Pitch Perfect 2 (5-26-2015)

Over the weekend I went to see Pitch Perfect 2. I remember enjoying all of the first movie, the characters, the songs, and their devotion to acapella! I went into the second Pitch Perfect movie knowing a lot more about media, and how different people or products are portrayed in media.
This movie is aimed towards teenage girls, probably ages 12-17. This is obvious because it is a comedy about a bunch of singing college girls who all share a dorm and get into pillow fights, but there are a few other ways that I noticed the target market. In the final performance, there was a team from Germany performing, made entirely of extremely good looking young people. In their songs, the girls are wearing fairly modest clothes, but the boys have on totally see-through mesh shirts. The ratio of girls to guys was very high, making the guys look more masculine and attractive. Even the main group of girls are all dressed modestly (considering how girls in the media normally dress) which was weird, but I realized it was because the girls in this movie aren't as much of sex symbols as they are role models to the target audience. The only people intended to be sex symbols in this film are the young, leather-clad, German men.
The main acapella group, the Barden Bellas, are also ethnically and socially diverse. The main character is still the normal beautiful white girl, but she is surrounded by people of all backgrounds! There is an African American lesbian, a Latin American girl, a fat white girl (everyone's favorite: Fat Amy), an Asian girl, and a redhead. However, I noticed that whenever the Latin American girl talks, it's about goats or getting kidnapped. All of her lines consist of "back in my country..." and there is always some confusion on which country she is really from. The lesbian girl only ever makes sexual comments to other girls, which are turned down every time. All the stereotypes around the main girl make her look like the only normal one. Although this movie is marketed for girls of many different demographics, it relies heavily on stereotypes for its humor.
The girls also go to a car show, where Volkswagen logos and the word itself are plastered everywhere. This could be because of families all going to see the film together who might want to look into buying a Volkswagen. There are constant makeup bags or signs for Covergirl, which I noticed throughout the film. Later I learned that Covergirl sponsored the movie, which made sense, but the whole thing still felt like a commercial to me. I was eventually paying more attention to the product placement than I was to the actual movie. I guess that's what critical thinking does to you!!
Don't worry about me I still think it was a funny movie, money well spent. I just now notice different variables that go into the movie and how they are dependent on the moviegoers.

You might not see this image in a movie aimed towards boys...