PITCH PERFECT 2 Treats Gay People As Punchlines

Elizabeth Banks’ Pitch Perfect sequel, with a script from series scribe Kay Cannon, is a real Godfather: Part II compared to its lackluster original, but the queerness doesn’t go very far here, either. Regardless, there’s clearly been a change behind the scenes in the three years between the films. Suddenly, the queerness is less predatory, less revolting — it is, however, plastered over with racist jokes at the expense of newcomer Flo (Chrissie Fit). It’s one step forward and one step back.

The plot is dumb and frankly doesn’t matter except for context: After Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) accidentally splits her pants and exposes her vagina to then-President Barack Obama (yes, he plays himself), the Barden Bellas are suspended from a cappella and must win the A Cappella World Championships (if such a thing exists) to be reinstated. It’s basically the same story as the first movie — Beca (Anna Kendrick) is torn between a career as a music producer and her life with the Bellas, the gang eventually finds its moxie, Wilson makes plenty of jokes at her own expense, and at the end, they win the championships to the surprise of absolutely no one.

Bechloe — Tumblr’s favorite girl pair from the original, comprising Kendrick’s Beca and Brittany Snow’s Chloe — still tries hard to make itself seen. But ay, there’s the rub — the script of Pitch Perfect 2 is less queer. I don’t want to blame Cannon for this — the woman made Blockers, after all — but if I had to point my finger to any explanation, I’d blame studio oversight for the noticeable queering-down of the characters and story.

Most of the gay stuff happens in the choreography. Beca and Chloe twerk their butts together during a performance, and their nonverbal communication is often far more flirtatious than their conversations. Even Cynthia Rose (Ester Dean), the group’s sole out lesbian, gets most of her explicitly gay scenes during performances. In the previous film, you’ll remember, she was a lawsuit waiting to happen, all unsolicited boob grabs and unwarranted bum-staring.

Cynthia Rose Returns

Now, Cynthia’s still staring at Stacie (Alexis Knapp)’s boobs, but it’s during a performance while both women are singing and Cynthia’s enjoying a moment in the spotlight. The scene’s far less in-your-face than Cynthia’s worst bits from the first movie. But I suppose the takeaway from Pitch Perfect 2 is that predatory behavior is fine as long as you’re talented — and frankly, that’s still a crap message for a film series that has a long way to go until it strikes genuine, inoffensive representation. One of the Bellas needs to sit Cynthia down and have a serious conversation about boundaries with her.

Some scenes with Cynthia are shocking — like when the Bellas are trying to figure out whether to welcome or turn away newcomer Emily Junk (Hailee Steinfeld). Chloe polls the group, and Cynthia says, “I don’t think we should decide anything without Beca”. I had my hands over my eyes, waiting fearfully for whatever horribly creepy thing this damn movie was going to make her say, and to my shock and awe, Cynthia said something that wasn’t overtly sexual.

It’s almost like Pitch Perfect 2 respects her. She’s still constantly looking for her next hook-up, and she’s as flirty as ever (hey, that’s college!), but now it’s not menacing. Early in the film, Stacie desperately asks that if the Bellas are shut down for good, will they just be a bunch of girls who hang out? Cue Cynthia: “What’s wrong with that?” she says slyly, and she winks at Stacie. Maybe it’s just because I’m comparing it to Cynthia’s other attempts to get a ca-crazy with Stacie, but that’s a pretty cute moment. She’s still not complex — God, imagine if Pitch Perfect had complex characters — but at least Cynthia can be charming.

There’s even a big announcement she makes that she’s marrying a girl and moving to Maine. She’s treated as someone with a rich inner life and a personality besides “I love boobs” — you know, like an actual character.

Cynthia’s predatory characteristics have nearly been completely erased, and in turn, more side characters are throwing out queer remarks. “Fat Amy, you have a lovely vagina,” Emily offhandedly tells Wilson’s character.

The overblown, campy elements of a cappella performance in the Pitch Perfect series invite LGBTQ+ people to connect to the characters and the world. Among the German a cappella group Das Sound Machine, Fat Amy’s over-the-top courting of asshole a cappella boy Bumper (Adam Devine), the shadowy, exclusive riff-off hosted by David Cross — Pitch Perfect 2 gets ridiculous. The more the series plays to overblown campy absurdity, the more it caters to that specific sect of camp-loving LGBTQ+ fans.

At a climactic performance, Das Sound Machine dresses in black fishnets and tight black shirts, like they pillaged a Rocky Horror fan convention on their way to their show. “Just because you’re making me very sexually confused does not mean that you’re intimidating,” Beca tells their tall, blonde leader (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen). You can honestly take your pick of all the very gay things Beca says to her: “You are physically flawless, but it doesn’t mean I like you,” “You wish, you gorgeous specimen,” and “Even your sweat smells like cinnamon!” They’re all good, Sapphic-charged lines.

