Pitch Perfect and Misogyny

LET ME COOK

Lowkirkenuinely though, I feel like the idea that the Trebles"should've" won in Pitch Perfect (2012) is rooted in misogyny. Stay with me here.

By all metrics (points, audience reaction, innovation and quality) we could use to judge an ICCA performance, the Bellas hit every category perfectly. The Trebles were under new leadership, and Jesse clearly (and unsuccessfully) drew from Beca's work with mashups. Arguably this is a parallel from the writers, meant to highlight how women's work is often stolen by men who don't fully understand it. The Bellas literally changed how teams perform at the real life ICCA's, and I think permanently altering a capella competitions forever surely highlights why they should've won. Not to mention that in 2011, they made it to the finals with the old setlist they had, so very clearly the Bellas are comsistently a good group, but just unable to get to that final hurdle. What's super important is that Gail literally calls it a "glass ceiling" which feels intentionally placed there to immediately establish Pitch Perfect's message of feminism and unity. To add on, John Smith being a misogynist is incredibly impactful, he is a man in power than can decide which group wins, but more importantly he's given the "generic white guy" name which represents the system of patriarchy itself, and how any generic white guy can benefit from the system and use it to oppress women. 

So why is it that a group of all men who are shown to be under new leadership, and as such already at a a disadvantage due to the selfishness of their past leader, and who are trying to copy someone else referred to online as "the ones who should've won"?

I personally think it's rooted in misogyny.

I'm not saying everyone who says this is a misogynist obviously, but the argument itself is very much so rooted in the idea that a woman can't do much (or "win") without a man. Althusser's sociological work in regards to the idea of "ISA's" really highlights this. An "ISA" or "Ideological State Apparatus" is an institution that perpetuates the ideals held by a society, reinforcing roles and inequalities through bias and structural/systemic discrimination. Althusser was a Marxist, so to him, these inequalities often are class divides, and so the ISA's serves capitalism, but many feminists have linked the patriarchy with capitalism (Walby as a prime example, with her Matrix of Inequality). And as such, it's very reasonable to argue that ISA's therefore also serve the patriarchy through reinforcing rigid gender roles, the gender binary and the repeated restriction of women's access to HE and higher-paying jobs (there are more male CEO's called John than there are female CEO's for example).

Back to Pitch Perfect:

Why is it that so many people miss the point of the film and skip straight to "the Trebles should've won"? If you don't believe my patriarchy argument, then let's look exclusively at the film. 

As a reminder, Pitch Perfect (2012) follows an embattled a capella group who need to break their rigid traditions to reach the finals and become the first all-female group to claim an ICCA title. This is achieved when Beca (the protagonist) uses her background in music technology (as a DJ by hobby, according to her father) to make a mashup that still has the essence of the Bellas (only songs made famous by women etc). She permanently changes the face od a capella forever. So much so, that when she leaves, the next leader (Emily) chooses to pull the Bellas out of the ICCA's due to the legacy left by Beca. I'll do a full deep dive into her (and most other characters) in a separate blog because otherwise we'll be here all day. As a judge, all you've seen is one song being performed by one group at a time, and now a group who had a scandal at last year's finals (dubbed "pukegate") has returned, performed in a way that's never been done before, despite only getting into the finals due to the elimination of another group (which would arguably set lower expectations). Surely you'd be shocked, and rate the highly. Not to mention the audience reaction, fans of every group were screaming and cheering at this, louder than any other performance. 

That should be it, monkey covering eyes emoji, thanks!