Easy A/YMMV


 * Acceptable Religious Targets: Conservative Christians are presented as a mix of The Fundamentalist and (in the case of ) Straw Hypocrite. The only one that comes across as even slightly sympathetic is Marianne, who seems to genuinely want to 'help' Olive, and even she is a strong case of Holier Than Thou.
 * Possibly Justified in that the entire movie is a retelling from Olive's perspective.
 * Also, several snide remarks in the movie imply that many who hate the Christian group are Christians themselves - the group is hated for being obnoxious and for doing Activist Fundamentalist Antics, not for being Christian.
 * Anvilicious / Author Tract: It is easy to see the film as having a strong Anti-Christian bent; the antagonists are loudly Christian, and Olive's attempt to see their perspective lead her straight into her enemy's lair or into an empty room where no one listens. This largely depends on the viewer's appraisal of the film; see the above entry.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Olive's parents steal every scene they are in.
 * Fridge Logic: Chronologically speaking, Olive makes her comment about Huckleberry Finn not being applicable to real life after Brandon runs away from home with a big hulking black guy. Thus it makes no sense for her to say that that would never happen.
 * Since she is narrating after knowing what happened, this troper interpreted it as her deliberately setting a brick joke in her webcast. This would also explain the exact same choice of words.
 * It seems very odd that Olive would be sent to the principal's office (by her favorite teacher, no less) for calling a girl a "twat," when the other girl is not reprimanded for calling her a "skank" or a "tramp." Although "twat" is a bad word, it is usually not seen as very serious in America, whereas the other two are much more common and would definitely garner a stronger reaction.

This caused even more confusion outside of the US, particularely to UK viewers, where "twat" simply refers to a stupid and contemptible person.


 * Genius Bonus: The foreign film that Olive goes to see using her free tickets, and whose name she has trouble pronouncing, is not just the German translation of "The Scarlet Letter", but is actually the 1973 German adaptation of the novel.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: On the DVD commentary, while joking about the suits from Sony screening her and the director's comments from the adjacent room, Emma Stone tells the viewer to see the upcoming Spider-Man reboot. Between the date the commentary was recorded and date the DVD was released, Stone was cast in the Spider-Man reboot.
 * Hollywood Homely: Subverted. Olive speaks about her lack of allure, being invisible to members of the opposite sex, and how she has never been the sexual desire of anybody, which would come off as hard to believe given Emma Stone's beauty, but the eventual point of the movie is that it all revolves around image and perception. She was never supposed to be physically unattractive, just viewed that way as a result of her High School status.
 * Iron Woobie: Olive definitely qualifies. At one point in the film, her fellow students, including her erstwhile best friend are picketing at school with placards calling her a whore, and she still keeps her head up. And when she tells Mrs. Griffith "I could have ," you want to give her a hug and stand up and salute her. It Makes Sense in Context.
 * Jerkass: Mrs. Griffith might be considered this after not only subverting her Reasonable Authority Figure first impression, but then reneging on her offer to come clean, blaming Olive for helping her in the first place, and threatening to use her authority to convince everyone to accept her lies over Olive's honesty if Olive tried to reclaim her reputation. Some have said "pure evil".
 * Les Yay: Marianne frequently comes across as a repressed lesbian who is attracted to Olive. At one point she actually sniffed Olive's hair.
 * Playing Against Type: The movie stars Alyson Michalka and Amanda Bynes in major roles. Lalaine also has a cameo.
 * The Woobie: Brandon, Olive's friend who is bullied for being gay. His "We can talk about how things will get better all night long, but right now this sucks!" speech was especially heartbreaking in light of the multiple gay teen suicides around the time the movie came out (fall 2010).