CAMPUS

Juno: Simply and Subtly Pro-Life

If you haven’t seen Juno yet and think it’s just another semi-ridiculous comedy along the lines of Napoleon Dynamite or Superbad (as I did), then you will be immensely surprised. Not only does Juno offer a refreshingly realistic, human approach to the nightmare of teen pregnancy, but it also succeeds in finding various hilarious aspects of such a serious predicament.

In discussing whether she should have a “closed” or “open” adoption, for example, Juno states her opinion rather emphatically: “Wait… No! I mean, can’t we just, like, kick this old school? Like, I have the baby, put it in a basket and send it your way, like, Moses and the reeds?” It was also a relief to find that Juno does not inspire intense feelings of depression about babies in general, or invoke vows never to procreate, which seems to be the effect of many pregnancy films (like Riding in Cars With Boys, for example, in which the movie’s audience basically watches the teen mother’s life become progressively hopeless and dysfunctional for 90 minutes).

Rather, Juno strikes an incredibly sensitive balance between struggle and reward, serious and sincere, without ever being hokey or over-simplified. Best of all, the movie has a securely pro-life message — non-preachy but nonetheless compelling, Juno will definitely have audiences questioning what feminists have historically championed as the “necessity” of abortion.

Perhaps Juno’s most provocative pro-life element is the sixteen-year-old’s reaction to her pregnancy. Initially shocked and horrified, Juno takes three pregnancy tests before she can accept the truth and quickly decides to abort. Not surprisingly, her primary reason for calling the local women’s clinic is shame; the ridicule of her peers, the reproach of her parents, and the convenience of abortion combine to make the procedure an extremely attractive proposition. Although the audience can sense a certain reluctance on Juno’s part, she goes ahead to the clinic because it is her only hope of continuing her worry-free adolescent life; abortion is fast, accessible, and final, qualities that make it exceptionally easy to end a life without thinking twice.

Juno, however, does think twice, and it is a combination of being told that her baby already has fingernails and being disgusted by the clinic itself that drives her to reconsider. Realizing that the fetus already has such tiny details lends a real, tangible humanity to it, and the nonchalant, matter-of-fact feel of the abortion clinic sends her running from it, convinced that there is something wrong with the whole affair. Specifically, the receptionist’s monotone suggestion that Juno take a free scented condom along with her medical forms, her refusal to call the unborn child a baby, and the general business-like atmosphere in a place of death is something that Juno intuitively does not want to be a part of—so she leaves.

Clearly, the movie’s clinic is a reference to Planned Parenthood, but the issue of abortion is never politicized or put in a larger moral context; Juno’s reaction speaks for itself, and her intuitive refusal to go through with the process speaks more loudly than any pointed targeting could. This is perhaps why Juno has been such a hugely successful film — it has raked in more than $120,000,000, according to The New York Observer, and it won Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars.

However, while one would assume that such raving success would land Juno a good deal of critical acclaim and attention in the film world, a different abortion-themed movie is, in fact, this year’s darling. It is called 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and it recounts the difficult and dangerous process of aborting a pregnancy in 1987 Communist Romania, under the brutal Ceausescu dictatorship.

Critics love it because it apparently “stuns the soul” (The Detroit News), and in their swooning admiration they have given the movie nearly every existing film award; it won three different awards at Cannes, Best Film at the 2007 European Film Awards, Best Foreign Language Film from the LA Film Critics Association, and Best Film of 2007 from the Sight and Sound Critics Poll, just to name a few (ifcfilms.com). For all that 4 Months is “a searing film, shot…in long, unbroken takes that wrap around you like a vise” (Scott Foundas, LA Weekly), however, it has only opened in two theatres nationwide (Jill Stanek column, wnd.com) and has been snubbed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — the Oscars — who chose to nominate it for Best Foreign Film instead of Best Film, like Juno.

Critics are angry, bewildered, and hurt that their hard-core, provocative “power house” (Kenneth Turan, LA Times) has been snubbed by average moviegoers, normal people who would somehow prefer a funny film about growing up to a melodramatic, angst-ridden indy brainchild whose main purpose is so obviously to promote legal abortion — late-term ones, no less.

And therein lies the difference — Juno has been so much more successful in the mainstream because it does not seek to promote, decry, or convince. It is an intensely personal story, so wrapped around Juno’s specific circumstance and experience that the pro-life message is subtly, quietly ingrained as an afterthought.

Evidently, a battle of ideology is currently raging in the film world, one that most of Juno’s fans are not particularly interested in fighting. They just saw the movie and were touched by something in it — the only thing Juno really convinces us of is that Michael Cera really should try to avoid short shorts.
Beyond that, the movie leaves the politicizing to the politicians, offering one humble example of how and why abortion is not the only solution to teen pregnancy.

Yes, Juno is made fun of at school, doesn’t like the way her body changes, and has to deal with the emotions of giving up a child — but after nine months, it’s all over, and she has survived.

This message — that you don’t have to kill to survive — is what gives Juno such compelling substance behind its humor, and whether or not Hollywood or Cannes agree, everyone else seems to like it just fine.

Olivia Blanchard is a Staff Writer for The Carolina Review, a Collegiate Network member publication at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This article was originally featured in the April 2008 issue of The Carolina Review.