Film Juno Analysis

Jason Reitman's 2007 film Juno addresses a difficult and potentially controversial topic: unwanted pregnancy and the challenges of deciding whether to terminate the pregnancy or carry it to term. Braha and Bryne describe Juno as a "comedy-drama," but it is also a young adult film because its protagonist is a teenager and because it frankly addresses coming-of-age issues linked to uniquely adolescent sexuality and gender identity.

The film focuses on titular character Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) and her decision to carry the pregnancy to term and give up the baby for adoption. Focusing on Juno empowers the protagonist and shows that Reitman deliberately sets out to make a film that is as much about the politics of sexuality and gender as it is about the specific issues related to decisions related to abortion.

Juno remains fully in control of her decisions about whether or not to stay with Paulie and of course decisions related to the baby. Therefore, the film has a feminist approach. Yet inadvertently or not, Reitman ends up drumming up questions related to the depiction of masculinity, and Juno does convey problematic gender discourse in spite of its essentially feminist outlook.

By conveying a soft brand of feminism with ironic overtimes, the Reitman film manages to appeal to a broad mainstream audience, pleasing the pro-life set in that Juno keeps the baby and also avoiding what could have easily become proselytizing for the anti-choice movement. The writing is one reason why Juno became relatively successful, earning Diablo Cody an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Adding liberal doses of both wet and dry comedy helps to uplift what might otherwise been a heavy film about a difficult subject.

For example, when Juno breaks the news to her parents about her pregnancy, their reaction is ironic and wholly unexpected. After the dad says, "Did you see that coming?" Mom replies, "No, I was hoping she was expelled or into hard drugs." Then the father adds, "Yeah, or a DWI.

Anything but this." Making fun of the issue helps to dissipate some of the tension surrounding an unplanned teen pregnancy but also covertly covers up an underlying pro-life discourse because making light of the situation suggests that getting pregnant and carrying the child to term is not the end of the world even for a teenager still in school. The film fails to get into the negative effects of teen pregnancy, presenting an unnecessarily rosy picture.

Still, the writing remains clever and punchy throughout the film, as when Juno's friend comments that there are advertisements for parents who are "desperately seeking spawn." In addition to clever writing, Juno is successful in spite of its thematic flaws because of its tone and style. Geared toward a young adult audience, the film is quirky with a protagonist who is frank and honest about herself and has a realistic outlook on life.

For example, Juno's father mentions, "I didn't know you were that kind of girl," to which Juno responds, "I don't really know what kind of girl I am." Reitman addresses issues related to adolescent identity formation as well as issues related to gender. Juno sends an empowering message to young women about healthy identity construction within a white, cis-gender framework.

Using the feminist analysis presented by Hayward in Concepts as well as auteur theory, it is apparent the title character never has to negotiate other elements of intersectionality like race or social class, as she is white and from a privileged background as is the father of her child, Pauli Bleeker (Michael Cera). By placing the female body and the female choice related to sexuality and childbirth at the center of the film, Reitman does create a feminist discourse.

As Cohan and Hark points out, in film "traditionally the male body has been viewed as the norm; the female body a deviation," (118). Juno diverges from this androcentric framework. Another way that Juno helps to promote female empowerment is by directly shifting attitudes towards female sexuality, particularly in the scene where the parents do not have a negative response to the pregnancy. In Cinema Studies Hayward notes "gender is also a product of various social technologies, including cinema," (147).

If cinema promotes the social construction of gender roles, norms, and stereotypes, then Reitman does a fair job in presenting a new narrative of female empowerment through Juno's self-ownership of her own sexuality. However, Reitman presents a potentially problematic view of masculinity and male sexuality. The father of the child is completely disempowered and removed from the relationship as Juno has pushed him away and remains emotionally closed to him for much of the film.

He knows he is the father but is an almost asexual teenager, the antithesis of a hypersexed jock. In a parallel sequence, the intended adoptive father Mark (Jason Bateman) introduces himself first to Juno as "the husband," and not by his name -- something that deliberately abnegates his identity and undermines his political power in the triangulated relationship. When Mark later decides that he does not feel ready to be a father and leaves Vanessa, he also disempowers himself.

The filmmaker shows how gender performativity is critical for gender identity formation. As Clover puts it, "sex is one thing and gender another; in practice, that sex is life. gender is theater," (Clover 58). Ironically, though, Mark and Paulie subvert gender identities and norms just as much as Juno does.

Instead of performing their socially-ascribed genders, Juno remains emotionally detached from the "sea creature" she carries, while Mark and Paulie refrain from using their patriarchal power to have any influence at all in the lives of the women around them. Disempowering men might not be the best message of masculinity to cultivate if film is in fact a party to creating gender roles and norms as Hayward suggests.

In spite of these flaws in its gender discourse, Juno does an excellent job presenting gender issues to a mainstream audience. Perhaps its greatest strength is that the Reitman film offers "a complex understanding of the disorientation suffered by adolescents during the 1990s -- a time when anti-sex discourses coexisted with an increasingly sexualized youth culture," (Tarancon 442). Juno thinks for herself, and encourages audience members who identify with her to also cultivate their own attitudes towards gender, sexuality, and personal choice.

"While situating sexual desire, biological possibilities, and social responses to girls' engagement in sexual intercourse at the center of its plot, the film Juno depicts the transgressive sexual agency of a young girl," (Willis 240). Doing so allows the film to appear feminist on the surface "without substantially disrupting longstanding discourses of femininity," (Willis 240). Therefore, the filmmakers are clever in their approach and could even have created a stealthy anti-choice film because of their presentation of teen pregnancy as a minor glitch in Juno's life.

The 2007 film Juno offers a soft version of feminism that is problematic.