Pro-Choice Auburn (of which I’m one of the organisers) is hosting a screening of the movie Juno tonight (Unitarian Church here in Auburn, at 6:00), followed by a panel discussion (including your humble correspondent) on the film’s treatment of abortion and related issues. Details here; film trailer here.
There Will Be Blood Food.
Wouldn’t Alexander Payne’s “Citizen Ruth” have been a better choice? Juno couldn’t have an abortion because then Cody and Reitman would have been making a different movie.
I don’t know Citizen Ruth. It sounds like a good possibility; I’ll suggest it to our junta.
Our concern about Juno was about the way abortion was portrayed, not just that she didn’t have one. Also about the way that contraception, adoption, and anti-abortion protestors were portrayed.
Yeah, I think the movie is about adoption a lot more than abortion, but anyway, there’s a commentary track with Cody and Reitman in which Reitman says not much thought went into the abortion clinic scene because it’s a plot point that is supposed to get the movie on to what it’s really about (Cody agreed). Cody then said the only enthusiasm she had for writing that scene was in a joke where the clerk (Emily Perkins) is smelling condoms to remember her boyfriend’s junk. The joke was filmed but cut so that the movie wouldn’t be rated R.
In the spirit of the flick, I think you should provide a few jugs of Sunny D.
All references to contraception in the movie concern fruit and are turn-offs for Juno.
Citizen Ruth is a fine film, but like any of Payne’s work set in Omaha, it really does the city a disservice. He makes any place he shoots look so bleak and the people are absolutely nothing like the actual people of the city.