The “Juno effect” promoted by comprehensive sex ed crowd
In “Diablo Cody got me pregnant,” Manhattan Monarch wrote today:
The conclusion is unanimous: the supposed pregnancy pact fulfilled by over a half-dozen teenagers in Gloucester, MA is a result of their enjoying the Cody-penned teen pregnancy comedy, Juno. It’s funny to hear the same folks that praised Jason Reitman’s indie hit for its implicit pro-life message now bashing it just as fervently as a brainwasher of innocent children’s minds.…
This brings me to the real topic of this post, the top five reasons Diablo Cody didn’t get your child pregnant:
1. Juno in no ways “glamorizes pregnancy.” While the protagonist herself is hip beyond imagination (she has a hamburger phone!), it’s clear that she goes through an extremely emotional ordeal in choosing to go through with her pregnancy. There are no glamorous shots of her holding her child, no instances where she seems happy about the fact that she is pregnant itself, and certainly no high-fives from friends who made a pact that they’d get pregnant together so that they could buy matching strollers in school colors.
2. Juno doesn’t keep or even interact with her baby. The adult woman with a home and a secure job is shown as the ideal parent in the end.
3. Even adult parenthood isn’t glamorized. The relationship between Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman is torn apart because, even with all of their financial resources, they weren’t ready to handle raising a child together.
4. The pregnancy in the film is unplanned. Michael Cera wasn’t looking for an heir….
I agree with MM on her 4 points listed, but hold everything. It isn’t the Right connecting the Gloucester girls to Juno. That attempt was first made by “some adults” in the original Time article, or by Time itself trying to promote the concept, since it didn’t name names.
Poignant point from
Completely baffled, officials turned to the only feasible explanation: Blame… Juno… Of course! The ridiculous rise in pregnancies had to do with Juno – a film that made teen pregnancy look about as comfortable and enjoyable as stuffing yourself in a piece of old luggage and rolling down a mountain. There’s the answer!…
Instead of looking around at a town that was falling apart economically and emotionally, they blamed the quirky comedy because kids liked it. Here’s an idea: Next time, how about you look at what kids don’t like. They don’t like to feel neglected, like they’re worthless or not important. They like to feel needed, they like to feel wanted and they like to feel loved.
Newbusters nailed the real culprits promoting the “Juno effect”: “Liberals [who] can’t seem to allow an alternative point of view to emerge on abortion”:
Time is attempting to blame movies that didn’t tout abortion. On its home page for this week’s magazine, Time’s blurb reads: “Postcard Gloucester: A MA fishing town tries to understand why so many of its teenagers made a pact to get pregnant. How one school is grappling with the Juno effect”….
Kathleen Kingsbury… begins by dragging in Juno and Knocked Up as a scapegoat for an anonymous gang of “some” in the town….
Time should know “some” people saw these movies and didn’t see “glamorized” pregnancies, simply young women choosing to keep a baby.
Liberals can’t seem to allow an alternative point of view to emerge on abortion. Neither of these movies did any lobbying, suggesting that politicians should pass laws to protect the unborn. They simply showed likable women choosing to carry their babies to term. Liberals say they’re “pro-choice,” but they can’t stand watching another choice made in a movie.
The abortion industry has always hated Juno and are now doing their best to damage it while taking the spotlight off themselves and their idiotic worldview that led the Gloucester girls down their pregnant path in the first place.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I’m quite liberal, and I enjoyed Juno.
Generalizations make me a sad panda.
“Liberals have always hated Juno ”
Really? I thought I liked it. I even have the soundtrack and put it on my Netflix queue.
Its a good thing you’re here Jill, to tell me what I like and don’t like, since I clearly have no concept of my own opinions.
You’re both right, I’m sorry. I’ve read many liberal takes on this today that agreed with me on this – including Perez Hilton, who appeared to mock the Juno-Gloucester connection. Will change.
@Amanda: It’s because we’re stupid liberals that take that evil birth control and haven’t started popping out chitlins after high school.
Aren’t generalizations faaaaantastic?
Thank you Jill. That was very nice of you. :)
Thanks for accepting my apology, Rae… :)
Jill,
The human touch exchanges are refreshing. Kudos. Sincerely.
@Jill: No worries. Please accept my apology for being snarky. :)
Juno wasn’t a pro-life movie. Liberals and pro-choicers liked it just fine.
Something is terribly wrong with this whole post:
first you accept pro-choicers don’t like Juno because she had a kid. Then you accept the opinion of Mario Lavandeira Jr. whose cultural sense of “now” is so passe as to render his opinions useless before they are even spoken.
Thanks Jill. Retraction much appreciated.
A truly honest blogger would edit the blog post rather than apologize in the comments. Who knows how many people read only the posts and don’t bother with the comments?
