Keeping woman's sexuality in check: a study on slut-shaming in the Scarlet Letter and Easy A.

Abstract

More than three centuries have passed since the severe Puritan society forced Hester Prynne to wear on her bosom the token of her sin. Inspired by Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, the 2010 American filmic production Easy A, directed by Will Gluck, depicts how modern society continues to deem as highly improper when a woman behaves in a way thought of as deviant. One of the mechanisms used by patriarchy to restrain women’s autonomous choices is the so-called slut-shaming, which is the act of depreciating a girl or a woman by attaching to her the derogatory slut label. This study, developed through the analysis of the aforementioned works, is going to examine, therefore, the role of slut-shaming in keeping women’s sexuality in check. In both the literary and cinematographic works, the main female characters cross the line of what is sexually acceptable, which leads to public humiliation and ostracism as forms of punishment. We conducted our research through the theoretical framework of intersemiotic translation, adaptation theory, and gender studies.