YMMV / Pitch Perfect

• Actor Shipping:
  • In addition to Beca and Chloe, Kendrick and Snow are also shipped together. It does not help that they tend to flirt with each other during interviews.
  • Rebel Wilson and Adam Devine are also shipped a lot, due to their amazing chemistry together. The fact that a lot of their dialogue together in the movie concerning their romance is improvised causes some fans to think of them as more than 'good friends.'
• Adorkable:
  • In her freshman year, Aubrey was ditzy and cheerful. It went right out the window after her Stress Vomit cost the Bellas a serious defeat and she became a nasty Control Freak.
  • In contrast to Beca, Emily is very adorable yet more socially-awkward, especially in her mannerisms.
  • Benji, with his general enthusiasm, nerd gear and magic tricks. Especially when he's around Emily.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Aubrey: Uptight bitch mired in tradition who won't accept new ideas or an overzealous Team Mom who just wants the Bellas to do well and just has trouble letting go of tradition?
    • She sees losing the finals the previous year as her fault. In order to redeem herself and the Bellas they need to win, right? So she insists that they continue to do the previous year's show and choreography because that's what got them to the finals last time.
  • Jesse, Dogged Nice Guy or a dude who fails to grasp the concept of boundaries, insinuating himself into situations that don't require his input and only ends up with Beca in the end because he's the Designated Love Interest?
    • Beca is the one who starts the fight at Regionals and actually did cause property damage, was Jesse so out of line in calling her dad to bail Beca out?
    • Was Jesse really 'inserting himself' and unfairly 'defending' Beca, or did he just happen to walk by and overhear Aubrey stating a falsehood about his relationships and wanted to correct her statement?
    • This is not helped by linking him into Beca's character arc: her development is all about opening up to people rather than shutting them out. As Jesse points out, she pushes people away. However, this development could have been achieved better if Chloe/Aubrey had delivered that speech to Beca since they have no ulterior motives. A good deal of Jesse being mad with her feels like frustration that they haven't hooked up yet. Especially with that pissy little remark to Luke about how "you don't know Becky like I do", when really, neither does Jesse.
  • Beca, cool, sassy rebel or rude, whiny, self-centered and utterly unconcerned with team unity? Some see her as at least growing from the latter to the former by the end of the film.
  • In the sequel was Chloe intentionally failing because she was afraid to leave the Bellas or was she afraid to leave Beca?
  • Emily, a lovable, energetic, if a little awkward Genki Girl, or something of a Spotlight-Stealing Squad?
• Base-Breaking Character: Much like Rebel Wilson herself, Fat Amy can be a bit divisive. Either she's a hilarious breakaway character who steals the show or an obnoxious attention whore who makes it unwatchable. By the creators' admission, they just dropped Rebel Wilson into various scenes and let her go off, so her appeal lives and dies entirely on whether or not you like her one-liners.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: "Cups" turned out to be an insanely popular song months after the movie was released due to people posting videos themselves copying the scene. It became so popular that a longer version was produced and sent to radio, and despite being barely over 2 minutes long, it was big enough to become a top 10 chart hit.
• Creepy Awesome: Some of the things Lily says are downright bizarre, but they make for a good Rewatch Bonus. Plus, she's one hell of a beat-boxer.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Lilly getting knocked over into Aubrey's puke puddle? Gross, sad, but strangely amusing. Lilly suddenly moving her arms and legs in it like she's making a snow angel? Disturbing yet hilarious.
  • Many, many of John Smith's (John Michael Higgins) comments are so bizarre, so offensive, and so far out there, there is no other response to them but laughter.
• Crowning Music of Awesome:
  • The Riff-Off, as well as the Trebles and Bellas finals. "Cups" also ended up being this as well, see above.
  • The Riff-Off 2.0 from the sequel qualifies as well (the fact that instead of being essentially "the Bellas versus the Trebles" like the first one and has four groups actively taking part in it makes it particularly awesome).
  • Cheap Thrills has some pretty impressive vocal fireworks from Kendrick in Pitch Perfect 3.
• Cult Classic: Did moderately well in its original release, but has really thrived posthumously, as it's now a staple of girls-night-out screenings and Drafthouse sing-alongs.
• Designated Villain:
  • Evermoist in the third one is not really being a bunch of jerks for performing with their instruments and upstaging the Bellas in the USO show because they’re just doing their thing and realistically believe that the Bellas doing a cappella is logically at their own disadvantage. If anything, the Bellas come off as the jerks because Evermoist didn’t play by 'their' rules. Rules which were only truly for a cappella to begin with. That said, they are much bitchier to the Bellas than the other groups.
