ooc: kicking off the slew of infoposts!
Slew seems like the only appropriate word. I know you people.
Moving on: meet Olive Penderghast -- gifted liar, hero to the underdogs, and total virgin, despite the rumors.
The Canon, or 'So if you haven't seen Easy A, what are you doing with your life?'
I'm going to try to keep this spoiler-free, because I dearly dearly love this movie and I want you all to go see it, but since Olive is post-canon, we have to address it.
Oh, and yes, I'm including a ton of Youtube links, and yes, go ahead and assume someone swears or presses a boob against someone's face in most of them to be safe.
Easy A is sort of advertised as a modern retelling of The Scarlet Letter, but with a lot more swearing and general...nonfaithfulness to the text. Really it's nothing like The Scarlet Letter, except the main character starts wearing an A on her clothes when she starts getting slut-shamed. Olive Penderghast is your totally average, uninteresting, tries-to-fly-under-the-radar high schooler. One weekend, she tells her friend Rhiannon that she doesn't want to go camping with her, because Rhiannon's parents are crazy hippies, and makes up an excuse: she has a date. With a college boy. Named...George. (Olive's not great at making up names on the fly, apparently.)
In reality, this is how she spends her weekend. And it's a running gag through the movie, which is why it is still her ringtone here, yes.
(Note: I will never get tired of linking that. Never.)
Anyway. Back at school on Monday, Rhiannon asks Olive about her date, and Olive tries to blow it off and Rhi decides, naturally, that she had sex. Because this is high school and why else would she be avoiding talking about it? Unfortunately, when Olive finally gives in to Rhiannon's hounding and says, "FINE. WE...DID IT," it's in the ladies' room, and Marianne, the uber-Christian popular girl, overhears. And of course, this being high school and Marianne being an amazing satirical combination of the religious right and straight-up Mean Girl, the story is around the school within minutes.
So, Olive initially enjoys her newfound fame, because it's kind of nice just to be noticed at all. When she gets detention for calling one of Marianne's lackeys A Bad Word (spoilers: it's 'twat') in her English class (after being provoked), she bonds with Brandon - a boy who is sharing her detention time because he got beaten up for being gay, and their principal is homophobic. Brandon comes up with a brilliant plan for them - Olive can continue to live in infamy, and Brandon will stop getting beaten up: they should pretend to hook up.
And after much protest on Olive's side, they do. Loudly. At a party. Brandon emerges from the bedroom, after much screaming and pounding and grunting, a new man. And Olive figures that it really doesn't much affect her anyway. Except for two things: Brandon sends her a giftcard, and he shares the reality of their tryst with some of the other unpopular boys.
Suddenly, Olive is getting offers (and giftcards!) from all over - pretend we did this, I'll give you a Home Depot card, and pretend I touched that, and you can have this one for Best Buy. It's great until the slut-shaming starts, courtesy of Marianne and her attempts to 'save' the 'jezebel.' Olive takes it, for a little while, but when Rhiannon turns on her, too, she loses it. And of course, coincidentally (and it's lampshaded, because this movie is smart), they're studying The Scarlet Letter in English. So Olive buys and modifies a bunch of lingerie, makes a bunch of little red A's out of fabric, and starts dressing like, "A high-end stripper. For governors, or athletes. But a stripper, nonetheless."
And that's where my summary stops, because the subplots all converge to make an awesomely fun twist ending, but all you need to know is that Olive tells us the story in flashback, via a webcam confessional broadcast to the entire school. Everything, of course, sorts itself out, and she comes clean to everyone about all the sex she never had. Olive wears normal clothes again, she confesses everything (much to the dismay of some of her "conquests"), and life resumes normality. And she gets the boy, who I haven't mentioned because he's adorable but very one-dimensional and not crucial to the plot. Though he does make me wish we still had a Dan Humphrey just so she could constantly refer to him as Woodchuck Todd.
And she even also gets a big musical number!
