Apparently, Juno is all controversial. It’s unkind to people who were adopted as well as to birth mothers to create a comedy about adoption. There’s a lot of discussion about whether Juno is anti-choice.
Shut! Up!
This is where I part ways with many feminists and other activists; where they start criticizing or trying to restrict art based on content. It’s not better to object to a movie based on its supposed anti-choice values than it is to object to a movie based on its supposed liberal values. It all feels like Social Realism thinking to me. I get that a birth mother might not want to see Juno, and might find it painful. And I sympathize. But that doesn’t mean that the subject matter should be off-limits. There are definitely things I never want to see in movies, and movies I avoid as a result. Comedies that everyone loves that I’ve never seen because they feel like they would trigger some serious pain for me.
But that doesn’t mean those comedies shouldn’t be made, nor that they are “not funny” by some objective standard. There is no objectivity with humor.
The more touchy the subject, the harder to do it right. One of my problems with Waitress, which was basically very charming, was the attempt to have a humorous abusive husband. This wasn’t triggering for me; I’ve never been the victim of domestic violence, but it made me uncomfortable.
I didn’t come away from that movie thinking this subject should never be addressed in a comedy. I came away thinking that maybe it can’t be done well, and this movie definitely didn’t do it well. But who knows? If beautifully written and acted, maybe it could illuminate the characters without feeling way out of line. Maybe.
If so, some people will choose to skip that movie anyway, because it hurts too much, and it’s not funny for them. I get that. I just don’t feel like it should be censored in advance, and I don’t feel that people who do find it funny should be accused of being less enlightened or feminist or socially responsible than thou.
Interesting. I’ve read a lot of blogs criticizing Juno for the ways it plays into the puppy-dogs-and-roses version of adoption (I’m not anti-adoption by any means; I’m planning to adopt, in fact), but I haven’t read anything saying it shouldn’t be allowed in the first place. But I agree with what you’ve said here.
I haven’t seen anyone suggest censorship directly, but there have been a lot of comments along the lines of “it’s not okay,” which kind of hovers around the border.
It’s the typical “That’s not the way *I* would do it so it’s wrong to write it that way” that pervades so much of what passes for sociopolitical “discussion” these days…….
RE: Waitress – I never saw the movie as attempting to make the abusive husband humorous. He was repellent, and I thought the movie presented him like a monster, a shadow.
I think far too much film criticism focuses on what a movie IS NOT as opposed to what IT IS. If people want to see a comedy where a character has an abortion, then rent Fast Times At Ridgemont High or write your own screenplay. (Not that I am opposed to comedies where a character chooses an abortion. Shoot, I should probably write my life story, which has plenty of comedy and an abortion.
Sort of similar to blog commenters who nag a blogger for what they aren’t writing about.
Maurinsky, that’s why I stay in my experience. Parts of Waitress made me uncomfortable, and it’s important to say that rather than say what its intentions were or what they should have been. The repellent spouse never jibed for me with the rest of the tone of the film, hence my discomfort.
There are so many movies – and tv shows – where you are surprised they don’t have an abortion.
While part of me wonders if this is to not upset anti-abortion people, part of me realizes that they need to do it this way so that the story lasts longer in a visible way. Perhaps the person who had the abortion is reacting for a long time, but it’s less appealing as a plot and might come off as even more anti-abortion than if the character doesn’t do it.
‘Juno’ and ‘Waitress’ and ‘Knocked Up’ would have all been over from the start if she’d had an abortion. (weirdly I saw all 3 the same week)
Well, all three coming out the same year does seem to point to something in the zeitgeist.
A family member who had recently had a “hasty abortion” insisted that we had to see this movie. I LOVED it! The characters were so real, and the writing was so down to earth – none of those long teen angst soliloquies. I loved the themes of finding who you really are, of slow awakening to the truth. If you’re a political abortion rights advocate, as I am, then it seems even more moving, because the story portrays the reality of what people think and how they make decisions. The movie reminded me in a way of “Tender Mercies” in that it was like watching real people in real situations making real decisions and getting on with this messy thing called life.