Take a break from work: watch a trailer…
Oh, gosh, it’s The Scarlet Letter done up Clueless style! Awesome!
And ya gotta love that the slut-shaming of poor adorable Emma Stone comes about as a result of her trying to help a male friend from getting gay-bashed (though I don’t think the best way to accomplish that is merely to convince the bashers that a dude’s just not gay, and hence not worthy of a bashing). It is a ugly-beautiful encapsulation of all the seriously fucked-up shit with regards to sex in our culture.
At least it appears the film is sending up all that, instead of embracing it. I can hope, anyway.
Easy A opens in the U.S. and Canada on September 17, and in the U.K. on October 29.
Is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel still relevant to today’s society? I realize the media likes to exaggerate a lot of stuff but what you realize how much behavior that was once considered shameful is today winked at by many young adults, one wonders.
Then again, one of my ex-girlfriends used to have panic attacks about the possibility that her mother might find out about stuff about her personal life that more liberal parents would shrug off nowadays so I guess it depends.
Since the name of this movie is Easy A, perhaps said male friend could be said to have been interested in getting a “passing grade”…
Seriously? Look at that trailer. Boys are cheered — literally — for their sexual escapades, while girls are shamed.
It happens today.
Hey, classic stories are redone all the time in the Clueless style and some of them work. It’s not quite Clueless-style, but 10 Things I HIate About You was passable.
As was 10 Things I Hate About You!
If the filmmakers had any balls they would’ve called the religious group of kids Mormons. But that would be too true and instead we’ll just stereotype the Christians again. Yawn.
Another mindless, mediocre flick from the bowels of Hollywood. Pass.
And in the meantime, adult men and women get rich through the type of scandalous behavior that would ruined whole careers just a few decades ago.
And pop culture regularly winks and applauds acts that would have got teenagers of earlier generations thrown out of the family house.
As always, it depends where you look and what you look at.
I don’t doubt there’s still a double standard in regard to men and women nowadays. Nor do I pretend that such a standard is right.
On the other hand, it seems silly to pretend that a culture which regularly winks at unwed mothers, children born out of wedlock, children with multiple step-parents, and people who live together before marriage is not just a tad more liberal than Hawthorne’s day.
I’ve worked with several unwed mothers in the course of my life and while I don’t pretend their life is a bed of roses, I have yet to hear any of them be targets of the type of gossip one would have expected to hear concerning such women in earlier generations. And one would think that this was a good thing.
And when I got engaged to my ex-girlfriend, one of the first questions I was asked by a conservative co-worker was when the two of us were going to move in together–with the implication being, of course, that such a move would take place before marriage. I’m sorry, but back in my parents’ day, people rarely asked such questions of an engaged couple. It was after the 1960s that such a practice started becoming a norm.
But, hey, by all means, let’s pretend that not a damned thing has changed since 1959…
I thought Mormons were Christians. Or are we going to have another long, pointless discussion about the difference between “real” Christians and “so-called” Christians? Because otherwise, such a distinction doesn’t seem very Christian to me…
Wink at unwed mothers? That is a vastly different experience than the unwed mothers I know have had. Things have changed since 1959, unfortunately they have not changed that much. Single mothers are still treated like horrid skanks while single fathers are treated like saints. Men are cheered on for their promiscuity while women are shamed.
Poor Christians, they are just so put upon here in America, aren’t they?
Unlike they’re internationally famous celebrities in which case it’s okay…
So perhaps the shaming thing is a class issue.
Plus…
A scandal in Ingrid Bergman’s personal life back in the late 1940s ruined her career for years.
The same type of scandal did nothing to change Angelina Jolie’s career. Nor did it ruin Catherine Zeta-Jones’.
In any event, it seems funny as hell to go on and on about how conservative American society still is at the same time MaryAnn is complaining on another thread about young grade-school-age girls performing a dance routine that would have been unthinkable in the 1950s. Once again, it’s where you look and what you choose to look at.
I’ll be the first to admit that there are many ways I wish American society was more liberal than it is today.
Then again it’s hard to pretend we’re still living in Nathaniel Hawthorne territory when the very President of the U.S. is the product of a sexual union that was once forbidden by law in most U.S. states and you can walk into almost any condom store and get almost any sexual device you can think of.
Anyway, the movie looks interesting. And the fact that I didn’t gag at the inevitable Lady Gaga reference must mean something. Plus Emma Stone wearing her scarlet letter on a top that would not look out of place on a 1940s burlesque queen makes for a nice ironic touch which may or may not have been intended. So perhaps it will be worth seeing. I look forward to MaryAnn’s review.