Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Pitch Perfect is a great movie for many reasons, and one we are happy to celebrate here on Decider for College Week. But an often overlooked yet fantastic quality of the film, aside from the funny quips and catchy jams, is its portrayal of college radio. Because wow do they get so, so much right about it.
From the first moments that Becca (Anna Kendrick) walks into the station, I could SMELL those old records through the screen. If you’ve ever stepped foot in a college radio station’s library, well, that’s a smell that doesn’t leave your nose. It’s musty and exciting in a way very few similar scents can be.
Visually, it reminded me so much of the library where I spent many of my college radio days at WHUS. It looked SO similar! The shelves and shelves of weird, obscure, amazing records at your fingertips, housed in some random, low-trafficked area of campus, is wonderfully accurate. Stepping into the station is so new and mysterious, even though you’re in a room that seems like it was built and filled up with music so many decades ago, and hardly touched again since.
The beginning of a college radio experience is so intimidating and awkward, for a lot of reasons, and was captured so well here. You’re learning something new and you could potentially be on the air, probably for the first time in your life, and any awkward learning you’re doing along the way could be heard by people! It’s scary. Learning which rooms are off access, where different genres of music are located, and figuring out exactly how you will fit into all of it can be rather uncomfortable. Pitch Perfect was able to portray all of these feelings in just a few short scenes.
Now, one element you might be a little confused on is Luke’s (Freddie Stroma) presence. What is a hot British dude with infinite abs doing in a college radio station? I know, it seems unlikely. However, there’s always one. There’s always that token hot guy that just loves music involved in the college radio station. Yes, he’s probably the one bringing girls back to the station. And yes, hookups definitely do happen there. Maybe not directly on top of the album-sorting table. But somewhere in the vicinity. There’s usually an old couch somewhere.
More common however, is Jesse (Skylar Astin). There are SO many Jesses at college radio stations. They are super sweet, funny, usually unassuming guys who truly love pop culture. They’re great, and nerdy and you will chat about music with them for days on end. It’s a great geeky group to be a part of, not only because of your shared interests, but because those that are truly dedicated and stick it out at the station may eventually go on to work in radio, at labels, or elsewhere in the music industry. It’s the first networking you’ll do without even realizing it.
Another all-too-familiar element to the college radio station is Becca’s hustle. Constantly creating mixes to show off your skills and only hoping that a mentor or senior member of the crew will take a listen and give you a shot, making all your dreams come true with the chance to fill in during an overnight slot. When Luke actually plays Becca’s mix, there are no real words to describe that joy and excitement. It’s a real grind, and one that proves to be much more fun than actually going to class.
Pitch Perfect is great, we know this. But the fact that they displayed a college radio experience so closely to the one I, and many others, have participated in is a small yet wildly important detail of the film. If you didn’t participate in your university’s airwaves, you still probably highly enjoyed the scenes where Becca and Jesse bond over stacking CDs. But if you know that feeling and that activity only too well, then the film brought back some great memories and even greater smells.