How I've modified it:
At the end of the movie, Olive somehow does not get expelled, despite earlier warnings that she totes would for stepping a toe out of line at all. Canonically, the fact that she has dirt on a school official gets her out of hot water, but in my case, it didn't quite take. So, her deeply awesome parents let her pick where she wanted to repeat senior year, and this sounded like the best 'alternative' school. Plus, hey, maybe she'd get a wand or something.
...are all boarding schools not wizarding-related? Damn it. (But there's a castle!)
Olive is your classic Deadpan Snarker. She is very much a teenager - dry, sarcastic, and gleefully obnoxious. She's also a huge champion for the underdog (which is, you know, the plot of the whole movie) - girl will take the fall for people in the name of preserving relationships and ensuring other people's happiness. She has, um...loose ethics, inasmuch as she doesn't really care what other people think, is a fantastic bullshitter (mostly), and will take payment for pretend sex -- it's not until she starts losing her sense of self and feeling used that she decides to end the whole slutty alter-ego thing.*
She will make jokes at your expense, but not, generally, very mean ones. Unless you're an asshole to her first, she's all about just riffing on stuff in general. She is loyal to a fault -- see also throwing her reputation to the wind to help Brandon -- and doesn't really hold grudges all that long, either. She also has no shame - she does a provocative song/dance number in front of the entire school in a corset and hotpants, and she tells Brandon that she doesn't do anything half-assed, so their "hook up" at the party is really loud and embarrassing. But, she might tone it down a little here, unless plot calls for it. Basically: Olive's gonna wanna just fly right under the radar here, because she sort of wrecked things at her last school.
Appearance-wise, she's Emma Stone. Which is to say: mid-height (5'7"), with fair skin and lots of freckles, auburn hair, and big green eyes. And she is skinny and gangly like crazy. ALL LIMBS, FOLKS. ALL LIMBS.
* Full disclosure, there is a guy who pushes her and doesn't initially take no for an answer. To be on the safe side, any scenes where she talks about that will be warned for!
Popcorn? Questions? Angry letters for earworming you?
Moving on: meet Olive Penderghast -- gifted liar, hero to the underdogs, and total virgin, despite the rumors.
The Canon, or 'So if you haven't seen Easy A, what are you doing with your life?'
I'm going to try to keep this spoiler-free, because I dearly dearly love this movie and I want you all to go see it, but since Olive is post-canon, we have to address it.
Oh, and yes, I'm including a ton of Youtube links, and yes, go ahead and assume someone swears or presses a boob against someone's face in most of them to be safe.
Easy A is sort of advertised as a modern retelling of The Scarlet Letter, but with a lot more swearing and general...nonfaithfulness to the text. Really it's nothing like The Scarlet Letter, except the main character starts wearing an A on her clothes when she starts getting slut-shamed. Olive Penderghast is your totally average, uninteresting, tries-to-fly-under-the-radar high schooler. One weekend, she tells her friend Rhiannon that she doesn't want to go camping with her, because Rhiannon's parents are crazy hippies, and makes up an excuse: she has a date. With a college boy. Named...George. (Olive's not great at making up names on the fly, apparently.)
In reality, this is how she spends her weekend. And it's a running gag through the movie, which is why it is still her ringtone here, yes.
(Note: I will never get tired of linking that. Never.)
Anyway. Back at school on Monday, Rhiannon asks Olive about her date, and Olive tries to blow it off and Rhi decides, naturally, that she had sex. Because this is high school and why else would she be avoiding talking about it? Unfortunately, when Olive finally gives in to Rhiannon's hounding and says, "FINE. WE...DID IT," it's in the ladies' room, and Marianne, the uber-Christian popular girl, overhears. And of course, this being high school and Marianne being an amazing satirical combination of the religious right and straight-up Mean Girl, the story is around the school within minutes.