  • While they are being bitchy in pointing it out, Evermoist are also 100% right that the Bellas are an amateur group who only got onto the tour because Aubrey had her father pull some strings.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Chicago Walp, the soldier who flirts with Chloe in the second trailer for the third movie, started getting this from Beca/Chloe shippers the instant the trailer dropped.
  • Poor Jesse gets this as well from Bechloe shippers, especially on Tumblr.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Bumper, thanks to Adam Devine's performance. This even lead to him getting his own TV show.
• Ethnic Scrappy: Flo from the sequel for her lines being mostly unfunny Latina stereotypes complete with a heavy accent.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: Following the release of the second movie was a surge of fanfics revolving around the (implausible) concept of Emily being Beca and Chloe's Kid from the Future (often referred to as "aca-child"), in a way that isn't too dissimilar to all the Glee fanfics about Sugar being Brittany and Santana's future daughter.
• Fanon:
  • Chloe's year is never mentioned in the movie. She could be anyway from Sophomore to Senior, but in most fanfiction she's a senior like Aubrey.
  • It's most likely that she's a senior since the leader in the beginning leaves the group to both her and Aubrey, and Chloe is nowhere to be seen at the end scene that takes place the next school year.
  • In the sequel, which takes place 3 years after the original film, it's mentioned that this is Chloe's 7th year, meaning that she was a senior in the first film.
  • Most fics peg Aubrey as either a pre-Law student or an Economics/Business-related one.
  • The guy that Chloe was in the shower with has been named Tom by the fans, even though his name was never mentioned in the movie.
  • A lot of stories have been making Beca and Stacie best friends recently despite their interaction in the film being minimal.
  • The Fandom has seemingly universally decided that Kommissar's real name is Luisa.
• Fanon Discontinuity: The third movie is far from universally acknowledged due to the Out-of-Genre Experience, lower critical and audience scores, and Sequel Non-Entity status of the Treblemakers.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Beca/Chloe, aka Bechloe, is the most popular ship in the fandom and easily more so than Beca's canon ship with Jesse. In fact, fans had already started shipping them from the first trailer, and this increased tenfold when the film came out and had loads of Les Yay between them, such as the infamous scene where Chloe walks into Beca's shower to force her to sing. Even when the third film gave Chloe a love interest in the form of Chicago, more fans still shipped her with Beca.
  Fat Amy: You're Beca and Chloe. Together you're Bloe. And everyone loves a good blowy.
  • Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Cut may not be the right word, but a kiss between Beca and Chloe was filmed even though it was never supposed to be in the movie.
• Foe Yay Shipping: There is a large fandom for shipping Becca with Kommissar, despite Kommissar being the leader of the rival acapella group in 2, due to Becca spending the film attracted to Kommissar and unable to stop complimenting her.
• Harsher in Hindsight: While Rebel Wilson coming out as queer in 2022 makes Amy's interest in Cynthia's lesbianism Hilarious in Hindsight, the way Amy snarks about how obvious it is and waits for her to "come out"^note the end of the film implies she wasn't actually keeping it secret, she just had no reason to talk about it and Amy thought she was closeted is awkward in light of Wilson's allegation that she was Forced Out of the Closet by the Sydney Morning Herald.
  • The third movie's riff-off had a very unfortunate combination of "Wake Me Up" by Avicii and "Zombie" by the Cranberries. Cranberries singer Dolores O'Riordan died less than a month after the movie's release and Avicii died only a few months later.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • All of shots at Glee since Skylar Astin appeared on the show.
  • Remember when Anna Camp was the horrible singing competition judge on it? (No, nobody else does really, either.)
  • John Michael Higgins (the male commentator) also starred in a season one episode of Glee, as a man "addicted" to musical theatre.
  • The fact that Kelley Jakle (Jessica) and Adam DeVine (Bumper) were dating before shooting began.
  • The first movie has Bumper making fun of the Tone Hangers. In the sequel, he's part of the group.
  • Fat Amy accidentally showing her vagina in the sequel's opening scene is dubbed "Muffgate", similar to the Trump scandal in 2016 being dubbed "Pussygate" ^note when audio from 2005 was released of presidential candidate Donald Trump making derogatory comments about women and discussed "grabbing them by the pussy" to Access Hollywood reporter Billy Bush.
  • The third movie revolves around the Bellas going to the USO to support the army. At the time of the movie’s release, Adam was actually on a USO tour.
  • The “No dating/having sex with a Treble Maker” rule Aubrey strictly enforced and the flack she gave Beca for spending frequent time with Jesse in the first film is this, given that Anna Camp (Aubrey) was the one who went on to date Skyler Astin (Jesse) and were married from 2016-2019.
  • It's kind of hilarious for musical theatre fans that Benji didn't make it into the Treble Makers, since Ben Platt went on to be the youngest person ever to win a Tony Award thanks to his work in Dear Evan Hansen.
