Many comedies thrive off pushing the boundaries into offensive content to get attention. “Pitch Perfect 2,” the sequel to the original “Pitch Perfect,” tells the story of an all-female a cappella group, marketing itself as a boundary-pushing, feminist movie. However, it still relies on unnecessary and out-of-place stereotypical jokes. The one Guatemalan character, Flo, functions as a first-world-problems joke in order to put the girls’ problems into perspective. She doesn’t really have her own story. Even though this may seem like a harmless joke at first, when we don’t know anything else about this character, and she serves no other function in the movie, she becomes a token minority.
In contrast, Fat Amy has her own storyline and makes jokes about her size. Her character often pokes fun at the lack of body diversity among The Bellas. Despite being the only fat character, she still gets her own story and romantic interests. Her size is a physical trait, but it is definitely not the most interesting thing about her.
John and Gail’s commentary is the best example of how to break down oppressive jokes, with the punch line often being John’s sexism, not the ladies themselves.
A joke is funny when it is creative or different, not when it makes fun of the oppressed. But even amid the awesome deconstruction of sexism that goes on in John and Gail’s commentary, “Pitch Perfect 2” still felt the need to rely on played-out stereotypical jokes.
In the past 10 years or so, female-empowering comedy has not progressed much. “Mean Girls” quickly became a cult favorite after it was released. It’s easy to forget, however, that not all of its jokes were so empowering to everyone, with Cady, the lead character played by Lindsay Lohan, often being made fun of for not understanding the cultural norms of an American high school. As we find out throughout the course of the movie, her learning about how to be popular turns out to be a bad thing, but until she finds that out, her upbringing is used for jokes.
Despite its best attempts at diversity, “Pitch Perfect 2” resorted to tokenism. Identities were used as a punch line. Until there is better representation in casting, movies will not be able to get away with these kinds of jokes.
Comedy needs to be mindful of its impact, because it does not exist in a vacuum. Comedy has the potential to be offensive, but this should be used to turn it on the oppressor, not to further perpetuate stereotypes.
Despite attempting to be more diverse, content creators often mistake a minority character’s presence as enough of an effort toward diversity. However, their role matters.
Minority characters have to be more fleshed out and not just exploited for a punch line.
Although many will argue that comedy should be immune from criticism, movies and TV shows have to be accountable for their content, no matter the genre. Just because a movie is criticized does not mean people are not allowed to like it.
On the contrary, the content that is most beloved must be criticized in order to spur change. A movie being progressive in one area does not excuse its other problems.
There has to be more of an effort toward representative casting. Bringing in token minority characters for a punch line is not enough.
Nicole Dan is a UF political science sophomore. Her column appears on Tuesdays.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 5/26/15]
