Well, The Libby was friends with Olive for a while, until her boyfriend told everyone Olive gave him Chlamydia.
we also have the overtones of Armored Closet Gay and Troubled Sympathetic Bigot. So not all that straight, if you forgive my pun. :-)
"a girl's struggle with the popular perception of being a 'slut'"
I haven't seen the movie, but I assume it doesn't involve adultery. So why does she wear a scarlet "A"? It makes the creators appear illiterate.
"an endemic double-standard in society"
I've never understood the phrase "double standard." It's not a standard. It's two seperate standards. Where does this "double" thing come from?
She reads a book in class called The Scarlet Letter, and paralleling her situation with the character in the book (who gets branded with a letter A), she attaches an A to her own clothes. The movie does involve adultery at one point, though the main parallel between the story and this movie is the fact that a girl is condemned for not behaving in a particular way society sees fit in regards to her sex life.
Double standard; as in one person creates a standard for one group which doesn't apply to another. When this is done across genders it can be seen as sexist or hypocritical. In the case of this movie, it looks at how a man can have sex with many partners and be praised for his virility, whereas a promiscuous girl will get criticized for being a skank.
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"Double standard; as in one person creates a standard for one group which doesn't apply to another"
That's called two standards. Or are you assuming that the distinction between the groups is arbitrary, and all arbitrary distinctions are somehow "double"? I don't get it. All that need be done to merge the groups together is not to turn the double into a singularity, but to eliminate one or another of the categories and merge its denizens in with the others.
"When this is done across genders it can be seen as sexist or hypocritical."
It can be seen as such, yes. But that still wouldn't make it a "double standard." It would be two standards where there should be one.
"In the case of this movie, it looks at how a man can have sex with many partners and be praised for his virility, whereas a promiscuous girl will get criticized for being a skank."
Society need not be based on such a distinction. And though obviously not wholly arbitrary (yes, men and women are different [generally]), I certainly can entertain arguments that the distinction is false/unecessary/etc. However, none of this means the standard is "double." It's not like a shotgun, where the barrels are welded together; they're attached to different guns. Two seperate standards.
"It can be seen as such, yes. But that still wouldn't make it a 'double standard.' It would be two standards where there should be one. "
That is a double standard.
A double standard refers to certain instances where a standard that is meant to be universal tends to exclude a certain group, forcing them to obey an alternate standard; For example, someone claiming "all people should can vote - unless they are a woman". Here the universal standard is being set that everyone should vote - the double standard is that there are major exceptions to the rule, forcing those exceptions to operate under a different standard. This is inconsistent, for (as Sherlock Holmes would say) exceptions disprove the rule. A standard, by definition, should apply to everyone involved.
In the case of Easy A, the double-standard is that promiscuity is A-okay...unless you are a woman. It can be inverted to make "One must be chaste, unless you are male," but this varient isn't the emphasis of the movie (seeing as how it is about a supposedly promiscuous girl). The ethical standard featuring in the movie should apply to everyone - yet it arbitrarily discludes women. Why is this the case?
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It would be two standards where there should be one.
One might, perhaps, say there were double the number of standards there should be?
Of all the illogical expressions in English, I don't think that one even cracks the top ten most illogical. But whatever pets your peeve.
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Bear with it.
Early on in Easy A, the protagonist introduces herself as a woman of "sound mind and average breast size". I winced at the tackiness of that line, and was just about ready to write the rest of the movie off because of it. First the film sets up all those tired conventions about the evil libby and the importance of popularity, and then jokes are going to suck as well? Yeesh! Thankfully, I didn't turn it off there and then.
Once the main plot is introduced (that of a girl's struggle with the popular perception of being a "slut"), Easy A comes into its own. The jokes get funnier, and the show kicks the chair out from underneath many of the conventions it first appears to parade. It nods to predecessor highschool stories like Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants, right before taking the piss out of them. The result is a clever reimagining of a familiar setting, capable of grappling with an endemic double-standard in society: our perception of female promiscuity (aka the 'Slut') versus male promiscuity (the 'stud').
The success of all of this is down to the protagonist and the talented actress playing her. Olive proves herself to be charismatic, well-rounded, and generally likeable lead. Her lightning fast wit is totally implausable, but it is funny enough for that not to matter. Her banter with her equally sharp parents is a pleasure to watch and serves as the highlight of the movie. My only disappointment (and the only real criticism I could make of the movie) is the libby character, who in a movie that messes around with convention, gets played totally straight. She remains a bitch throughout the entire movie, and sticks to being a 2-dimensional, strawman political against conservative christians. For a movie that was so good at challenging perceptions, it was sad to see it pander to others.
Easy A remains true to its chick-flick pedigree, whilst being accessable to guys. Original, insightful and hilarious, I fully recommend this movie to anyone that had the slightest of interest (and hadn't seen it already).