Defending "Juno": It's Not a Documentary

Ah yes, the Oscars are two days away, and the "Juno" backlash is in full swing. Yesterday, my father forwarded me a Chicago Tribune article by Nara Schoenberg:

The trouble with 'Juno'
Birth mothers debate Oscar-nominated movie's view of choices and consequences pregnant teens face

It's a great and timely topic for a newspaper. If I were the editor, I would have proposed the same idea. If I were the reporter, I would have jumped at the chance to write it. If I were the birth mothers interviewed, I likely would have felt the same way they did... that "Juno" is short-sighted at best and dangerous at worst, because it doesn't paint a complete picture of what it's like to give birth and give up your baby for adoption. 

And yet, it's all so horribly, horribly wrong. Because I'm not any of those things. I'm a writer, and this whole lens... this whole angle of criticism against a movie, a play, a book, a song, a painting, anything... this whole idea that a story is bad if it isn't told the way YOU want it to be told, is false, anti-intellectual, anti-artistic and ultimately more dangerous to society than the story in question.

Case in point, the article states the following:

"... But even [birth mother] Dixon is troubled by aspects of the movie, among them: it glosses over the difficulty of meeting prospective adoptive parents, doesn't show an adoption agency providing help and support, and portrays the heroine as wanting to sever all ties with her first-born child."

I don't know any simpler way to refute this line of criticism than to say this: "Juno" is not a documentary about teen pregnancy; it's a story, written by Diablo Cody, about one time in one fictional character's life, acted by Ellen Page, and directed by Jason Reitman. It's not about teen pregnancy; it's about Juno. It's not about the difficulties of social work; it's about Juno. It's not about the severe depression many birth mothers face after giving up their babies; it's about Juno.

And in that "Juno" the movie is about Juno the character, the movie is many other things. It's an unlikely, yet oddly effective, love story. Its main character is compelling because although she thinks she knows everything, she doesn't know everything. And the most disturbing thing she knows is that she doesn't know everything. Which is kind of like living as if you're immortal, even though you know you're mortal. Which creates the irony of living every day as if you don't know that one day you will no longer be living, even though you do know that. Which is called the human condition.

To state it a different way, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" should not prompt victims of bank robbery to criticize the movie's glorification of crime. And William Shakespeare should not face cross-examination for "romanticizing suicide in 'Romeo & Juliet.'"

These are topics for PhD dissertations and newspaper articles, and nothing more.