Juno: Beyond Black and White

I will start my discussion of the ambiguity of the good guy/bad guy roles in Juno by looking at the relationships Juno forms with Mark and Vanessa, the couple looking to adopt her child. As I said in my last post, Vanessa is initially shown as a control freak who acts as more of a landlady or mother to Mark than a wife. Juno herself addresses that idea when she chides Mark's comment about how Vanessa "gave him a room for all of his stuff". His stuff includes his guitar, record albums, and recording equipment, which should be seen as a little strange, since we learn that Mark is a composer of advertisement jingles. Mark later states that Vanessa doesn't like it when Vanessa hates it when he watches movies or listens to music all day and doesn't "contribute" (so why does she force him to do his work in one cramped little room?).

Mark on the other hand would probably have been Juno's best friend if they went to high school together. He is exactly like Paulie, her best friend and father of her baby, in many aspects, such as interests, and possibly better in others; Mark is much more sure of himself than Paulie is, who is extremely timid. Right away, Mark and Juno hit it off, giving each other mix tapes and recommending bad horror films and punk rock bands. Strangely enough, the young Juno endorses music from the 70's, when punk was born, while Mark champions 90's punk rock bands like Sonic Youth.

For about the first half of the film, we are clearly meant to like Mark and dislike Vanessa. Mark is a cool guy who we kind of want to see break free from Vanessa's control. However, that starts to change when Juno (and us) see Vanessa at the mall with, most likely, her sister and niece. Suddenly we realize that Vanessa's obsession for a baby will be the exact quality that will make her a good mother to Juno's child. At the same time, Juno's scenes with Mark start to become a little creepy. What starts as cute banter slowly becomes strange to everyone but the two of them. Juno's parents worry that she is spending too much time with Mark, while Vanessa becomes upset whenever she sees Juno's minivan in the driveway. Sadly, everyone's fears are confirmed. Fortunately, neither one ever makes a move on the other (which was what I had predicted would happen, especially during their dance scene), but Juno causes Mark to realize that maybe he does want more out of life than to be chained to Vanessa and a new baby.

Wait. Wasn't that what we wanted Mark to realize when we first met him and Vanessa? When he tells Juno that he intends to leave Vanessa, she flips out, telling him that she has to stay with his wife for the sake of the baby. By the end of the film, Vanessa is the character the audience is sympathetic to, while Mark let Juno down.

Of course, I don't think it's that simple. Most of the people I saw the film with had this point of view, where they started out liking Mark and ended up disliking him, while they changed their opinion about Vanessa to end up liking her. For me, however, even though i initially disliked Vanessa, I ended up liking both characters. It is all about what Juno needs when. She needed someone to adopt her baby, since she clearly is too immature to raise it herself (she was mature enough to realize her immaturity), and Vanessa clearly fit the bill. But as I said, the very things that made Juno and the audience dislike her at first were what would make her a good mother. She was obsessively cleaning her home before Juno arrived, but it wasn't because she is crazy, it was because she wanted to appear immaculate so that Juno would finally grant her greatest wish, a child of her own.

On the other hand, Mark would have made a great friend to Juno. But she didn't need a friend, she needed a responsible father for her child. Mark, for all of his coolness, is probably too immature to raise a child, but that is why Juno wanted to spend time with him. But when Juno needed him most (and when her hormones were most likely at their most inconsistent), he showed her that she couldn't have him both ways. Still, I left the theater still liking Mark. We saw things through Juno's eyes, so we may see him as a flake, but maybe it was noble of him to admit his reluctance for a child BEFORE he had adopted it.

Moving on, I would like to discuss Juno's father, Mac, and step-mother, Bren. These characters didn't get quite the screen-time that Mark and Vanessa got, but there is still something to analyze. Though I never think we are meant to dislike either of them, they both display aspects of character that are very real and do not have normal good guy/bad guy cliches. Bren, for example, does show at least one line making her seem like the stereotypical "evil stepmother". Juno comments that Bren is obsessed with dogs, but we learn that the reason that there is no MacGuff family dog is that Juno is allergic. In a heated argument, Bren yells that once Juno moves out, she is going to get a dog (making Juno respond, "DREAM BIG!"). Many times in fiction, the step-parent wants to get rid of the child (see: Back to the Future Part II, The Parent Trap), but in this case, Bren was merely stating what she was going to do once Juno had left for college. And for all her scenes of anger of Juno's pregnancy (and what parent wouldn't be angry about their teenage daughter getting pregnant), she has her fair share of tender scenes with Juno. Sadly for Bren, Juno tends to focus more on the harshness, which is highlighted when she thanks Bren for backing her up at the doctor's office, stating that she is surprised to see Bren's good side for once.

As for Mac, he reacts the way a father should to his teenage daughter's pregnancy. He doesn't go ballistic and throw her out or beat up the father (but he threatens to). Instead, he shows his outrage, and then supports her decision to give up the baby for adoption. He even gives her a lift to Mark and Vanessa's and acts as the diplomat to counteract Juno's more abrasive style of talking.

Like I said, there isn't as much good/bad to examine with Juno's parents, but their humanity is worth looking at.

Up next: Juno and Paulie