The Movie Easy A: Glorifying the Slut Stereotype

1152 Words3 Pages

Modern America, in accordance to course materials and personal experiences, overtly sexualizes people, specifically among the youth, engendering new versions of gender expectations, roles, relationships, and how society views people based on appearance, sexual promiscuity or supposed promiscuity, and so on. Easy A (2011) represents an example clarifying how gender socialization impacts today’s youth via several concepts such as slut shaming, slut glorification, challenging masculinity, dating/hooking up, gender expectations and social acceptance. This film primarily focuses on a female’s promiscuity. Olive, the main character, is automatically labeled slut, after a rumor she unintentionally sparked by a bathroom conversation. Soon, the rumor spread and Olive became “school slut” in minutes.

Importantly, our language influence how people perceive one another; furthermore, how society label and reference people with sexual expression (Rozema, notes, 2014). Specific terminologies determining positive or negative sex expression between male and female dramatically differ. Think about it. How many positive terms describe a sexually active woman? Perhaps, she is hot and/or sexy (Tanebaum, 2000, p. xi). How many positive terms describe a sexually active male? He is a stud, Romeo, the man, stallion and so on (Tanebaum, 2000, p. xi). Here, positive language describing female all focus on appearance and for men it focuses on accomplishments (Rozema, notes, 2014). For instance, Olive acquires her label through gossip, but maintains it with her appearance. The male peers in this film attain labels through actions and conquests. Now, the female negative connotations obviously out rank the positive. Words like trollop, tart, floozy, slut,...

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...ve begins generating rumors for male peers who do not qualify as a stereotypical male. For instance, Olive pretends to have sex with a male peer during a popular house party (Gluck, 2010). This imaginary hook-up benefits the male peer’s bullying dilemma. Again, gender policing occurs between men when masculinity is questioned (Kimmel, 2008). “One survey found that most Americans boys would be rather be punched in the face than called gay” (Kimmel, 2000, p.77). The gender police govern Olive’s and the male peer’s status in social standings. America’s obsession with sex disregards if a girl truly sleeps around.

Works Cited

Kimmel, M. S. (2008). Guyland: the perilous world where boys become men. New York:

Harper.

Rozema. Notes. (2014)

Tanebaum, L. (2000). Slut! Growing up Female with a Bad Reputation. New York, New

York: HarperCollins Publishers /Inc.

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