  • In the second movie, the leader of Das Sound Machine compares Anna Kendrick to a troll. Fast forward to 2016...
  • At the Acapella Worlds Championship in the sequel, Gail makes a comment "no one cares about the Korean group". Few years after the film, the popularity of K-pop music genre would grow to reach international recognition and overseas billboard charts and awards, with singing groups being some of the most recognized K-Pop artists.
  • Amy's remarks that someone in the group is gay as Rebel Wilson would later reveal she has a girlfriend in 2022.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Aside from Fat Amy, who is played by a legitimately big woman, Cynthia Rose and a couple of the other minor Bellas are played by actresses who are average sized women; the first time the new Bellas line up sings in a competition, John and Gail make a snide comment about the line up being more "diverse" this year, in comparison to the last year's team who were all about the same size. The guys at the frat party also imply they're just as put off by the new girls' physical appearances as with the off-key singing.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming:
  • Bella Squared for Beca/Chloe/Aubrey/Stacie
  • Triple Treble for Aubrey/Chloe/Beca
• Jerkass Woobie: Aubrey. Beca occasionally too.
• Just Here for Godzilla: A noticeable portion of the movie's male viewers only watched because of how cute Anna Kendrick is. Ditto for Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, and Hailee Steinfeld.
• LGBT Fanbase: Quite the large lesbian following, not surprising for its mostly female cast and girl-power message, an actual canon lesbian character (whose sexuality isn't confirmed by most of the film not because she is closeted, but because she doesn't consider it a secret and is so comfortable with it that she feels no need to make an issue of it) and Chloe's rather unambiguous fondness for Beca (and some other Bellas as well).
• Large Ham: Bumper; it was super clear that Adam was having the time of his life acting as an egotistical jerk!
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "You call yourself Fat Amy?
  • "I'm gonna finish him like a cheesecake!"
  • Amy, what are you doing? Horizontal running!
  • "No, hard pass, hard pass!"
  • "I sometimes have a feeling I could do crystal meth, but then I think... mnm...better not."
  • "ENOUGH!! ENOUGH!!"
  • "Whoop, there it is."
  • Lesbihonest.
  • Fat Amy yelling "No!" and then winking.
• Moe: Chloe and Benji.
• One-Scene Wonder
  • "Bologna" Barb, for her Boob-Based Gag and the way she rubs in just how far the Bellas have fallen since Aubrey's humiliation when they beg her to join them.
  • The Sockapellas, for their use of sock puppet ventriloquism while performing.
  • Mary Elise, who has a decent audition before being forced to leave the Bellas, crying after sleeping with a Troublemaker under circumstances she claims were accidental.
  • The university greeter who gives Beca a rape alarm without losing her chipper nature.
• Nausea Fuel: Lilly making a...puke angel in Aubrey's vomit.
• Preemptive Shipping: Even as far back as the first trailer, when the characters' names weren't known yet, fans had already started to massively ship Beca and Chloe together. This continued even when the film aired and Beca was revealed to have a love interest in the form of the male Jesse, mainly thanks to the massive Les Yay between them.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • Bechloe for Beca/Chloe
  • Becommissar for Beca/Kommissar
  • Bechemily for Beca/Chloe/Emily
  • Bemily for Beca/Emily
  • Chaubrey for Aubrey/Chloe
  • Chacie for Chloe/Stacie
  • Jashley or Jessley for Jessica/Ashley
  • Jaubrey for Jesse/Aubrey
  • Jeca for Beca/Jesse
  • Mitchsen for Beca/Aubrey
  • Staubrey for Aubrey/Stacie
  • Steca for Stacie/Beca
  • Stemily for Stacie/Emily
  • Stonald for Stacie/Donald
  • Stynthia for Stacie/Cynthia-Rose
• Protection from Editors: The creators admit to giving Rebel Wilson complete creative freedom with her character's dialogue. For better or worse, it shows.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • Some fans wish The Treblemakers had won after Benji joined them and made such a good showing in the Finals. Treblemakers are the designated antagonists for the first film by virtue of their leader being a Jerkass who engages in multiple Kick the Dog moments towards anyone who crosses them. With that said, they do put in the work into their performances, which the commentators mention in-universe, and to bring the spontaneity to the stage that the Bellas lack. Also, once Bumper leaves to work with John Mayer, their obnoxious behavior gets toned down, implying Toxic Friend Influence was at hand.
  • The Footnotes are also a genuinely better and more energetic group at Semi-Finals, but thanks to Benji's detective work, they get disqualified due to the judges finding out that their lead singer is a high school student which is against the rules. It feels unsettling that the best group, which had mostly black students participating, lose to a technicality and not because the Bellas, who have a token Asian and black girl, outshone them..
