On a purely surface level, I enjoyed Pitch Perfect as much as the next ex-theater-kid who played Gaston’s Girl #3 in her high school’s production of Beauty And The Beast. It has an acerbic, smart female protagonist (Anna Kendrick), people shamelessly singing in each other’s faces (quite honestly my favorite way to spend a Saturday night), and a sense of self-awareness that’s rare in mainstream comedy. But what irked me about the movie was the lazy-humor-disguised-as-progressive-humor surrounding Fat Amy. I’m not the first to bring this up—it’s a well-tread topic—and I’ve since tried quite valiantly to give the movie the benefit of the doubt, look for its good intentions, examine my own quick-trigger reaction to anything that might be construed as female-body-shaming. But ultimately, the irk has stuck with me, and I with it. I am mired in irk. Because in what’s otherwise a story of (…relative) female empowerment, the jokes at Fat Amy’s expense feel out of place and regressive, almost embarrassing, like they’ve been flown in and air-dropped from an early Adam Sandler script.
A lot of the movie’s defenders viewed the humor as progress (“Fat Amy doesn’t have a problem with her body”), as subversion of stereotype (“She’s making the jokes about her size before anybody else can”), as empowering (“She even gets laid!”)—sort of a postmodern take on fat jokes. While all of those things are true—Amy’s confident, self-deprecating, and sexually free—that doesn’t change the fact that Pitch Perfect is rife with jokes about Fat Amy being lazy (her “horizontal running”), rough and “unladylike” (she talks about wrestling crocodiles and “unleashing the Kraken”), and slovenly (she spills food on her clothes and leaves it behind her ear).
I’d like to think that, as a culture, we’re moving on from “fatty go boom boom” jokes, even those made pseudo-ironically or in some kind of post-modern defiance. The latest Pitch Perfect 2 trailer proves we’re not. Or, at least, the Pitch Perfect franchise isn’t. As pumped as I am about the a cappella situation in this movie—a Beyonce song!—I’m already disappointed with what it’s chosen to highlight. It’s overrun with jokes that hinge entirely on women’s appearances—primarily, jokes about Fat Amy’s weight. The trailer opens right away with a bit that sees Amy strung up in a swing on stage, singing Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball.” Soon, the swing begins to give, Amy starts to fall, and everybody realizes she doesn’t have any underwear on. The judge screams in response to her nakedness. To review: Thin women naked? Good. Big women naked? Gross. Here’s the full trailer, with more of the same:
The trail of the tape
Title: Pitch Perfect 2
Director: Elizabeth Banks
Screenwriter: Kay Cannon
Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld, Elizabeth Banks, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Skylar Astin
Release date: May 15, 2015
The entire trailer in one line of dialogue: “What an inspiration to girls all over the country who are too ugly to be cheerleaders.”
The entire trailer in one screengrab:
On the lighter side (noooo pun intended), there’s some funny shit going on here, and the movie does gift some witty, non-weight-related punchlines to Amy, like a joke about how she, an Australian, is the most talented on the American team. As you might surmise from Female Stuff, I’m into the low-key feminist message, even if it seems a little on-the-nose and easy—more “Girl Power” than Gloria Steinem. But I still think this movie (and its predecessor) would be stronger, smarter, and more relevant if it stopped relying on Rebel Wilson’s figure for laughs. As it stands, it’s awkward and tone deaf, falling right out of its Miley Cyrus swing.