The modern day spinoff of the classic novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Easy A is full of high school drama and learning experiences. Olive Prendergast, played by the witty Emma Stone, is the typical high school girl who is not noticed by her peers. When Olive fakes a bad reputation, her life takes a turn for the worse. Rumors begin to spread through the school at a rapid pace. As Olive’s life is slowly being destroyed, the boys, who gain popularity off of her, live in sheer joy as their popularity statuses begin to heighten. Olive learns to embrace who she has become. She embroiders a scarlet ‘A’ onto her wardrobe just like Hester Prynne does in The Scarlet Letter. Olive reincarnates Hester Prynne in the present day. Once Olive realizes that the girl with the bad reputation is not truly who she is, she is forced to gain respect for herself and learn to say no as she tries to make her wrong decisions right.

Easy A is not the typical high school story. It is not about a boy and a girl who fall in love defying the status quo. This movie is about much more than that. It is learning to have confidence in yourself, self respect, and finding yourself. However, love is thrown into the mix, too, with the classic catty girls, gossip, reputations, and drama. It also shows the drastic contrast between a boy’s reputation and a girl’s reputation. One rumor can make a boy’s popularity better and a girl’s worse or vice versa. The unchanging, hypocritical expectations of high school are forever cruel and punishing. We are forced to live with society’s judgments and are destined to a fate set for us the day we enter high school. Director of Easy A, Will Gluck, does a fantastic job of tying high school’s harsh expectations with the hypocritical opinions of Puritan society in The Scarlet Letter. This clever and humorous movie will have you begging for more as the movie comes to an end.