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Juno is the story of a 16-year-old girl who is faced with an unplanned pregnancy that “started with a chair”. She takes on this life changing event with such confidence and maturity, that the audience follows her through her path of deciding to hold onto a traditional ideal, in a very “progressive” situation by keeping the baby and giving it up for adoption. The dynamic relationship of characters in the movie, along with a strong dialect of language, and an array of motifs keep the film lighthearted and funny for such a dramatic plot. The clash of feminine ideals in this movie is what I am going to focus on in this review. There seems to be a clash between female traditionalism, and the need for a classical structured family, and the progressive one-woman show feminist ideal, where there is a need for powerful women to deal with such an icky situation.
A key scene where dynamic female clash comes to a head is when Juno goes to get an ultrasound. The scene starts out with an exaggerated squirt of the ultrasound goo as the audience stares upward at Juno’s large belly. This upward angle seems to give the belly, and thus the baby, power over the situation. The next shot shows the ultrasound of the baby, with a chorus of coos in the background from Juno, Juno’s friend Leah, and Juno’s Stepmother. The powerful trio of women will rule the scene from this moment on, as they challenge the stereotypes of how an ultrasound should go. Shot three goes to Juno’s excited face, and shot four includes Juno’s stepmother. Cooing and exclamation continue, with a blunt comment from Leah about the magnitude of the baby’s head, and a tearful comment from Juno’s stepmother, until the moment is interrupted by a curt comment from the technician, asking if they want to know the sex. The technician is alone in all of the shots that she is in as if Juno and the other two women are battling her, which they will in just a few shots. Juno insists she doesn’t want to ruin the surprise for Mark and Vanessa, and the technician (alone in her shot) asks if they are her friends at school. Juno is alone in the next shot, as to show her power and is given an upward angle in order to emphasize that. She explains how they are the adoptive parents. The Technician curtly says “Thank goodness for that.” This starts the battle between the need for a traditional family, and the need for strong, independent women. Juno’s stepmother bites back with a “what is that supposed to mean?" The technician explains that she sees a lot of young mothers in here and it seems like a “poisonous environment to raise a child.” Here is where the claws come out. The first shot is on Juno who questions how the technician knows she is so poisonous. Then the shot is cut quickly up to Leah who proposes that the adoptive parents could be stage parents. Then it cuts again and focuses on Juno’s stepmother who attacks the technician with the comment, “Have you ever thought that those parents might do a far shi**** job at raising a kid than my dumb*** stepdaughter would, have you considered that?”
The technician is then shot in a wider angle, showing her defeat by making her look small, with a small voice she says, “I guess not.” But Juno’s stepmother doesn’t stop there. She opens fire on the insignificancy of the technician’s job saying that her five-year-old daughter could do it and she isn’t “the brightest bulb in the tanning bed.”
This dynamic female scene shows the power of women that the writer, Diablo Cody ,a former stripper and women’s rights advocate, wants to portray. Juno struggles between wanting a stable family because she doesn’t have one due to her emotionally distant mother, and dealing with the fact her more current situation makes her even further from stable than she previously was. Juno is essentially in conflict with her own power. She wants to provide the traditional family she has always wanted for her own child, and struggles to do that even when she finds the most perfect family she can think of. By giving up her dream of having her own family, she takes a chance with this perfect family in order to preserve her power and to have another chance at life. This movie attempts to show how important a family and the presence of a man can be through the fact that Juno got pregnant, and the fact that she wanted to give the baby to a “good family”. When that ideal starts falling apart when Mark decides to leave, Juno’s goal is switched from replacing her own family with a more ideal one in her offspring, to showing and allowing the power of the women in her life including herself, to control their own happiness. In the end, women are the ones that look out for each other. The need for a structural family for the new baby is still ever present, but there is faith in Vanessa to be strong enough to do it on her own. The women in this film represent a new type of women, who understand the importance of a structured family, but know they are strong enough to bend the rules.
Works Cited
Barsam, Richard Meran., Dave Monahan, and Karen M. Gocsik. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.
"The Free Automatic Bibliography and Citation Generator." EasyBib. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
"Juno (2007)." Fox Searchlight. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2014. <http://www.foxsearchlight.com/media/blog_post_images/juno.jpg>.
"Juno (2007)." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2014.
Juno. Dir. Jason Reitman. Perf. Ellen Page and Michael Cera. Www.talktalk.co.uk. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Feb. 2014.
