a magazine and we need to start accepting who we are and accomplish greater things than trying to look like a size 0 girl on a glossy page. 

However towards the end of the movie, Pitch Perfect actually did away with these 'perfect girl' stereotypes and made it a little more realistic. Instead of using pretty, skinny girls as the main members of the Barden Bella's, they decided to take a different approach and use other girls who aren't deemed to be as stereotypically beautiful but are all unique in their own ways. The Barden Bella's changed their look from the perfect, skinny, fake-happy girls to a more crazy and wild group of young women who prove to the audience that you don't need to be the skinniest, look the prettiest or stay traditional to win the a cappella competition. The Bella's changed from wearing all matching outfits, hair, makeup and routines to a more wild approach. Close-up camera shots show that the new members of the Bella's are not all skinny, and what is considered to be  stereotypically beautiful, they are seen to be pretty in their own ways and all wear their own individual outfits. I think that the decision to change the way the Barden Bella's looked was a good example to teenage girls because the can now see that you don't have to be perfect to fit in. However, even though Pitch Perfect did try and mix things up a bit and portray the Barden Bella's as the 'underdogs' who surprised everyone with their looks and different routines, there were still many stereotypes that were used 'just for laughs' and portray negative ideas and messages to society through the new Barden Bella's characters. 

A majorly stereotypical character that Pitch Perfect has used is Fat Amy. Fat Amy is one of the leading female characters in the Barden Bella's. I found Fat Amy's portrayal in the movie as the 'funny fat girl' hilarious, however this is actually seen to be a typical stereotype and it is used a lot in the media to gain audience appeal. In one of the first scenes of the movie, certain dialogue was used to introduce her to the viewers. This character is seen introducing herself as Fat Amy to two original members of the Barden Bella's, as they are wanting to recruit new members. When Amy was asked what her name was she instantly replied "Fat Amy" as if it was an ordinary, simple name. The Bella's then replied "You call yourself Fat Amy?" And she replies, "Yeah, so twig bitches like you don't do it behind my back." My instant reaction to this scene of the movie was laugher. I thought that it was hilarious that Fat Amy was so upfront and real about herself and her body size, she didn't care about what other people thought about her and I thought this was great as I am not actually used to seeing this a lot in real life, particularly with being a teenage girl.

However, as the movie progressed, I began to doubt the "funny" stereotype of Fat Amy's character. I initially thought that it was great to portray Fat Amy as the large, funny girl because she is embracing her body shape and doesn't care what anyone thinks about her. But now I realise that even though she is indeed a consistently hilarious character who isn't ashamed of her body, the movie Pitch Perfect actually relies on these 'used' assumptions of fat people for easy laughs. At one particular point in the movie, Amy lies on the floor and wriggles her legs around calling it "horizontal running" because she is too lazy and doesn't want to run like everyone else.
Even though this was somewhat funny, it has given society the impression that fat people are just plain lazy. This is a stereotype that we have seen the media use over and over again. Although it is funny, it also negatively portrays not only Fat Amy's character but also large people in general. It completely misrepresents them and it gives everyone in society the impression that fatter people are all too lazy to put in any effort to do exercise. This is not always the case because some people are physically un able to do exercise, but because of their size, what we have seen and how they have been represented in the media, people stereotype them as lazy. It also gives a sense of 'false confidence'. Fat Amy's character is confident with her body and that is great, however she is only one person represented on a screen for the world to see. I am sure the majority of larger people around the world are extremely unhappy and self conscious about their bodies and would never want to introduce themselves as "Fat Bob" or "Fat Sally", but because of what we have seen in the media we assume that this is funny and that all fat people are generally funny. 

Even though Pitch Perfect is trying to make a point across that you don't have to be skinny and beautiful to be liked, it is also extremely hypocritical of them to use a 'fat' person as a funny character because as a viewer, I can almost guarantee I wouldn't have found Fat Amy's jokes half as funny if she wasn't fat. It is sad that movie makers have to rely on stereotypes such as this in order to make money and sell their product.

The same goes for the skinny, perfect Barden Bella's. The movie would not have been able to be made without their stereotypically beautiful, appealing image at the beginning of the film. When I first watched this movie I did actually think that it was great because they introduced new types of characters to the scenes who weren't 'stereotypically beautiful', but now I realise that this movie is actually a completely unrealistic representation of normal people and that even though the characters may not necessarily have been the skinniest, or the prettiest, they still were reliant on stereotypes to be funny and make the movie Pitch Perfect into a successful one.

The effects that stereotypical movies like this have on teenage girls in society are immense. They often are all of the same genre and all lead to very negative consequences and consistently make girls unhappy about themselves because they do not fit into the 'criteria' of what a popular, pretty, skinny girl should be like. The stereotype of becoming the 'perfect girl' is not only portrayed in Pitch Perfect but also in many other movies aimed at teenage girls. Some of these other movies consist of; Mean Girls. This is a movie about a young teenage girl who was home schooled for all of her life and has recently integrated into an American public high school. As she enters the school for the first time the 16 year old encounters the psychological warfare and unwritten social rules that teenage girls face in society. The ideas shown in Mean Girl's are very similar to those in Pitch Perfect. This movie also portrays a similar message to society which is 'looking perfect and being pretty is all that matters'. Another movie that also stereotypes teenage girls and makes them unhappy about themselves is WILDCHILD. In this movie the spoilt, Malibu brat Poppy Moore has pushed her rich, usually absent Dad over the edge. When his patience wears out he sends her to England to an all-girls boarding school thinking it will straighten her out. However, on the first day she makes enemies with most of her dorm mates, even when they try to be nice to her.

Unwilling to accept the strict regime of the school, she decides to misbehave in order to try and get herself expelled. The only reason she actually decides not to leave the school is because of the appealing feature of the Head Mistresses son Freddie, who she ends up falling in love with. Once again this is a movies portraying completely stereotypical messages like Mean Girls or Pitch Perfect as it makes girls believe that in order for them to be liked and popular they either have to change absolutely everything about themselves, or get the guy to like them. This genre of movies all portray the same message to society and the ideas that are shown in the movies are certainly not positive ones that we as teenage girls should be aspiring to. Unfortunately because of stereotypes in the media, this is what our generation and surrendered to, which is constantly comparing ourselves and competing against one another to look perfect.