Think of Juno

        To tell you’re the truth, Juno has become one of my favorite films and I have watched it more than three times, but I never feel bored. Compared with other same type films about puberties, Juno get great success and a roaring reputation, this film told that junior student Juno found that she is pregnant after an intercourse without appropriate contraceptive, she doesn’t want baby but she doesn’t do abortion so Juno decided to send the baby to Loring’s who want baby, but she found it is not easy…….The films shows a very different girl Juno and she give me very deep expression: a tomboy with her funny talking and actions. Willis writes in her article “Sexual Subjectivity: A Semiotic Analysis of Girlhood, Sex, and Sexuality in the Film Juno”: “In a visual era lacking widespread representations of strong female characters not sexually objectified or singularly defined by their interest in romance, Juno offers a refreshing reconstitution of the young female subject”(24). And it masterly transfer their opinions of teen pregnancy problem to audience: There is another way to treat teen pregnancy. In this film, Juno challenges traditional femininity, she beyond people’s expectation about traditional femininity and how to treat teen pregnancy, also it reflect a big stereotypes about women’s bodies and psychology being linked.

        The first thing is that to analyze Juno. In fact, I was amazed by this unusual girl when the film begin. At the first scene, Juno stood in front of a red, old chair with a bottle of juice on her hand at dusk, wearing a red jacket and blue jeans, she watched the chair and recalled the intercourse with Bleeker, then a dog barked to her and stopped her reminiscence. After that Juno throw some works to the dog with rudely and angry mood: “Geez, Banana, shut your frigging gob, okay?!”(Juno) I burst into laugh when Juno said these words and I realized she is very different, and yes she is. In the film you will see that Juno always wears jacket and jeans in some colors that was considered belong to boy’s, talking in vulgar and funny ways, and the swagger actions. I saw Juno in a Chinese video app, most of the commands says that Juno is so cool and so funny, anyway, they have the same words: Juno is not a girl what we have known. “The 2007 film release of Juno offers certain challenges to past conceptualization of girlhood, yet the representation of female sexuality as tied to traditional notions of ‘femininity’ remains substantially unchanged”(Willis, 241). It means that most of people think that girlhood should be ‘femininity’: delicate, emotional, being keen on dressing up and shopping, felling love with a boy……but Juno breaks it! She is such a freak compare with traditional girlhood, she love punk and horror movies, wears like boy, she has boyfriend but she isn’t obsessed with love, especially she is funny. If we draw a comparison between Juno and other film’s female characters, you would see than most of female characters are the same: sexy, killjoy and emotional. Especially killjoy, you will find that in a lot of film, whatever the main character is man or woman, male characters always make fun but not women. Hubbard claims: “But if we dismiss the early descriptions as ideological, so are the descriptions scientists have offered that characterize women as weak, overemotional, and at the mercy of our raging hormones, and that construct our entire being around the function of our reproductive organ” (46), combining with her words, traditional stereotype think that killjoy, weak, emotional is the basic characteristics of women, and it reflect in the films then transfer to audience. So the stereotype becomes very stable even it is received by a lot of women.

        In Juno, Paulie Bleeker is a very interested male character. In the film, Bleeker is a shy, irresolute boy, also he is out of traditional masculinity. At the scene that Juno seated on the chair in front of Bleeker’s house, the conversation between Juno and Bleeker really make me amazed:

        Juno: So guess what?

        Bleeker: What? I don’t know.

        Juno: I’m pregnant.

        Bleeker: (Shocked, long silence) W-What should we do……about.

        Juno: Well, you know, I was just…..I was thinking I’d just nip it in the bud, before it gets worse. Cause they were talking about, in health class how pregnancy, it can often lead to an infant.

        Bleeker: Typically, yeah, yeah. That what happens when our moms and teachers get pregnant.

        Juno: So you’re cool with that then?

        Bleeker: Yeah, yeah, wizard, I mean, you know, just, I guess do whatever you think you should do, you know?

        Juno: Well, I’m sorry I had sex with you. I know it wasn’t, like, your idea.

        Bleeker: Whose idea was it?

        Juno: I’ll see you at school, all right? (Rode on bike and left)

        Bleeker: (After Juno leaving) Whose idea was it?

