Analysis Of Easy A

The story by Joyce Carol Oates “Where Are You Going, Where Have You been?” published in 1969 and the film “smooth talk” 1985, explores the life of a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl Connie. Like normal teenagers, she’s at the age where they begin to explore their sexual desires and disrespect her parents. Her father is unconcerned and her mother is critical, Connie prefers to spend her time with her friends than her family. On one summer day, Connie chooses to skip a family barbecue and stay behind while her family goes out. A stranger later reaches to her at home and persuades her to go for a ride. Later Connie realizes the stranger is trying to rape her and probably kill her. She becomes scared and when she arrives home, she tries to mend her relationship with her mother and family (HANLON). The purpose of this paper is to critique the movie smooth talk by comparing and contrasting it to the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates.

When the class sang songs about happiness and games her lips barely moved.” Margot ignored the other children, the only time she participated was when an activity mentioned the sun. Margot keeps herself apart from the rest of the class while she talks about experiences with the sun, when that is what the kids want the most. Although Margot’s classmates hurt her because of their jealousy, Margot was also partly to blame for since she keeps mentioning something that her classmates has always wanted.

Karen Jackson is a promiscuous teenage daughter who engages in many sexual activities from the time she was in the eighth grade. Karen is portrayed as a rebellious promiscuous “bad” girl that Shelia constantly worries about. Karen and Shelia do not have the best relationship; which could be because Shelia is the type of mother that sees as if danger could be lurking at every corner. Shelia Jackson also deals with a social anxiety disorder along with her agoraphobia that causes her to miss out on certain events such as going to Karen’s school for teacher conference night. While there were many ways Shelia failed her daughter, she never failed to show her the love and attention as any mother would.

Joyce Carol Oates’ “Life After High School” is a story of masked identity, which the one of the main characters, Zachary, experiences. Society’s views on sexuality and what was perceived as “right” or “wrong” influence how each character develops, but as the story progresses, the characters evolve and “shed” their masks. The descriptions Oates uses for each character’s persona are crucial in order to sway the reader’s perceptions on the evolution of the character. In Zachary’s case, he hides his true sexuality. This is shown through the use of diction, imagery and symbolism.

Olive quickly gains popularity when most of the student body witnesses, from the other side of the door, her having sex at a party with a boy from school. Little does everyone know that it is all a ruse to get them to think that Brandon, her fake sex partner, is not gay in hopes that this very public display of sexual activity will prevent daily beatings at school and it works! (Perry et al., 2011)

At the start of the new school year, Millicent Arnold, a typical teenage girl, receives an invitation to join the elite and exclusive girls’ sorority at Lansing High School. Before she becomes an official member however, Millicent must demonstrate she is fit to join the sorority by finishing the initiation process: a series of ridiculous and rigorous tasks that pushes her to her limits. During a mission, Millicent discovers the nasty truth and reality of the “prefect” sorority at her high school, and ultimately decides that being herself is most important and rejects entering the sorority altogether.

Life is an interesting thing, which can sometimes be a rollercoaster of emotions. The story “Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout includes the main character Olive Kitteridge who shows exactly this. This book includes the people of Crosby, Maine, and Olive. Each chapter includes a different person, but ties in Olive in some way, shape, or form. Olive is your typical funny, lonely, and sometimes overbearing older woman. In life times can get rough, but there is always someone who has it harder, or is going through similar things as shown in the book.

In her powerful, realistic play, “Good Kids”, Naomi Iizuka wrote the play with intentions of bringing a horrendous real-life situation of sexual assault to people’s attention and revealing the dramatic impact that social influence has on the situation. With high aspirations, Iizuka intended to not only educate people, but to also encourage people to take the proper precautions in an effort to prevent sexual assault from transpiring to themselves, friends, and others. Within this theatrical performance, a teenager named Chloe is raped by a high school jock named Connor and his friends whom all play the game of football together. Iizuka utilizes Chloe’s friend and cousin to reveal how Chloe’s sexual assault could have been prevented. If Chloe’s friend would have not let Chloe out of her sight, and if Chloe’s cousin would have given her a safe ride home, then Chloe would have not been drugged and raped by the football players. Furthermore, Iizuka intended to reveal how Chloe and Connor were not the only ones affected by the sexual assault, but friends, family, classmates, and parents were also dramatically affected too.

The movie I chose was Easy A because there are many psychological concepts this movie that relate to real-life events and it covers many theories we learned about in this class. Easy A was released in 2010 and directed by Will Gluck. It’s about a teenage girl named Olive who accidentally admits to her friend Rhi that she was having sexual relations with boys. She felt pressured into lying since her friend had already engaged in sexual acts with her boyfriend. A rumor then spread and many people in the school then ignored Olive because they thought what she did was an immoral act, but the guys started giving her more attention. I feel that this applies to many

The movie chosen to be written about was “Easy A” where the director, Will Gluck, directs a film about a student, Olive Penderghast, who feels bad for those who do not necessarily fit in. Therefore, she allows them to spread rumors about her and certain sexual exploitations. In doing so she becomes the school’s most talked about student, while jeopardizing her reputation, while at the same time making some financial gains. She first pretends to lose her virginity to a friend who is too afraid to come out and say he is gay, causing praise for him and humiliation for her. This rendezvous begins a whirlwind of endeavors and a chain reaction of situation she would soon regret. Luckily, in this movie, there is also a

Young but driven, Olive becomes open to reality that their is so much more for her to see and be apart outside of her guarded father’s embrace, this comes to light when she falls in love with a man of different views than her father. Olive’s relationship with Father grew to a different level when Mother died. Olive “used to be very proud of being the lady of the house” (Rich 201) playing the role as mother of the house. Being the oldest of the sister 's it was Olive’s role to step up. Father would look at Olive across the table and say “every day you remind me more of your mother” (Rich 201). Olive has never had trouble making friends. Olive is more social, especially with men. When summer came “Olive began walking out with young men” (Rich 202). Olive allowed other men into her life, though she knew after awhile that they were all “silly and shallow” (Rich 202) after she brought them home to meet Father.

In Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’ 2006 movie Little Miss Sunshine, they depict the tribulations of a dysfunctional family trying to get their daughter to a beauty pageant, while encompassing strong portrayals of common issues in the United States today. It communicates the individual’s struggle to be perfect, as well as the difficulties of the average middle class family in society. In this paper I will analyze three characters; Olive, Dwayne, and Richard Hoover, identifying their life stages, psychosocial development, role in the family and their resiliency through the stories challenging circumstances.

Through the movie many of the student’s situations are shown. Eva (April Lee Hernández), a Hispanic girl in a gang, was at a shooting in a convenience store and knows that her boyfriend Paco (Will Morales) killed the man in the store. Her father is in jail for gang related crimes as well. Because of this, her father tells her that she needs to lie in court in order to stay “loyal” to the gang.

Olive Hoover is a seven year old that is afforded an opportunity to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant by chance. Little Miss Sunshine is the story of a family who, in the face of many physical, emotional, and social obstacles, band together to support the dreams of Olive. The following discussion is a theoretical analysis of Olive Hoover applying concepts from four theories, and a critical analysis of each theory.

Easy A movie shows that a girl name is Olive Penderghast, 17 years old lives in California, lies to her best friend Rhiannon Abernathy about dating because she doesn’t want to go party at Rhiannon’s house. Instead, all weekend she spent time in her house. The following Monday, she tell a lie to her best friend that she lost her virginity to one college guy and Marianne Bryant,