I was in high school during the airing of Juno. I didn’t have the heart to watch it because its pro-life stance I gathered from the trailer. The teenage me back then was too sensitive to confront the subjects of teen pregnancy, abortion and adoption, I have made the right choice. I found it to be perhaps one of the most twisted and misleading movie about teenage pregnancy that has ever aired. Juno, the sixteen year old heroine, with her sarcastic and arrogant tone, is depicted as unrealistically callous and uncaring about her pregnancy;the stressful part of teen pregnancy is not clearly portrayed and largely over shadowed by Juno’s character. Moreover, the scenes about the abortion clinic are fairy tale versions of what happens in the real world. Juno’s decision about the abortion seems to have changed by the very false facts about “finger nails”. The clinic is nothing but portrayed consistently unappealing and even dreadful which eventually leads to Juno running away. As well, the language used to talk about reproductive health in Juno is more than troubling, although perhaps is only intended to achieve a witty effect in some case. A worker (receptionist?) at the abortion clinic offers Juno a free condom and then adds unnecessary comments about her own personal intimate life.
As the lecture note states, the Oscar wining Juno is a conservative victory. It is another example of how representational media has been utilized to bombard the audience with untrue and biased images.