  • A large portion of the audience prefer Das Sound Machine's technical and vocal mastery and far superior production values to the Bellas' fairly anemic final performance in the sequel. The filmmakers themselves seem to be aware of this, which could explain why they include tired evil stereotypes in most scenes with these characters in an attempt to stop us from supporting them. This failed miserably. Heck, even the actors playing the Bellas agreed that they were inferior.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: While not taking up an excessive amount of screen time, Beca and Jesse's romantic subplot adds little to the film and seems somewhat obligatory. Beca's growing to accept that she likes being a Bella could easily have been character growth enough.
• The Scrappy: Kimmy Jin, who is a standoffish (and even racist) bitch to Beca for no real reason.
• Sequelitis: The first film was very well received, the second had slightly more detractors and the third even more. (On Rotten Tomatoes they have 80%, 65%, and 31%, respectively.)
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Many Beca/Chloe stories will pair Jesse and Aubrey (probably because their actors are dating in real life) or Aubrey and Benji or Aubrey and Stacie.
• Signature Scene:
  • Beca singing Cups in the auditions, especially as that cover of the song became wildly more popular than the original. The National Finals performance and the Riff Off are also this to a lesser extent. And for all the Be Chloe shippers, there's the infamous shower scene.
    • As for the sequels, we have the Flashlight performance at the Worlds in Pitch Perfect 2, and the Toxic cover in Pitch Perfect 3. Again, their equivalents to the Riff Off are this to a lesser extent.
• Spiritual Successor: To the original Bring It On. Aubrey's aca-everything appears inspired by that.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • It's meant to show that Beca shuts out the people who care about her, but she is right when she tells Jesse that they aren't boyfriend and girlfriend and he shouldn't act like he knows what's best for her because it's condescending.
  • Similarly, the Bella's (sans Chloe and Amy) give Beca a What the Hell, Hero? for changing the routine halfway through their performances, but Beca was right when she points out the judges and the audience were bored out of their minds by it and they were going to lose if they kept at what they were doing.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Benji sadly singing to himself in his dorm after none of the groups accept him.
  • This bit
  Aubrey: I am my father's daughter. (voice breaks) And he always said, "If at first you don't succeed...pack your bags."
  • Mary Elise crying and running off after being kicked out of the Bellas.
  • Happy tears-wise, seeing all the previous Bellas as the current generation sings Flashlight at the Worlds. Especially seeing Emily and her mom singing side-by-side, singing the song she created.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Kori and Mary Elise, the two Bellas Aubrey kicked out. Both had good auditions, and letting them back in later could have helped display Aubrey's Character Development.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The sequel ends with the implication that, following graduation and the Worlds victory, the past Bellas have passed the baton for Emily to kickstart a new generation of Bellas... Then comes the third movie, which, rather than taking the logical next step and focusing the story on the formation of the new generation, decides to remain focused on Beca's generation after graduation, with the new Bellas basically being reduced to background characters. This is arguably justified, as Beca's generation is the one audiences are most familiar with, but it still dampens the heartwarming "changing of the guard" feel of the previous movie's ending.
• Unexpected Character: In the sequel's riff-off, nobody expected the Green Bay Packers out- or in-universe. After the first film, some members of the team contacted Elizabeth Banks, told her how much they liked it, and asked for a cameo in the sequel.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The second film is dated to 2015 by one brief cameo by Nicolle Wallace. Wallace appears as one of the hosts of The View, a job she only did for one year before being replaced.
  • And of course, former president Barack Obama was still in office at the time.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Beca's behavior, pre-Character Development. As Honest Trailers points out, she acts cruel or snide towards several supporting character for petty reasons, complains about doing a job she's paid to do, and even makes a point about how she hates movies- all movies.
  • Jesse as well, especially in his first scene interacting with Beca when he tells her she'd be pretty if she took out her ear-spike and keeps insisting they know each other when all they did was glance at each other for five seconds from across the street, even though Beca is clearly uncomfortable with it.
• Unpopular Popular Character:
  • Jessica and Ashley get little trust or respect from the rest of the close-knit Bellas, who don't even care enough about them to bother trying to tell them apart. However, many fans think the world of them despite their Living Prop roles.
  • Bumper is a proudly obnoxious and self-centered The Friend Nobody Likes to the characters, but may be the most consistently popular male character among the fans, and even got his own spinoff.
• The Woobie: Benji until the very end, when he finally gets to perform for his audience.
  • The Treblemakers in general become this after Bumper abandons them right before the finals. Although they're positioned as the rivals to the Bellas in the girls vs. boys scenario, it becomes evident that their worst moments are borne as a result of Bumper's Toxic Friend Influence. Combined with their performance in the finals with Jesse and Benji as the lead vocals, their loss comes off as less karmic and more somber.

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