Pitch Perfect

While watching pitch perfect I saw really interesting stereotypes being portrayed, these stereotypes were in some ways more sophisticated than ones usually portrayed in a lot of movies centred around and for teenage girl’s eyes. I think this happen for 2 reasons; firstly the movie was based around 19-21 year olds rather than 15-18 year old characters so they had to be more mature and grown up, so the typical stereotypes like the popular bitchy girl and the sporty jock aren’t shown as university is a lot different to high school and the bits that are portrayed from these stereotypes are small and different than normal.

One thing that I thought was how well the women/teens were portrayed in the film because unlike many films there were larger looking girls. This is not to say some of them weren't completely cliche but overall the representation was done well especially for plus sized women. The image portrayed by these characters has a positive impact on telling teen girls that its ok not to be twig thin and having a body with more than bones is actually ok and in fact normal. It is shown as more normal and not quite as shocking to have a bigger female. this is shown in pitch perfect with Cynthia Rose,Denise and Fat Amy. None of them are stick thin, and they are all busty and have more to them than the characters like chloe and Aubury. In the film Fat Amy especially uses her weight as a plus, she doesn't worry about her weight or how she looks. If you look at the way she talks you automatically see that she doesn't want to be bullied about her weight and the first words she speaks are "I'm fat Amy." She doesn't just say I'm Amy.  She does this because she is confident and content with how she looks and doesn't want them to back chat about the fact she is fat so immediately tells them to call her Fat Amy.

This kind of representation is a positive for all girls out there as it demonstrates that its ok to be bigger and that if you are happy and don’t care what others think, you are Perfect the way you are. You shouldn’t change for others. If you look at Amy’s costume and hair in the film we see the small things that help develop the character she has her funny t-shirts and orthodox Jew hairstyle and this just reinforces the idea and image being portrayed that Fat Amy is a bit quirky and a joker. Fat Amy is also the joker which is something that we don’t see often.

Although this representation is a positive one it has some consequences because a lot of teenage girls aren't as confident and self-assured as Amy; they can’t joke and make fun. and people may not realize this and expect them to be happy with who they are and maybe bully them without even realizing it. The representation even if it can be a positive one isn’t a reality that is seen very much. It comes across that Amy is ok with her weight, but if you look a little deeper I think she does have some insecurities about her weight and she uses her humour to hide this fact. That alone is something I think girls shouldn’t try and live up too. Using humour and rude sarcasm to hide insecurities isn’t a good idea as it can hurt people’s feelings and make them feel as insecure as Amy and yourself deep down.

But on the other hand if you look at Beca she is completely parallel to Amy. Beca is someone who hasn’t had many friends and is a bit of a loner. This is the way she grew up and it is because of her issues with her parents’ divorce she can’t get over the fact that her dad and mum gave up and her dad left. This impacted her hugely and made her introverted; it made her clam up and shut everyone out. You see this so clearly when she is sitting with Jesse in the quad area and instead of watching movies(which she doesn’t like) she says “or we could relive my parents’ divorce” which gives the impression that she never really got over it and never really learnt to trust and love because she believes that love doesn’t last.

Beca’s character love to make music mixes and doesn’t really want to be at University, she constantly has headphones in or around her neck, she has dark eye makeup, multiple earrings and with darkish clothing (nothing bright). This representation in the film is both positive and negative, I think it starts off as a negative representation as she is cold and stand offish towards everyone especially her dad. She doesn’t want to be there and sulks a little- not going to classes and complaining. But towards the end she starts opening up and accepting people and where she is and actually learns that sometimes love does exist. But at the same time she stays true to herself and doesn’t change who she is to fit in she just changes the way she see things and learns some great life lessons. This Positive Representation is good one for girls to follow because you don’t have to be the follower and you can be yourself but you need to remember that you are not always right and that sometimes taking risks or meeting new people or trying something new can be the best thing ever and you learn more about yourself than you know. If someone saw Beca their first thought would probably be that she was alternative and slightly emo, but I think that if they looked deeper they would learn that she is actually normal and just is herself. This stereotype is actually quite accurate, there are a lot of girls out there who are a lot like Beca, the difference would probably be that some girls aren’t really themselves and are just acting out or they aren’t and haven’t learnt to be themselves. Her stereotype is one that girls can easily relate to as they have all been there or are in a rift where they are still learning who they are and What they want out of life Beca goes through this in the film and is at the end finally happy with who she is and instead of wanted to leave she wants to stay.

Pitch Perfect is a great movie which has a lot of realistic and true representations they help teach girls that life doesn’t always go the way you want but sometimes that way is actually better. For so long ,Media has been tipptoeing around those difficult and controversial stereotypes and characters they have played over and over again the Blonde cheerleader and the jock, but finally they are starting to portray some of these controversial charactersThey have opened the door for more movies to start breaking down barriers with stereotype portrayal, Now I beleive that more and more movies are coming out with controversial issues and stereotypes which is somethig that has needed to happen.