        From this conversation you would find that Juno is more aggressive but Bleeker is kind of weak. Having sex is Juno’s idea and the solution that treat her pregnancy is also Juno’s idea. Then think of Bleeker, when he first heard that Juno is pregnant, he was shocked and got afraid of it, look back to Juno, she is so calm. In fact, I think that Juno should be shocked by her pregnancy but she isn’t. So someone thinks that their characteristics is shifted, if they exchange the characteristics, audience might consider that it is much more suitable. Willis comments that although Bleeker does not challenge dominant cultural depictions of males as sexually desiring subjects, his bodily positioning in the sex scene suggests the potential of a non-aggressive masculinity (251). Yes, in this film, Bleeker also desire to intercourse with Juno, after having sex, he held Juno’s underpants. But in traditional masculinity, Bleeker doesn’t conform to it even make people think he is a pussy. But at the second half of the fil, although Juno get pregnant and was avoided and teased by her schoolmates , Bleeker still love her and at the end of the film when he realized Juno got parturition, he went to the hospital and saw Juno. I was moved by this and think Bleeker is a good man. So Bleeker challenge traditional masculinity that man should be aggressive.

        About the film, teen pregnancy, intercourse and abortion are the key points. On Chinese Internet, there are a lot of netizens is arguing about these problems after watching Juno. Some of the netizens think that Juno encourage teenagers don’t do abortion if they’re pregnant, then someone disagreed that they just show a solution about teen pregnancy; others start to argue that whether teenagers should have intercourse. Well, these problems are very important in society, the pregnancy and abortions always make a lot of arguments. In the film, when the Juno first meet Vanessa to talk about Juno’s pregnancy, Vanessa was worried that Juno would regret her decision what she had promised and want to keep her baby, but Juno took away her thoughts, after that there is a conversation between Juno, Vanessa and Juno’s father:

        Vanessa: Have you ever felt like you were just born to do something?

        Juno’s father: Yes. Heating and air-conditioning.

        Vanessa: There you go. I was born to be a mother. Some of we are.

        In this conversation then combining with the things that Vanessa was worried about that Juno would regret, you would find that Vanessa think that pregnancy and having baby is the duty of women. In Lorber’s article “‘Night to his day’: The Social Construction of Gender”, she claims: “Western society’s values legitimate gendering by claiming that it all comes from physiology-----female and male procreative differences” (20). Of cause, men and women’s differences is the different genitals, and because of that, just women can be pregnant. But about the pregnancy, some people think whether women would like or not, they have to get baby. Because they think that if a woman get pregnant, she must have a duty and desire to take care of baby, because this is women’s natural instincts, baby is born by her, so she need to take care of it. I have read a lot of novels and stories that a woman got pregnant because she had sex with a strange man, at the beginning she want to take over her baby but she give up, then she had the baby and fed it, in the end the woman found that man and they fell in love with each other! What’s the heck with it? I can’t understand that why she won’t do abortion, and the answer is always that baby is guiltless, but is it the good reason that women should feed it when she have big pressure to take care of it or can’t do it? Some Medias and groups require women not to do abortion, but the teen pregnancy still have to be blamed by society, it is a big contradiction. Then I find another point: Where is the men? Where is the fathers? When society blame these teen pregnancy cases, public always ignore the “father”. In the film, Juno’s tummy becoming huge, and her schoolmates gave her strange look and started to tease her, but Bleeker------the father didn’t get any blame from others, is this fair? And it reminded me some commands about rape cases, it is obviously that women is the victim sufferer, but some people blame that why women go out so late? Why they dressed so hot? They deserved it. Even someone attacks the sufferers that they must be lewd, flighty because of their body and clothes. Is it normal to link women’s mind and their body/ Does it conform to the equal what we have said a lot? I don’t understand.

        Juno is a wonderful movie and it shows the different girlhood, I really like it. But I realize that there still have big stereotypes about gender especially in intercourse, pregnancy and abortion problems. But unfortunately, there still have some people don’t realize them, it is serious and if we won’t come over this stereotype, that means it is quiet hard to achieve gender equal.  

Work cited

       Hubbard, Ruth. “Rethinking Women’s Biology.” Composing Gender. Ed. Rachel Groner and   

                        John O’Hara. Boston: Bedford, 2009. 46-52. Print.

       Lorber, Judith. “‘Night to His Day’: The Social Construction of Gender.” Composing Gender.

                     Ed. Rachel Groner and O’Hara. Boston: Bedford, 2009. 46-52. Print.

       Willis, Jessica L. “Sexual Subjectivity: A Semiotic Analysis of Girlhood, Sex, and Sexuality in

                  the Film Juno.” Sexuality & Culture (2008) 12: 240-256. Academic Search Complete.

                  Web. 18 April. 2016.