Juno, and two fun sites
I finally saw all of "Juno" today. I had started it before, but was put off by the overly-"clever"-hurts-your-teeth dialogue at the beginning. Luckily people started speaking more normally as the movie went on.
Anyway, it was cute, but it would have been even cuter if (like "Knocked Up") it didn't suffer from what I call The Nick Hornby Syndrome. Now, calling it that is a bit unfair, as Nick Hornby himself does not suffer from this, but his imitators do. Basically, far as I can tell, Nick Hornby came out with a number of quite good books focusing on a caddish man-boy as the main character: someone who clings to an ever-more-empty continuation of adolescence, filling his life with hobbies and material trappings of "coolness" to mask his inability to form relationships or relate to other people on more than a superficial level, but who generally matures towards the end. These novels and characters were met with a lot of enthusiasm, and everyone and their mother started to produce imitations thereof. When done the way Nick Hornby does it, I really love it, and I've seen others do it properly: the main character from Lisa Tucker's The Cure For Modern Life is a prime example.
However. Movies like "Juno" and "Knocked Up" seem to have missed that the character's inability to form relationships and connect with people is the primary issue here, not their adolescent tastes, which are entirely neutral and do not have to be a sign of immaturity unless we are operating on a 50s mindset. Thus the portrayal of the adoptive parents in "Juno" makes me want to hit my head against the wall, much as "Knocked Up"'s ending did. People complained that the portrayal of the female main character in "Knocked Up" was sexist because she was "boring" while the guy was "a loveable scamp." This may have been true, but my issue was that within the context of the movie, she was boring because she was supposed to be nigh-perfect and the audience was supposed to emphasize with her, and her unsolicited attempts to get the hapless hero to be more "mature." Same here.
In "Juno," the adoptive mother Vanessa is initially presented as admittedly "boring," while her husband Mark is "cool and edgy." As the film progresses however, both Juno and the audience are supposed to see that Mark is really just an immature jerk, and Vanessa is the truly good person. However, I could not buy this at all, because I was continuously appalled by the total lack of respect or support Vanessa had for her husband and his interests. Certainly, he was not a "good guy" if he knew that she always wanted a baby and he married her knowing he didn't really want to be a father, but since he did agree to try, one could at least interpret his actions as misguided rather than cruel--ie, he wasn't sure he was ready, he hoped he would be, but turned out he was not. And at least he did not dismiss her desire for motherhood as trivial or unimportant. She, on the other hand, appeared to completely disregard all of his wants and desires--for one thing, it was pretty obvious he was not nearly as on-board with the baby thing as she was, but it didn't matter to her so long as he was still going along with it.
Then the fact of his hobbies. All of his music equipment was relegated to one room of the house, and his movies to the basement. When she walks in on him and Juno playing music together, rather than taking it as a good sign of bonding, she scoffs at their "jam session" and tells them they need to go over "important things" like legal documents (surely important, but wouldn't you want the adoption to be handled with at least some personal touch?). Despite the fact that he is obviously good at music and makes his living off it, she dismisses his desire to do more than commercial music as "childish," and apparently gets mad at him when he watches his horror movies during the day, even though to all appearances he is productive and successful at his career, and in no danger of losing his job through slacking. Her general attitude that his interest in music and movies and whatnot is silly and "immature" is galling--the idea that one is only "grown up" if one has a buttoned-up office job is totally outdated, and plenty of people have entirely fulfilling lives without giving up their so-called childish passions. (For instance, any number of actual professional musicians, graphic designers, comic book writers and artists, etc.) His desire to pursue music and not have a family is no less valid than her desire to play storybook-picket-fence-dream. They are incompatible, yes, but her vision of what their life should be is not objectively better or more worthy than his--and yet that's how it's shown. Unlike Nick Hornby's characters, it's not really shown that he is unable to connect to people or have relationships or a meaningful life (Nick Hornby's characters, btw, do not generally have the kind of successful career that Mark has)--just that his relationship with Vanessa isn't fulfilling for him anymore.
In The Cure For Modern Life, btw, the main character's affection for music and pop culture is only shown as problematic when he uses it to avoid people, as it should be--but when he opens up, it is actually an important tool of connection and bonding (and even child-care!), again as it should be. He reconsiders his priorities, but his personal growth does not include having to throw out his ipod and stash of music documentaries, or anything else that he enjoys, and become a "normal grown-up" in order to become a better person.
(Off topic, but The Cure For Modern Life is a really fun book I really enjoyed reading: a bit of About a Boy, a bit of Pride & Prejudice, and a bit of The Constant Gardener. The heroine is pretty insufferable in her self-righteousness, and there is a bit too much preciousness/plot-device-anvils in some of the situations, but generally it's a book I would very much recommend for an engaging read.)
One more thing about "Juno"--I had heard some people complain that it was anti-abortion, and before I saw it, I really thought people were making something out of nothing. I mean, so she chooses to keep the baby, so what? If "pro-choice" is to have any meaning, keeping the baby, even in the case of an unplanned teenage pregnancy, should be a perfectly legitimate choice. And people whined that the pro-life protester was shown as "too cute"--well, again, so what? It's not like pro-life protesters are all evil monsters--again, being pro-choice should hardly mean a mandatory demonizing of the opposition. Well, while I am still of the opinion that the protester was just fine... yeah, uh, it's pretty biased anti-abortion. Meh. I could have done without that.
But it wasn't bad. I think it was just far too hyped for me to enjoy it as much as I could have.
Finally, I wanted to share two fun links:
Young Me/Now Me, a photo blog where people send in fun recreations of their baby pictures.