A truly honest blogger would edit the blog post rather than apologize in the comments. Who knows how many people read only the posts and don’t bother with the comments?
Posted by: Edyt at June 25, 2008 8:47 PM
Jill’s post was up for less than an hour when she apologized. What’s the point of apologizing in the blog post? It wouldn’t make sense to anyone except those who may have read it in the first hour and odds are they won’t be re-reading the post anyway.
Janet, it’s proper to do so. She doesn’t have to re-write her blog post, but it is considered good blog etiquette to include an edit (usually in bold) correcting her earlier statements and apologizing. That way if someone is reading her post and similarly enraged, they will see that she made an effort to correct herself.
Apologizing to specific readers is okay in the comments, but considering she pretty much generalized all liberals/pro-choicers in her statement, she should include an actual retraction. Better yet, she should actually take out the offensive lines. But I doubt she’d bother.
Edyt: I thought she did take out the offensive line. (????)
Edyt, I did edit the post.
Hi Jill. Perhaps you’d like to edit a few other lines then:
Newbusters nailed the real culprits promoting the “Juno effect”: “Liberals [who] can’t seem to allow an alternative point of view to emerge on abortion”:
The abortion industry has always hated Juno and are now doing their best to damage it while taking the spotlight off themselves and their idiotic worldview that led the Gloucester girls down their pregnant path in the first place.
Edyt, the first line isn’t mine. One doesn’t edit another’s work.
The second line is the one I fixed. It’s spot on. To quote Carly, “You probably think this song is about you”?
@Jill: Janet Jackson hijacked that song for one of her songs years ago…
God bless these young parentss and give them the strength to perservere in their love and care for each other and their children. They have more sense then any pro-abort who ever walked the earth.
ts: 10:09: Amen!
Jill, I know which parts of that line are yours, and I know you meant it to be just as insulting as Tim Graham did by agreeing point for point that it was liberals that were to blame.
How, I don’t know, considering that school had cut all its funding for sex education. Yet, you want to blame sex education, and when it is nowhere to be found, you want to blame pro-choicers, even though pro-choicers support these girls’ decisions, so finally you’ll just resort to setting a wide net over all liberals, as if they’re the ones to blame for all the problems in the world. Not that these girls are a problem, but you seem to see them as such, despite their “pro-life” decisions.
Secondly, you know as well as I do that the abortion industry doesn’t give a d*** about what movies are playing in theaters because they know the only thing that is going to change abortion rates are the way we treat the people in our country and as long as conservative Republicans such as yourself continue to vote against measures that would make a child’s life worth living, abortion is going to keep happening and at a very high rate.
Do you ever ask yourself why countries with wide and cheap (if not free) access to contraceptives and comprehensive sex ed programs have fewer abortions? There’s a lot of truth to be found in the facts, and the fact is that you’re not helping anyone out by thrusting blame on one party or another.
as long as conservative Republicans such as yourself continue to vote against measures that would make a child’s life worth living
the fact is that you’re not helping anyone out by thrusting blame on one party or another
Pot, maybe I can introduce you to Kettle. Edyt, you do the very same thing you blame Jill for.
Another thing, Republicans are supposed to make a child’s life worth living? Don’t you get it by now that relying on people who have never met you and probably don’t’ care about anything but power, NO MATTER what their political affiliation is, is foolish? Anybody who waits for the government to save them will be disappointed. Republican, Democrat, whatever..don’t count on them to be there.
I, for one, dislike the term “liberal” used in the sense of implying pro-choice. Many liberals are not pro-choice and many conservatives consider themselves to be pro-choice.
As far as “Juno”, most people I met that didn’t like the movie did not like it because of the lack of attachment Juno had to the baby. The people I saw who were peeved at this the very most were the adoptive mothers that thought that it was unrepresentative of adoption. Had you followed the story down the line you may have found that perhaps Juno would actually want to reunite with her baby and at least see what he was up to. At the same time, she may not have.
As far as being a “pro-life” movie I think Juno did a good job of presenting the options without being preachy about it. I don’t think it glamorized teen pregnancy in the least and I don’t think you can blame a movie for an epidemic of teen pregnancy.
There are republicans who are pro-choice. I don’t know any liberals who vote for pro-life candidates.
militarywifey:11:55: I agree, the stereotypes are annoying. One can be liberal on abortion, but conservative politically, etc….
Juno’s lack of attachment to her baby, making the movie unappealing to adults, especially, is interesting. This may be indicative of the lack of emotional maturity of a typical 16 year old. They tend to be very self-centered, therefore not a great candidate for mothering. just one more reason to promote abstinence to these young’ns!
Edyt: as long as conservative Republicans such as yourself continue to vote against measures that would make a child’s life worth living
All those important issues that are much more important than LIFE itself? Please remind me what they are again?? I always forget. (Sarcasm alert)
Janet: “I agree, the stereotypes are annoying. One can be liberal on abortion, but conservative politically, etc….”
no they can’t. Baloney. True conservatism does not support abortion.
