The Pitch Perfect 3 Trailer is Here & We Already See A Huge Problem

It seems like it's been a minute since the Barden Bellas graced our screen. While we've been anxiously waiting for updates on the third installment of the Pitch Perfect movies, we've been feeding our thirst with teasers from the set and photos of the cast on a post-filming vacay. Now the Bellas are back, pitches, with a full trailer for Pitch Perfect 3. But, sadly, I have some concerns about the new film.

My concern is definitely not that Ruby Rose is in it because I would watch Ruby Rose do anything. I would watch two hours of Ruby Rose mowing the lawn or taking a nap for goodness sake. She is perfection in human form. No, my problem is with the fact that the trailer appears to paint the all-woman rock band she fronts as the villains.

I hate to see women pitted against each other like this on-screen. Part of what worked so well about the first films was that made The Treblemakers, a group of men, such great foils for the Bellas. That allowed for the women to triumph over the guys and gave us heroes we could feel good rooting for.

Girls and women are already so underrepresented in rock that it's a shame to see the trailer demonize a band of instrument-playing women by making them the main competition for the Bellas. It feels like a girl-on-girl crime, and I'm not really here for it.

Women have historically been shut out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with girl groups like the Go-Go's and the Bangles not getting inductions (and always being relegated to pop radio, even though they play the same kind of rock as guy bands). Since its inception in 1983, only 37 women performers and bands have been inducted and only one, Carole King, was inducted for songwriting. Just like Elizabeth Banks pointed to the need for more women directors, women who play instruments need representation, too.

When there are so many women on-screen, it leaves room for those characters to be complicated, and that's a good thing. But on the other, pitting women against each other in a field where they're already grossly underrepresented just doesn't sit well.

Thank goodness programs like Girls Rock Camp exist to do the work of normalizing the idea of women playing in rock bands and who lower the barrier to entry for young girls around the country.

Hopefully, the actual film will leave room for the two groups of women to come together, but it would have been nice to have seen this group of women shown as friends and colleagues, as opposed to villains.