I haven’t seen the movie Juno, whose star was just nominated for an Oscar, so take what I have to say here with a grain of salt. But after reading all the chatter about it, I’m depressed. This is what the New York Times calls “a feminist, girl-powered rejoinder to Knocked Up”? If this is feminism today, we are in trouble.
A movie that suggests a person can come through nine months of gestating and then surrendering her child unscathed is peddling a dangerous delusion. Before going to see this movie, I suggest reading The Girls Who Went Away: the Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Babies for Adoption in the Years Before Roe v. Wade or Meredith Hall’s recent memoir, Without a Map. Both books show just how devastating the experience of giving up a child is, one these women don’t seem ever to have recovered from. To be sure, part of the devastation was that these women largely gave up their babies unwillingly and they suffered shaming and ostracism for their pregnancies, something women today don’t face. But lest we think everything has changed, see Allison Crewes’ essay “When I Was Garbage,” in Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender’s collection Breeders. Crewes was a pregnant teenager who not so long ago nearly gave up her baby for adoption in circumstances that bear a lot of resemblance to those faced by women of generations ago; she was told she was unworthy of the baby, that it would be irresponsible to keep it, and everyone around her treated it as a given that she would give the baby up.
It may be true that, in the words of Entertainment Weekly’s online review, “director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody really don't give a hoot what you think about the right to life/right to choose/right to make jokes about teen sex,” but they surely knew what would be considered unthreatening entertainment in this political moment. Giving a baby up for adoption can be funny, while abortion has to be tragedy. This line from EW’s review is telling: “Juno would have been a very different movie had the young woman named for the queen of Roman gods chosen termination and brought her admirable young female clarity to that less gentle, more divisive decision — maybe truer, certainly not so funny.” I’m not sure adoption is so gentle.
See my later posting on Juno (after seeing the movie).
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7 comments:
Thanks for the review of the movie, Juno which I have not seen, but from your review, I doubt I will find it humorous, having been one of 'The Girls Who Went Away'. There truly is NOTHING funny about adoption...not when mother and baby are separated, not in the years they are apart and not even when they are reunion. Adoption is totally about loss...to the mother, the child and the extended family. If there is a 'gain in adoption it is to those who become the adoptive parents, gaining a child of other parents to legally call their own.
I HAVE seen the movie. It is very good. I am a feminist and not afraid of the word. It is a little unfair to say that abortion is the only choice that can be considered "feminist." That sort of negates the whole "choice" aspect of it. In the movie, no one pressures Juno to make a decision one way or the other. She does it on her own, fully informed.
I also must STRONGLY disagree with the commenter that adoption is only about loss. I am sorry for her experience, but that is not everyone's. I have close friends who have had an open adoption. The birth mother is grateful they were there to take care of her baby, and they are grateful she has trusted them. I am kind of upset by the implication that all adoptions involve some sort of theft of a child. Very narrow minded.
I don't think that the character would have to have an abortion for the movie to be feminist--
however I think it is totally fucked up to suggest that harassing pregnant teenagers is the way to change thier minds-- and portraying the clinic workers as uncaring inappropriate lunkheads..
That part of this very entertaining film reminded me of a high art "Hell House"
ps-- I saw the movie this weekend and I am still shaking in anger...
Carolyn, great blog. Thank you.
The second comment here posted by anonymous on Jan 31 at 1:16 PM illustrates one of the dangers of this movie. People actually believe it. For example, that young resourceless mothers make these "decisions" all on their own without any pressure and with complete information. Nothing could be more backwards.
Surrendering a child to adoption involves desperation, disempowerment, devastation and mothers are almost always not given crucial information.
And it only gets worse, as the years progress and you come into a fuller and fuller understanding of this permanent life altering event, the effects and consequences permeating every aspect of your life, and, as you find out, the life of your child-adult-child who grew up feeling rejected, abandoned - forbidden from knowing his own mother and only being lied to about her by selfish owners.
I wouldn't wish this hell on anyone else alive. And here it is being promoted in this "award winning" movie. I feel sick over this. Once again promoting what really is - legalized abandonment -because that is how the child feels it.
Thank goodness a few people in America are blessed with enough brains to see how crappy, and dangerous, the movie Juno is. Abortion clinics are shoddy, adoption is easy, everything is peachy in the end. This movie shows teen pregnancy as nothing more than an inconvenient hiccup on the road to adulthood. Why can't more people see that?
I watched this film yesterday and I'm still wrestling with my feelings about it. I found it entertaining enough to sit through to the end, enjoyed the humour, the soundtrack and some of the sweeter moments in the movie. But somehow it made me feel uncomfortable. After leaving the cinema, my friend and I discussed the shallow way they dealt with such a complicated issue and gave very glib lip service to the devastating loss of a child. Today i searched for some movie reviews to see if i could find anyone else who has the same negative view of the film as I do - and it was really hard to find a dissenting voice in the universal praise for this movie. I was surprised to find that it was even applauded for showing a powerful intelligent woman as the protagonist! I cant understand how such a twisted dangerous film can receive all these plaudits and awards for covering up its shallowness with witty dialog. Very worrying.
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