Juno: An American Fairy Tale?
The Oscar-winning screenplay for “Juno,” a film about a pregnant high school student, raises a multitude of thought-provoking questions. Not least of which is: are Americans aliens, predators, or simply well-inflated rubber toys?
Is a smart, pregnant high schooler a myth or a reality? Who are Americans – aliens, predators, or just well-inflated rubber toys? Is a blogger-stripper-screenwriter the Cinderella of the modern world? Where is the justice?
These and other important questions await your consideration after watching the tender and timely film “Juno” (2007). If, after viewing it, you don’t find yourself wondering, “Good heavens, what world am I living in?”, then watch it again. It wouldn’t hurt.
It’s hardly a spoiler to begin by stating the obvious (everyone knows the plot anyway): this is a film about a remarkable American teenager who gets pregnant, gets upset, then pulls herself together and finds someone to give the baby to. The country that produces such children embraced the film with enthusiasm. When Ellen Page, who played the lead role, was announced at the Oscars, the applause was warmer than for Blanchett or Julie Christie.
Juno: An Unlikely Heroine
Juno became a genuine, unforced heroine. She charmed everyone – a sixteen-year-old tomboy with that particular, dark sense of humor of a relaxed condemned man, which is characteristic of developed teenagers. She was “sexually active” only once, seducing her cute friend out of vague amorous-exploratory motives. And then – a fetus formed inside her. What to do with it? It probably already has fingernails – digging it out would be simply vile. Keeping it would be simply foolish. It needs to be given to a decent yuppie couple who placed an adoption ad in the newspaper, somewhere near “buy or sell a parrot.” The family looks perfect, until skeletons start falling out of their closets, and the girl has to decide – are they worthy of taking her offspring?
A Coming-of-Age Story
The viewer can follow the heroine in her provincial plaid shirt throughout her nine months of… what is it? Growing up? She doesn’t want to grow up ahead of time. Self-discovery? She knows more about herself than many adults. No – all nine months of her adventure. A little scary, a little shameful, very necessary. Juno simply solves her problem, with all the human dignity that can be scraped together in such a young creature. In this difficult task, she is helped by a loving friend, father, and stepmother. Not exactly rednecks, but those with reddish necks. Juno’s mother abandoned her husband and daughter and ran off with a lover to Alaska, where she successfully gave birth to a couple more children. Juno has not forgiven her.
A Questionable Morality?
From the perspective of a traditional European, this is a film with the most dubious morality imaginable. A good, complete family doesn’t try to persuade the expectant mother to keep the child for a second. The father doesn’t yet see himself as a grandfather, and the stepmother doesn’t dream of a grandson, but of a dog that she can’t get because of her stepdaughter’s allergies – that’s already a big sacrifice. They are ready to respect her choice – to give it away, so be it.
The film’s genre is not a tragedy, but a comedic melodrama. The reasons of each participant in the events are transparent and worthy of respect. It seems that with this film, the Americans have demonstrated to the whole world an achievement close to landing on the moon – they have simply agreed with the fact that no one owes anything to anyone. Only to oneself, and to the written law. The infant has the right to live, and not to be sent to the trash can of an abortion clinic, but its young mother has the same full right to her youth – biology is silent here. The patriarchal system of values doesn’t even squeak at the infanticide. It turns out that it has been dead here for a long time. The country, which consistently looks for traces of pedophilia in every diaper change and every candy bought for someone else’s child, calmly recognized that responsibility for children is not a sacred matter, but a voluntary one. It seems that after “Juno” it becomes clearer why America is so hysterically looking for pedophiles, because here every adult does not distinguish himself from a child. (By the way, Ellen Page played a couple of years ago a sinister girl who punishes a pedophile to death in the film “Hard Candy” (2006)"). Let us note that the pedophile did not manage to do anything bad to her personally).
Diablo Cody: From Stripper to Oscar Winner
“Juno” screenwriter Diablo Cody, a girl who managed to work as a stripper in search of self-identity, which is the subject of universal special delight, has become a star today. Not so long ago, she was found through her blog and offered to write a script, and today she received an Oscar. While she is the voice of the people, and she can be trusted. It is not Hollywood opportunism that speaks with her painted red lips, but America, which has gone far away from us in search of its “self.”
What does it all look like in the end? Fresh, progressive, inhuman and cute. A new century is here, more so than in any “Transformers” movie.