So, Olive initially enjoys her newfound fame, because it's kind of nice just to be noticed at all. When she gets detention for calling one of Marianne's lackeys A Bad Word (spoilers: it's 'twat') in her English class (after being provoked), she bonds with Brandon - a boy who is sharing her detention time because he got beaten up for being gay, and their principal is homophobic. Brandon comes up with a brilliant plan for them - Olive can continue to live in infamy, and Brandon will stop getting beaten up: they should pretend to hook up.
And after much protest on Olive's side, they do. Loudly. At a party. Brandon emerges from the bedroom, after much screaming and pounding and grunting, a new man. And Olive figures that it really doesn't much affect her anyway. Except for two things: Brandon sends her a giftcard, and he shares the reality of their tryst with some of the other unpopular boys.
Suddenly, Olive is getting offers (and giftcards!) from all over - pretend we did this, I'll give you a Home Depot card, and pretend I touched that, and you can have this one for Best Buy. It's great until the slut-shaming starts, courtesy of Marianne and her attempts to 'save' the 'jezebel.' Olive takes it, for a little while, but when Rhiannon turns on her, too, she loses it. And of course, coincidentally (and it's lampshaded, because this movie is smart), they're studying The Scarlet Letter in English. So Olive buys and modifies a bunch of lingerie, makes a bunch of little red A's out of fabric, and starts dressing like, "A high-end stripper. For governors, or athletes. But a stripper, nonetheless."
And that's where my summary stops, because the subplots all converge to make an awesomely fun twist ending, but all you need to know is that Olive tells us the story in flashback, via a webcam confessional broadcast to the entire school. Everything, of course, sorts itself out, and she comes clean to everyone about all the sex she never had. Olive wears normal clothes again, she confesses everything (much to the dismay of some of her "conquests"), and life resumes normality. And she gets the boy, who I haven't mentioned because he's adorable but very one-dimensional and not crucial to the plot. Though he does make me wish we still had a Dan Humphrey just so she could constantly refer to him as Woodchuck Todd.
And she even also gets a big musical number!
How I've modified it:
At the end of the movie, Olive somehow does not get expelled, despite earlier warnings that she totes would for stepping a toe out of line at all. Canonically, the fact that she has dirt on a school official gets her out of hot water, but in my case, it didn't quite take. So, her deeply awesome parents let her pick where she wanted to repeat senior year, and this sounded like the best 'alternative' school. Plus, hey, maybe she'd get a wand or something.
...are all boarding schools not wizarding-related? Damn it. (But there's a castle!)
Olive is your classic Deadpan Snarker. She is very much a teenager - dry, sarcastic, and gleefully obnoxious. She's also a huge champion for the underdog (which is, you know, the plot of the whole movie) - girl will take the fall for people in the name of preserving relationships and ensuring other people's happiness. She has, um...loose ethics, inasmuch as she doesn't really care what other people think, is a fantastic bullshitter (mostly), and will take payment for pretend sex -- it's not until she starts losing her sense of self and feeling used that she decides to end the whole slutty alter-ego thing.*
She will make jokes at your expense, but not, generally, very mean ones. Unless you're an asshole to her first, she's all about just riffing on stuff in general. She is loyal to a fault -- see also throwing her reputation to the wind to help Brandon -- and doesn't really hold grudges all that long, either. She also has no shame - she does a provocative song/dance number in front of the entire school in a corset and hotpants, and she tells Brandon that she doesn't do anything half-assed, so their "hook up" at the party is really loud and embarrassing. But, she might tone it down a little here, unless plot calls for it. Basically: Olive's gonna wanna just fly right under the radar here, because she sort of wrecked things at her last school.
Appearance-wise, she's Emma Stone. Which is to say: mid-height (5'7"), with fair skin and lots of freckles, auburn hair, and big green eyes. And she is skinny and gangly like crazy. ALL LIMBS, FOLKS. ALL LIMBS.
* Full disclosure, there is a guy who pushes her and doesn't initially take no for an answer. To be on the safe side, any scenes where she talks about that will be warned for!
Popcorn? Questions? Angry letters for earworming you?