Originally posted on November 18, 2012 by Clara Bow

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Suit up, feminists. Pitch Perfect has arrived. Just ask yourself when was the last time you watched a movie with a variety of feminist messages directed at a young female audience. These may not all be messages you like or approve of, but at least this is not your weak-ass feminist thought delivered on the down low, dumbed down for corporate America’s idea of what a teenage girl is.

Anna Kendrick plays a college freshman, obsessed with producing music, who is challenged by her father to get involved in college activities in an attempt to prevent her from dropping out to pursue a music career. They agree that if she participates in a college club for a year, she can leave college with his grudging support. The club she is persuaded to join is an all-female, competitive a cappella group.

This group had historically recruited women with patriarchy compliant beauty, who wore airline stewardess costumes, and sang decades old standards. However, due to an embarrassing showing at the previous year’s competition, those women were no longer interested in the group. As a result the remaining members end up recruiting a diverse group of women. The movie centers around the conflict of the old school traditional paradigm with a new school sense of diversity and innovation.

Pitch Perfect succeeds beautifully as a comedy, producing some hilarious and imminently quotable lines. Rebel Wilson in particular stands out as an overweight woman with supreme confidence and a wicked wit. Perhaps most notable is that though the main character does have a romantic relationship, it does not consume her or become her sole focus. Her relationships with her female friends, her work, and the club’s competition are as important if not more so than her romance.

Best of all, Pitch Perfect is an uplifting movie that didn’t once give me the feminist wince.