Honest to Blog....Guh

Friends,

Finally saw Juno. Yup.

Now, this may sound like hipster backlash, but I got a couple problems with this movie. First and foremost is this suffers from the same problem Garden State does. If you met the female lead in real life, you'd want to punch her in the neck. Juno the character is an annoying twat.

Seriously, Juno is rude, smarmy, elitist and dumb so I can't possibly see her as some lovable scamp who gets knocked up and then want to care about her in anyway. Within the first 3 minutes of being in the house of the people who will be adopting her baby, she's fucking cracking off sarcasm? Really? To the people who are willing to pay for the medical expenses for the pregnancy and take care of it? Where's a sense of gratitude? Even if it is masked under some precious teenager gobbling that makes up her quirky dialogue, it's gotta be there. And if it's not...and Juno's not capable of showing gratitude...how the hell are we supposed to feel sympathetic for her? Just because she's a knocked up teen? Big fucking deal she's knocked up. She could be knocked up with Hitler's cannibal baby from beyond the grave for all I care...if you can't say thanks for stepping up and taking responsibility for your fucking mistake, then you know, piss off, homeskillet. Now maybe, just maybe, Juno was covering for her insecurities with all that whatever she is, but that's a really hard thing to show, and I didn't buy it as that. I think in the movie, she was just supposed to be this wacky central character, not someone wrapped up in layers of self-protecting snark.

As for the dialogue of the movie, since that's what gets most criticized since it's now cool to hate this movie. Yeah, it's problematic in the same way that West Wing is problematic. It's just that I doubt that everyone in this universe possesses biting wit, because if they did, the slow people would be the interesting ones because everyone else would be snarking off to each other. Take my West Wing example (I love this show by the way) but how is it that everyone in that universe seems to have improv like wit? Makes it seem a little fictional. But to up the ante with strange unnecessary references (a Badfinger reference...really?) to force the hipness like a bad simile in fiction (you know the kind that has no connection to the story and lays out there like a bejeweled fish wrapped in silk, screaming to be noticed [see what I did there?]) detracts from the story. So it was distracting, but whatever, it's that movie's calling card.

Another problem are the male characters. They are SO weak. For example, Juno 16 tells her dad she's pregnant, and their response, especially the Dad, is fucking ridiculous. He might as well have said, "Pregnant, eh? And I was going to take you on some roller coasters." then pouts mightily. Yeah, yeah, I know this is kind of like bitching about why there isn't a "white history month" when arguing about black history month, but fuck it, the males upset me. How is that a 16 year old daughter gets knocked up, and not one person shouts or gets mad? Yes, you can't unscrew that lightbulb, so what's the use, but really? Right when those words "I'm pregnant" slip out of your daughter's 16 year old mouth, you wouldn't want to shout "How the fuck did that happen!" even you know damn well how it happened (lovemaking, i.e., fucking, in case you really didn't know)? Again, maybe that's the dad's character, but that's a shitty dad if he only seems mildly concerned about his teen daughter's pregnancy. And we are supposed to see this shitpile of a dad as the awesomest dad ever. Fuck that. He's a limpdicked enabler. Now if he raged on and on, then he would have been a cliche, but where's the middle ground? This is a goddamn Oscar winning screenplay, so let's see it goddamn it.

Also in the male character problems are Michael Cera & Jason Batemen. First, Mr. Cera's character clearly has working balls, but not metaphoric balls. I hope I'm not going to ruin the movie for you, but she fucking emotionally steamrolls this guy, after first using him for sex (which knocks her up by the way)...and his reaction to that is to love her more. What. the. fuck. I just didn't buy that at all. ESPECIALLY the ending. Okay, spoiler time, so I'll change the font to blue so you can't see this unless you highlight it but.....at the end, when Juno & Michael Cera become a couple...what the fuck is that guy thinking! Clearly he's the dick in the jar under the sink, he's the fallback, he's the emergency guy that she didn't even bother to string along (clearly she is his limerent object so he can't shake his feelings for her), she is, in fact distant and rude toward him until she realizes that he would love her unconditionally. Not that she actually loves him too, but just that he'll be a constant like gravity. I know that devotion is important in a long term relationship, but the feelings gotta be mutual for it to last, otherwise it's a one-sided relationship fraught with manipulations. And they are suddenly a happy couple? What the fuck? Yeah, yeah don't "it's the movies" me. Horseshit. Go rent Once. They don't have to be happy together for it to be sweet and loving. Now, if I was supposed to see this relationship as being kind of fucked up and destined to fail, then I would like it because that's the truth, but I think the movie is trying to say this is really sweet, great, lasting thing...but it's not.

Jason Bateman's character also has flaws, but I'll save it.

I know of the problems of trying to write from the opposite gender's perspective. In fact, my thesis severely short-sheets the females. They are a rogues gallery of terrible. We have Burnett's mom who leaves for a better life. Hoss' mom who leave b/c she can't handle living with a stroke victim any longer. We got Tegan, morbidly obese. Tegan's mom, a little controlling. Shelly, dopey, arrogant poetess. And Shelly's mom, boring as white toast in a white room. Out of all of the, Shelly really gets dealt a shit hand I think. My criticism of Juno is not coming from a place of particular strength to me, but there it is.

Also, I have to say that I don't know about the pregnant girl phenomenon in high schools. Oh, there were pregnant girls in my school, loads. Shit, in 6th grade one of my classmates was knocked up by her older boyfriend. It's just that I don't know how pregnant teens feel. There are times were Juno feels really outcast because of her pregnancy (not her shitty demeanor) which is a little strange because teen pregnancy isn't something so out-there-strange, even in that community (remember, early in the movie, Juno's BFF says she called an abortion clinic for another friend last year, so babies are getting made at that school) and times where she feels pretty cool about being a pregnant teen in high school. I don't know enough to say that was an inconsistency or not. It felt inconsistent to me, but I could be very wrong.

Emily just finished watching it, and she thinks its a guy vs. girl thing. And maybe that's the case. She liked the parts I didn't, and enjoyed the movie. I heard her "aww"ing loudly through the bedroom door while she watched it in fact. She dug it a lot, especially the sweetness of it. And, I don't know if that's actually a sweet movie for me or something shoehorned into it because of the ending.

Also, this is a portend of doom I think. Why? Well, this movie has a following. So it'll be big. How soon will the style of Juno, this forced hipsterism gets shellacked into undergrad fiction writing because, apparently, this is good writing. Can you see it? Drunk girls doing drunk things but making wildly impressive references and a biting wit to rival some low-rent Oscar Wilde. This may be showy writing, sure, absolutely, but not good writing necessarily. Just because you can make a Badfinger reference doesn't make your writing good, just clever enough to make David Fricke laugh. And, you know, this sparked an idea, is writing separate from story, and if so, should they be taught separately in creative writing courses?

viva el mustache