For every bit of praise Juno has received, an equivalent backlash has followed. Why the strong dissent?
In December 2007, a little movie no one had heard of, Juno, exploded into the public consciousness. Praises were sung high and low for the movie’s quirky dialogue, and for the performance of relative unknown Ellen Page. It isn’t common – in fact, it’s incredibly rare – that an independent film of a nominal $6.5 million budget goes on to gross $172 million and counting. And the accolades keep coming, peaking with ex-stripper Diablo Cody’s original screenplay Academy Award.
Praise Met With Strong Backlash
The praise had barely begun, however, when the backlash took full force. For every surge in popularity, every award, and every #1 spot on critics’ lists (most notably Roger Ebert's), there have been the scathing reviews by the low-brow critics and the furious forum attacks, including charges “preciousness” and shamelessly unrealistic dialogue (“honest to blog” has become particularly infamous). Not since the similar success and backlash of 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, has a film felt such impassioned detractors.
What is most revealing about this still escalating duel is the age denomination. Considering Juno’s status as the decade’s defining high school movie, it is the older audience – the middle-aged professional critics (with Eber leading the pack) and Academy members who gave it three Oscar nominations and one win – that most ardently defend it. Conversely, it is the twenty-something online critics and the college students, the film's target audience, that is leading the opposition. Popular online critic Berge Garabedian's negative review of the film encapsulates the backlash's sentiment when he writes, "there are only so many of these exchanges...that one can take before you say to yourself: 'You know what…today’s kids just don’t talk this way!!'"
What Juno Tells Adults
The adults – who are used to being in the worst kind of uncertainty regarding the ominous actions of their ever more alienating young – must love what this movie tells them. Many likely assume that because Juno deals with teen pregnancy that it must be uncompromising regarding the state of American high schoolers; so, when they see the film, they are delighted to find that their children are caring, witty, amicable and can spout an A-class sarcastic pop-culture reference on command. My, a hamburger phone; why, that’s delightful!
Realistically, few, if any, high schoolers are anything like the people who populate Juno. Not that there is anything wrong with highly entertaining fantasy; but it is the extent to which the majority is taking the film’s world to heart that is upsetting the film’s original target audience. Were it not for the pervading feeling that this movie is lying about what being a teenager is like, young and old alike would enjoy it for what it is; a cute, funny, uplifting little movie about a near-perfect girl named Juno.
