The Movie Easy A Sociology

The movie Easy A is set in Ojai, California at Ojai North High School. The story centers on Olive Penderghast. Olive is a junior at Ojai North and goes relatively unnoticed by the majority of the school population. That is, until she lies to her best friend Rhiannon about losing her virginity. Olive’s lie gets overheard by Marianne Bryant, who thus spreads this news to the entire school. The events that take place once the rumors of Olive’s sexual encounter begin to spread are indicative of the social factors that influence today’s society. The three sociological factors from Easy A that I am going to focus on are labeling theory, gender norms, and religion as an agent of socialization. Labeling theory, as defined by our textbook, suggests that people become …show more content…
The three that are most clearly evident are labeling theory, gender norms, and religion as an agent of socialization. Olive was labeled as the school slut by her peers because of her assumed sexual behaviors and then began to embody the label by dressing in a provocative manner and allowing guys to say that they slept with her. Olive got her label because of the norms that are associated with each gender. Men are expected to sleep with many women, but women are not supposed to sleep with many men. The men of Ojai North High School become popular after they’d slept with Olive, whereas Olive became more ostracized by her peers as she slept with more men. Finally, one of the main characters in the movie, Marianne Bryant, looks down upon Olive because of her religious values. She holds very conservative values toward sex and thinks that everyone else should, too. The concepts seen in Easy A are concepts that can be seen in everyday life. One major idea that can be taken away from this movie is that society should be careful how quickly they label people. The label could end up being more harmful to the person’s life than the initial