CHOICE #1 for 2/25...Hidden Messages inside A Carefree Film

The film Juno is about a sixteen year old junior in high school who gets pregnant from having sex with her best friend once. She is faced with having the choice of abortion or adoption. At first she thinks that she wants to abort the baby, but once she encounters a peer from high school in front of the abortion clinic, "WomenNow," she is unable to go through with it. Su-Chin, her peer, informs her that her baby has fingernails, and this meer fact freaks Juno out. Juno is a free spirit who is an outcast at school. Her best friend, Paulie Bleeker is also an individual who is on the running team. They have a weird friendship because they like each other, but are not in a relationship. Once Juno decides to give the baby up for a closed adoption, Paulie is rarely seen in the movie and has nothing to do with the pregnancy. Her stepmother, Bren, and father, Mac, along with her best friend, Leah, all support Juno through her pregnancy. She finds her adoptive family in the Pennysavers, a young, wealthy couple who look perfect on the outside. Towards the end of the movie she realizes that Paulie is the one for her, that Vanessa (the adoptive mother) is a good person, and that she is stronger than she thought.
If you read my analysis you can pick out many different things in it that are wrong. For one, the abortion clinic is portrayed as a gross, rundown building that gives out flavored condoms. There are usually a ton of protesters standing outside of an abortion clinic yelling words extremely worse than what Su-Chin did. The fact that Paulie Bleeker is let "off the hook" of being involved in the pregnancy, and his parents do not even know that he got her pregnant, shows boys that it is ok for them. That it is all the girls fault and their responsibility. It looked easy for Paulie because Juno told him that he didnt have to be involved (even though he wanted to, and the viewer felt bad for him), but to young boys it looks like it would be this easy. The way the movie was portrayed it was sort of unrealistic, but I understand why it was like this. It is hard to fit in nine months of a situation into two hours.
Juno sort of goes on with her everyday life. She is often looked at and ridiculed at school, but as the viewer you feel as though this is normal for her, whether she is pregnant or not. It is a fairly simple pregnancy, and there was only one instance where she was looked down apon for being a pregnant teenager and that was when she was getting her ultrasound.
The couple that is going to adopt the baby is very wealthy. I think that this distinction between class says a lot as well. Set aside the fact that Juno is only sixteen; giving her baby to a wealthy family is saying that the upper-class is more well equipped to take care of a child. Juno and Mark, the adoptive husband, share a love for the same music and horror films. Towards the end of the movie he becomes "sketchy" and says that he is going to leave Vanessa. Juno realizes that perfect looking families on the outside may not be so perfect on the inside.
I was looking on Imdb.com at the Juno site, and came across the main actress, Ellen Page's information. She, "Considers herself to be a Feminist and tries to steer clear of the 'stereotypical roles for teenage girls' because she finds them to be 'sexist'." I think that her character, Juno, was definitely not a stereotypical role, like Belle from Beauty and the Beast, but the movie carried with it hidden stereotypical messages in it.
To read up more on the movie, click on this link...Juno 2007