But it all belies this series’ biggest problem — treating LGBTQ+ people as minorities to be dismissed, their sexual preferences twisted into jokes. Queerness is mostly used as a gaffe in these films, which is why the reveal that Cynthia’s moving to Maine to get hitched is so powerful. The film doesn’t wring a joke out of it; Cynthia’s allowed to be gay without a punchline attached.

Getting Campy

Besides Cynthia, Chloe and Beca, the movie is very heterosexual. Beca’s still dating her schlubby boyfriend (Skylar Astin). Fat Amy realizes that she loves Bumper. Even Emily finds love in pathetic magician Benji (Ben Platt).

So it’s a breath of gay air when the group, in a bid to unify as a team and get their sound back, ventures into the middle of the woods to a retreat helmed by none other than former Bellas leader Aubrey (Anna Camp). She shows up as a khaki-clad sex symbol, dressed in tight shorts and a matching shirt with a low neckline and a red bandana tied around her neck. She’s holding a rifle, too, for extra sex appeal. Gotta market the movie to Republicans somehow. Aubrey’s a full-fledged drill sergeant here, putting the Bellas through the wringer, but her entire ensemble is designed as eye candy.

The Bellas’ “training” includes sleeping in one impossibly massive tent — no tent can fit 10 college-aged girls, unless it’s owned by Hermione Granger, but here we are. This is Pitch Perfect 2’s response to the first’s infamous shower scene.

There’s the super gay set-up, in which the gang is lying side by side so their heads all form a line — that’s exactly how you make sleeping in a tent turn into the most awkward, intimate experience of your life. They could have laid so their heads were aligned with one another’s feet, but they didn’t.

Then, as we move around the tent, we hear Cynthia say that she wishes the sun never comes up. She inappropriately touches Stacie, too, because this is a Pitch Perfect movie, after all — did you think Cynthia was going to be completely redeemed by this film?

But Banks and Cannon’s Meisterstück here is the exchange between Chloe and Beca. Their faces are 5 inches apart from each other when Chloe says, “You seem so tense. Do you need a back rub?” After Beca declines, Chloe tries again: “You know, Beca, we’re very close, but I feel like this retreat is really gonna let us discover everything about each other. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t do enough experimenting in college.”

Before the entire audience can stand and cheer, Beca quickly whispers, “You’re so weird,” and she turns away. The series’ second biggest gay moment gets dashed out by a script that simply can’t abide any kind of prolonged queerness. Being gay is weird, Pitch Perfect 2 tells us. Don’t admit feelings for people unless you want to kill the vibe and sour the mood. Even in its sophomore installment, the series is afraid to actually embrace queerness.

Instead, there are minor victories. Under Aubrey’s strict tutelage, the Bellas eventually find their sound and come together by running around and getting sweaty together in the woods. At the end of their retreat, the gang sings “Cups (When I’m Gone),” the series’ theme tune, by a campfire, and it finally makes the pieces click into place and lets the group come back together.

But there’s only women at the campfire, so “Cups,” which is a love song, evolves into a song about, at the very least, platonic love among female friends, if not full-blown queer attraction. These scenes are rarities in the movie, colored as odd moments when the sea beast of homosexuality breaches the surface for air before diving back out of sight. It’s a miracle these scenes are there at all.

Conclusion

Pitch Perfect 2 can hardly conceive of LGBTQ+ characters without punchlines. A sequel that actually embraced the queerness and foregrounded same-sex relationships would have been revolutionary, but it’s also impossible. At the end of the day, some studio heads probably decided it was better to try to not offend heteronormative sensibilities than to try to appeal to gay people.

So Pitch Perfect 2 offers small concessions, enough fuel to keep the Bechloe fire alive for the rest of the night without letting it get too hot. The series is interested in depicting queer characters, and the second film’s portrayals are far more sensitive than the first’s, but it doesn’t want to show LGBTQ+ people in any groundbreaking ways that foreground their queerness. Unless that queerness can be mined for a joke.

Ultimately, it’s another movie that alienates queer people. Much as Pitch Perfect treated Cynthia as someone to laugh at, Pitch Perfect 2 uses Chloe’s bisexual leanings to distance her from the audience. Her confession to Beca comes out of the blue, and it might catch you off-guard if you thought they were just really good friends. But Beca’s uncomfortable, so I’d imagine we’re supposed to be, too. Don’t be queer, you can hear the movie trying to moralize to you, unless you want your best friends to think you’re weird.

Do you think Pitch Perfect 2 treats LGBTQ+ people as outcasts? Did you love the tent scene? Sound off in the comments below.