One of the most common things looked at when portraying youth, and especially young girls is sexuality and sexual desire. As Harris talks about in Future Girl, good girls are girls that don't have sex unless they are in a loving relationship with a boyfriend and they are typically white and upper class. Bad girls are ones that do slutty sexual things with random people or talk about enjoying and having sex and are typically girls of color and lower class. Olive is definitely a can-do girl, she is rich, white, smart, a virgin and has a good family. Olive is the perfect can-do girl until she becomes an at-risk girl by becoming a slut in the eyes of the public. One scene that keeps popping into my head that very strongly connects with the idea that youth is ignorant and makes bad choices is the scene with Olive and her guidance counselor, in this scene the guidance counselor talks to Olive about the rumors she has been hearing and tells Olive that he doesn't know what she is doing and that she obviously wasn't thinking. In this film youth are mostly shown as people whose emotions cannot be taken seriously, however Olive's family does a good job treating Olive as an equal rather than as a child. One of Olive's teachers also did a good job treating her as a person rather than a foolish child, but once she became the school slut he talked to her and told her that she didn't know what she was doing or what she really wanted. Olive is also portrayed as a consumer, as discussed in Producing Girls by Mary Kearney, girls are simply seen as consumers and Olive very easily fits that view. One scene that is used to show this is when Olive goes out to buy new cloths to fit her new persona as the school slut. I think that race and class has a big effect on how the film comes across to the viewers. If Olive was not an upper-class white girl this film would have come across as a negative view of race and the lower-class rather than a humorous look at sex and the rumor mill in high school. As we discussed in class, satire is a great way to look at sex in youth because it makes it easier to see an issue that people don't really want to look at because there is humor involved.
This film mostly just reinscribes discourses surrounding adolescence and slightly challenges them. This films most definitely makes youth look innocent and stupid. The film shows this stupidity as strictly about sex. Olive is a very smart girl and does a good job in school, however when it comes to sex and relationships she knows very little. However the film also shows the guidance counselor as overly sexual and somewhat stupid when it comes to sex. I think that the film is trying to use satire to show that people need more education on sex and that the issue of sex mixed with adolescence is a recipe for disaster.
Brown, Adriane. Class Lecture. Introduction to Youth Studies. Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. 3March 2011.
Harris, Anita. Future Girl: Young Women in the Twenty-first Century. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Kearney, Mary Celeste. "Producing Girls: Rethinking the Study of Female Youth Culture."Delinquents and Debutantes: Twentieth-century American Girls' Cultures. New York: New York UP, 1998. 285-306.
When looking at the different meanings of this movie, I think it is important to look at the film's inspiration. She wears an "A" to represent adultery, just like the main character from the novel The Scarlet Letter. The difference here is that Olive did not actually commit adultery (or any other sexual act). When someone had to wear an A, they were treated as a social outcast and thought of as dirty and disgusting. It seems as though Olive is treated similarly after she gets called a slut. This shows the values of labels in youth culture and how rampant uninformed gossip spreads. I also think that lack of education is a major problem for most issues adolescents face.
ReplyDeleteI like that in the film she bought into the image of the slut. She challenged people by accepting that people thought she was sleeping around and didn't care. She threw it back in their faces and I think that showed a lot of strength in her character. I can't help but think about the fact that she is a girl, and that the movie wouldn't even work if the main character was a man. This double standard that is in place is so ridiculous to me. A girl has sex, she's a slut, a guy has sex, he's "the man." Also, this movie points out how important it is for these guys to be labeled as popular and having sex is the only way to achieve that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about how sexuality and sexual desire are very common in the portrayal of youth. And scares me how young girls understand the messages put out about sexuality. I babysit a few girls from my church, ages seven and nine years old, and they both are constantly telling me about their boyfriends and who likes who. They also berate me for not having a boyfriend because in their eyes, that is the most important thing to being cool. This same stuff is shown in Easy A, just at an older age level. You talk a lot about how Olive is treated by adults; that they talk down to her just because she is young and they assume she doesn't know what she is doing. While many adults do treat adolescents as equals, most do not, but I think it is very important to note that in the movie, Olive really does not know what she is doing, but because she feels so trapped in her stereotype, she doesn't know how to express how lost and upset she is. Perhaps if hegemonic powers did not dictate that cool people are peaceful and perfect, Olive, and tons of other girls, would be able to be honest and open about whatever they wanted.
ReplyDeleteI actually just watched this movie last night and thought to myself the entire time "this would be the perfect text to analyze!" so great job picking it out. I think you really hit all of what the movie brought to the table especially the satire of the guidance counselor. How ironic the adult "helping" the adolescent actually causes another problem for her.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the movie reinforces the abnormality of being homosexual as her first favor is to pretend to sleep with a gay boy. Everyone cheers and befriends him when he walks out of the bedroom.
The movie reinstates how adolescents will do nearly anything to fit in but Olive, she goes against the norm and doesnt care.