I think all this publicity for the movie “Juno” is a good thing.
5 liberals on the US Supreme Court shot down Louisiana law which can give the death penalty to Child rapists:
The 5 scumbags on the supreme court who shot it down are:
Breyer, Ginsberg, Kennedy, Stevens and Souter.
all liberals.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb-staff/2008/06/25/open-thread-scotus-rejects-death-penalty-raping-children
Wow, Jasper, I didn’t realize that.
But it makes sense. Given that unborn children are “property”, it’s only fitting that the liberal weight of the Court take precendence.
Testing
Why do those supreme court liberals think that repeated child rape isn’t a heinous crime?
I believe that most of them can’t condemn another person for doing what they did when they were still physically capable.
Even Obama opposed this supreme court decision, though he publicly mentioned the possibility that his own daughters might be statutorily raped, and that under those conditions, killing resultant grandchildren would be acceptable.
Jasper, The Catholic Church does not condone the death penalty except in extreme cases where there would be no other way to protect society from the criminal. Our jail system is sufficient in the U.S. to render the death penalty completely unnecessary.
Are you Catholic?
kb: 12:06: Why do those supreme court liberals think that repeated child rape isn’t a heinous crime?
I believe that most of them can’t condemn another person for doing what they did when they were still physically capable.
I’m not following your second point. Can you explain further? Thanks.
“2. Juno doesn’t keep or even interact with her baby. The adult woman with a home and a secure job is shown as the ideal parent in the end.”
so does this mean that you support single parenthood??
“Jasper, The Catholic Church does not condone the death penalty except in extreme cases where there would be no other way to protect society from the criminal.”
And this is one of those cases, because child rapists, many times are set free by liberal judges.
Yes, I’m Catholic.
Jasper 4:18:
“Jasper, The Catholic Church does not condone the death penalty except in extreme cases where there would be no other way to protect society from the criminal.”
And this is one of those cases, because child rapists, many times are set free by liberal judges.
I don’t think so. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Why don’t these judges see a happy medium, so to speak? Let’s not kill the child rapists, but let’s not give them a slap on the wrist either. Is it because these criminals tend to be mistreated in prison (and sometimes killed) that the judges don’t want to keep them there too long? It doesn’t make sense.
Elizabeth, when I said “party” I didn’t imply political party.
If you look at the voting records of the Republicans, particularly the pro-life ones, they constantly vote against measures that would help out children.
Part of the reason women have abortions is because of the financial cost. So it does not make one iota of sense to me why you’d make abortion illegal while still preventing children from leading healthy lives.
What Jill does is blame liberals for everything. All the problems in the world are caused by liberals. I think both Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, have messed up royally. But I’m not blaming Republicans for all the problems in the world. I’m blaming their politicians for the hypocrisy of expecting every little child to be born while simultaneously denying that child prenatal care, health care, educational programs, day care for working parents, and other programs that would lead to better futures for millions of children.
That’s very different than casting the net over all Republicans. I trust you can see the difference.
“And this is one of those cases, because child rapists, many times are set free by liberal judges.
I don’t think so.”
Oh, you don’t think so huh.
http://www.twoorthree.net/2006/01/child_rapist_ge.html
and I can cite many other cases as well.
Jasper, I’m not arguing the law or our judicial system with you, just saying the Church doesn’t condone capital punishment even in these cases. You’re ignoring that part of my posts! Can you show me I’m wrong about that?
You’re correct Janet. It’s just very hard seeing young children hurt like this…
Jasper: You’re correct Janet. It’s just very hard seeing young children hurt like this…
Of course, it is horrible.
Justice Kennedy’s majority decision:
“the death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child.”
No wonder we see diverging opinions on this. What is “proportional” then?
Short of the old “eye for an eye” deal (which couldn’t really apply due to the difference in ages), who’s to say?
I’d say go ahead and have the death penalty.
Jill, thank you for continuing the discussion I began in my post. While I definitely had seen the liberal media blowing the Juno/Gloucester connection out of proportion, I was referring to the general everyday discussion I have been hearing in MA. I should have been clearer about what I was referring to in my post, so my apologies. (I’m one of those socially-liberal/fiscally-conservative gals, so I have sympathies with both sides.)
That said, I definitely do not believe the anti-Juno hype was exclusively liberal. As pointed in the comments above, many liberals are pro-life and many conservatives are pro-choice. In my family, for instance, my practically-socialist father is pro-life while my McCain-adoring mother is pro-choice. What I have noticed is that almost everyone I have met that is pro-life has in some way or another linked Juno to the rise in teen pregnancy. I’m sure there are many exceptions, but I thought I’d point out the hypocrisy of those instances.