Easy A takes Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and applies its premise to a California teenager. Olive Penderghast, played by Emma Stone, is an average, innocent teenager at the beginning of the film. She decides to lie to her friend about losing her virginity, which becomes the biggest mistake of her life.

I feel that the unrealistic portrayal of teenage gossip, in the way that Olive’s sin immediately became widely known, is absurd. However, it had a strong impact on Olive’s personality and made her wish for a new start. Hester Prynne, the woman who commits adultery in The Scarlet Letter, became an unwanted pariah as did Olive.

Easy A is enjoyable because it provides a comical twist to the daily life of one unlucky teenager. Olive’s coping mechanisms for being viewed as promiscuous are interesting and hilarious. Her lies, however, begin to add up on her and put her in a stunning predicament.

Overall, I feel that Easy A is an excellent movie because it reveals the interesting ways that Olive copes with sin and the consequences that she will pay for it. However, the unrealistic portrayal of high school attitude and gossip makes one question the reality of the movie. Does every single person in a high school really care about a previously unnoticed girl losing her virginity? Olive’s reaction to her new reputation is also questionable. It seems as if she is overly experimenting with her life and making an unrealistic amount of risky decisions. A real person would not even consider going down the path that she chose to cope with her sin. I definitely recommend seeing Easy A because it makes one think about how they would act if they were in Olive’s shoes.