And slightly related, Sleeve Face, another photo blog, this time with people taking really cool photos incorporating various album sleeves.
Sample:
Anyway, it was cute, but it would have been even cuter if (like "Knocked Up") it didn't suffer from what I call The Nick Hornby Syndrome. Now, calling it that is a bit unfair, as Nick Hornby himself does not suffer from this, but his imitators do. Basically, far as I can tell, Nick Hornby came out with a number of quite good books focusing on a caddish man-boy as the main character: someone who clings to an ever-more-empty continuation of adolescence, filling his life with hobbies and material trappings of "coolness" to mask his inability to form relationships or relate to other people on more than a superficial level, but who generally matures towards the end. These novels and characters were met with a lot of enthusiasm, and everyone and their mother started to produce imitations thereof. When done the way Nick Hornby does it, I really love it, and I've seen others do it properly: the main character from Lisa Tucker's The Cure For Modern Life is a prime example.
However. Movies like "Juno" and "Knocked Up" seem to have missed that the character's inability to form relationships and connect with people is the primary issue here, not their adolescent tastes, which are entirely neutral and do not have to be a sign of immaturity unless we are operating on a 50s mindset. Thus the portrayal of the adoptive parents in "Juno" makes me want to hit my head against the wall, much as "Knocked Up"'s ending did. People complained that the portrayal of the female main character in "Knocked Up" was sexist because she was "boring" while the guy was "a loveable scamp." This may have been true, but my issue was that within the context of the movie, she was boring because she was supposed to be nigh-perfect and the audience was supposed to emphasize with her, and her unsolicited attempts to get the hapless hero to be more "mature." Same here.
In "Juno," the adoptive mother Vanessa is initially presented as admittedly "boring," while her husband Mark is "cool and edgy." As the film progresses however, both Juno and the audience are supposed to see that Mark is really just an immature jerk, and Vanessa is the truly good person. However, I could not buy this at all, because I was continuously appalled by the total lack of respect or support Vanessa had for her husband and his interests. Certainly, he was not a "good guy" if he knew that she always wanted a baby and he married her knowing he didn't really want to be a father, but since he did agree to try, one could at least interpret his actions as misguided rather than cruel--ie, he wasn't sure he was ready, he hoped he would be, but turned out he was not. And at least he did not dismiss her desire for motherhood as trivial or unimportant. She, on the other hand, appeared to completely disregard all of his wants and desires--for one thing, it was pretty obvious he was not nearly as on-board with the baby thing as she was, but it didn't matter to her so long as he was still going along with it.
Then the fact of his hobbies. All of his music equipment was relegated to one room of the house, and his movies to the basement. When she walks in on him and Juno playing music together, rather than taking it as a good sign of bonding, she scoffs at their "jam session" and tells them they need to go over "important things" like legal documents (surely important, but wouldn't you want the adoption to be handled with at least some personal touch?). Despite the fact that he is obviously good at music and makes his living off it, she dismisses his desire to do more than commercial music as "childish," and apparently gets mad at him when he watches his horror movies during the day, even though to all appearances he is productive and successful at his career, and in no danger of losing his job through slacking. Her general attitude that his interest in music and movies and whatnot is silly and "immature" is galling--the idea that one is only "grown up" if one has a buttoned-up office job is totally outdated, and plenty of people have entirely fulfilling lives without giving up their so-called childish passions. (For instance, any number of actual professional musicians, graphic designers, comic book writers and artists, etc.) His desire to pursue music and not have a family is no less valid than her desire to play storybook-picket-fence-dream. They are incompatible, yes, but her vision of what their life should be is not objectively better or more worthy than his--and yet that's how it's shown. Unlike Nick Hornby's characters, it's not really shown that he is unable to connect to people or have relationships or a meaningful life (Nick Hornby's characters, btw, do not generally have the kind of successful career that Mark has)--just that his relationship with Vanessa isn't fulfilling for him anymore.
In The Cure For Modern Life, btw, the main character's affection for music and pop culture is only shown as problematic when he uses it to avoid people, as it should be--but when he opens up, it is actually an important tool of connection and bonding (and even child-care!), again as it should be. He reconsiders his priorities, but his personal growth does not include having to throw out his ipod and stash of music documentaries, or anything else that he enjoys, and become a "normal grown-up" in order to become a better person.
(Off topic, but The Cure For Modern Life is a really fun book I really enjoyed reading: a bit of About a Boy, a bit of Pride & Prejudice, and a bit of The Constant Gardener. The heroine is pretty insufferable in her self-righteousness, and there is a bit too much preciousness/plot-device-anvils in some of the situations, but generally it's a book I would very much recommend for an engaging read.)
One more thing about "Juno"--I had heard some people complain that it was anti-abortion, and before I saw it, I really thought people were making something out of nothing. I mean, so she chooses to keep the baby, so what? If "pro-choice" is to have any meaning, keeping the baby, even in the case of an unplanned teenage pregnancy, should be a perfectly legitimate choice. And people whined that the pro-life protester was shown as "too cute"--well, again, so what? It's not like pro-life protesters are all evil monsters--again, being pro-choice should hardly mean a mandatory demonizing of the opposition. Well, while I am still of the opinion that the protester was just fine... yeah, uh, it's pretty biased anti-abortion. Meh. I could have done without that.
But it wasn't bad. I think it was just far too hyped for me to enjoy it as much as I could have.
Finally, I wanted to share two fun links:
Young Me/Now Me, a photo blog where people send in fun recreations of their baby pictures.
And slightly related, Sleeve Face, another photo blog, this time with people taking really cool photos incorporating various album sleeves.
Sample: