Ideology in Film - McGuirk

Juno (2007)

Directed By: Jason Reitman

Juno is the story of a sixteen year old girl who finds herself pregnant after she has sex with her best friend.

I chose this film as an example of film ideology because it was such a small film that blew up into a cultural classic. It looked at a scenerio that has been done over and over again (young girl gets pregnant) and made the decision to show it through a different angle. Juno ends up committing to an adoptive couple, and even when that couple splits up, she still keeps her promises and gives the baby to his new mother. This is different from normal teen pregnancy films, which usually end with the girl realizing she wants to take responsibility and take care of the child.

In a society where teen pregnancy is a common occurence, teens often look to film to tell them how they should handle the situation. This film handles it in a very mature cult-classic type of way.

The dialogue from this film is very much what people took away from it. It consists of how adolescents talk by shortening words and phrases. Terms from the film have been showing up in everyday speech, which shows the medium's power in influencing the public, especially teens, to follow its example.