Juno. Dir. Jason Reitman. Prod. Lianne Halfon, John Malkovich, Russell Smith, and Mason Novick. By Diablo Cody. Perf. Ellen Page and Michael Cera. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2007.
N.d. Photograph. Www.dvdizzy.com. Luke Bonnano, 31 Mar. 2008. Web. 9 Feb. 2014.
A key scene where dynamic female clash comes to a head is when Juno goes to get an ultrasound. The scene starts out with an exaggerated squirt of the ultrasound goo as the audience stares upward at Juno’s large belly. This upward angle seems to give the belly, and thus the baby, power over the situation. The next shot shows the ultrasound of the baby, with a chorus of coos in the background from Juno, Juno’s friend Leah, and Juno’s Stepmother. The powerful trio of women will rule the scene from this moment on, as they challenge the stereotypes of how an ultrasound should go. Shot three goes to Juno’s excited face, and shot four includes Juno’s stepmother. Cooing and exclamation continue, with a blunt comment from Leah about the magnitude of the baby’s head, and a tearful comment from Juno’s stepmother, until the moment is interrupted by a curt comment from the technician, asking if they want to know the sex. The technician is alone in all of the shots that she is in as if Juno and the other two women are battling her, which they will in just a few shots. Juno insists she doesn’t want to ruin the surprise for Mark and Vanessa, and the technician (alone in her shot) asks if they are her friends at school. Juno is alone in the next shot, as to show her power and is given an upward angle in order to emphasize that. She explains how they are the adoptive parents. The Technician curtly says “Thank goodness for that.” This starts the battle between the need for a traditional family, and the need for strong, independent women. Juno’s stepmother bites back with a “what is that supposed to mean?" The technician explains that she sees a lot of young mothers in here and it seems like a “poisonous environment to raise a child.” Here is where the claws come out. The first shot is on Juno who questions how the technician knows she is so poisonous. Then the shot is cut quickly up to Leah who proposes that the adoptive parents could be stage parents. Then it cuts again and focuses on Juno’s stepmother who attacks the technician with the comment, “Have you ever thought that those parents might do a far shi**** job at raising a kid than my dumb*** stepdaughter would, have you considered that?”
The technician is then shot in a wider angle, showing her defeat by making her look small, with a small voice she says, “I guess not.” But Juno’s stepmother doesn’t stop there. She opens fire on the insignificancy of the technician’s job saying that her five-year-old daughter could do it and she isn’t “the brightest bulb in the tanning bed.”
This dynamic female scene shows the power of women that the writer, Diablo Cody ,a former stripper and women’s rights advocate, wants to portray. Juno struggles between wanting a stable family because she doesn’t have one due to her emotionally distant mother, and dealing with the fact her more current situation makes her even further from stable than she previously was. Juno is essentially in conflict with her own power. She wants to provide the traditional family she has always wanted for her own child, and struggles to do that even when she finds the most perfect family she can think of. By giving up her dream of having her own family, she takes a chance with this perfect family in order to preserve her power and to have another chance at life. This movie attempts to show how important a family and the presence of a man can be through the fact that Juno got pregnant, and the fact that she wanted to give the baby to a “good family”. When that ideal starts falling apart when Mark decides to leave, Juno’s goal is switched from replacing her own family with a more ideal one in her offspring, to showing and allowing the power of the women in her life including herself, to control their own happiness. In the end, women are the ones that look out for each other. The need for a structural family for the new baby is still ever present, but there is faith in Vanessa to be strong enough to do it on her own. The women in this film represent a new type of women, who understand the importance of a structured family, but know they are strong enough to bend the rules.
Works Cited
Barsam, Richard Meran., Dave Monahan, and Karen M. Gocsik. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.
"The Free Automatic Bibliography and Citation Generator." EasyBib. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
"Juno (2007)." Fox Searchlight. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2014. <http://www.foxsearchlight.com/media/blog_post_images/juno.jpg>.
"Juno (2007)." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2014.
Juno. Dir. Jason Reitman. Perf. Ellen Page and Michael Cera. Www.talktalk.co.uk. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Feb. 2014.
Juno. Dir. Jason Reitman. Prod. Lianne Halfon, John Malkovich, Russell Smith, and Mason Novick. By Diablo Cody. Perf. Ellen Page and Michael Cera. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2007.
N.d. Photograph. Www.dvdizzy.com. Luke Bonnano, 31 Mar. 2008. Web. 9 Feb. 2014.