Movie Review: Juno

It doesn't sound like my kind of movie.

"""" For example, the scene in which Juno announces to her father and step-mother that she is pregnant bore, in my experience, not a lot of resemblance to reality. No one was murdered or threatened with murder. In fact, no one seemed in danger of fainting. There was no screaming and no scathing insults. Frankly, I just can't relate to people like this. """"

Sounds like you were raised in Saudi Arabia and haven't been around any true Nordmann in your life. I agree however the movie does seem boring.

Actually, I've spent a lot of time in Scandinavia. I live in Europe, remember?

I would also count Germany as loosely belonging to the circle of Nordic culture and I lived there for five years and speak fluent German. In fact, since I went to university and worked there, I'd say I was extremely well integrated into German society. Of course, the culture I'm referring to is only the superficial culture - after all, there's all those Scandinavian heavy metal dudes, too. But on the whole the way of doing things, particularly family interaction, is foreign to me, in the very literal sense of the word. A house in which a door has never been slammed off its hinges, is a strange one to me.

I just wondered when you last visited Saudi Arabia. Perhaps you could tell us a little more about your experiences living and working with the nationals of the various States you refer to. Since you never miss an opportunity to criticize them, or to use them as a by-word for insults at others, I am assuming you have had the opportunity to personally study their culture and spend some time reflecting on it.

Roslyn I am fluent in German and Norwegian and have been to Europe many times. Half my family lives there. My mother was born there. I have official citizenship in Norway although I don't ever plan to move there.

As far as Saudi Arabia, no I haven't been there. Since it is illegal to leave the home unaccompanied by a male relative I would be surprised that if a female got pregnant """"No one was murdered or threatened with murder. In fact, no one seemed in danger of fainting. There was no screaming and no scathing insults."""""" That's just me. But yeah, I never met anybody in Europe, while I was there, that would treat their daughters or sister that way. Maybe i am wrong about Saudi Arabia. If so I apologize.....

As far as counting Germany as Nordic....... not going to fly with the Scandinavians.

No one accused you of not knowing about your "Scandinavian heritage" of which you are so proud, Jeff. You were the one who accused me of not having met any Scandinavians, and I felt that this was in need of correction since it does not actually represent the truth.

The only thing I'm pointing out about you, is that by using entire nations, which the nation you reside in constantly uses as a justification for their own behavior ("we may be bad, but they're worse"), you're not precisely contributing to general enlightenment.

I've met a few Saudis as well, for the record, though I have never been there myself, nor have any desire to go. They are indeed a repressive society, but I think it's going too far to bandy their names around as being equivalent with any treatment whatsoever you don't agree with.

In fact, since I grew up in a fairly Christian fundamentalist atmosphere, I think it's particularly unfair that someone in Saudi Arabia is getting blamed for this religious zeal. It shows a lot of myopia towards our own culture. It's quite enough to blame them for what they do do.

However, I was not particularly referring to what would have been the consequences for me, personally, if I had gotten pregnant at the age of 16 - to be honest, they don't bear thinking about. Certainly the initial reaction would have been but the beginning and altogether probably easiest part. For the record, I don't think this has anything to do with sexism as you imply - if my brother had gotten someone pregnant while in highschool, I'm not quite sure...I can definitely see my mother fainting and then threatening to kill him (or chop off body parts) when coming to, while uttering scathing insults the whole while. This would be a sort of minimum expectation.

I was simply referring to more or less normal conversation in our household of hot-tempered Latin types, which we maintain regardless of whether we are talking to a male or female member. Whether good or bad, it's certainly very different than easy-going understatement. We're quite tolerant of what goes on outside our households, but mostly fail to see the purpose of this inside the household. Whereas I found Germans (and also Scandinavians, who though slightly different are a lot more like them than, say, Spanish people are) to be very tolerant within their own households, but on a societal level very conformity-driven. If it has to be one, I'll take intolerance inside the household, because it's a lot less subtle and easier to get around.
My main point - which you seem to have missed - was that how you are raised influences later what you see as realistic behaviour, and in a movie which is meant to be "realistic", but in some ways shocking, it's not going to fly with you if you have difficulty truly comprehending that some people actually, for real, do not communicate via the medium of the shout to other family members, and if the parts that are supposed to be weird or interesting don't even register on your schockability scale, except as someone trying to shock or interest you but failing miserably.
I cite for instance the scene in which the step-mother "tells off" the ultrasound technician. I think it's fair to say that many people who grew up in a Mediterranean dominated household, would be fairly unsure if this was indeed a telling off. It might take a while to figure out. If we want to tell someone off, we make sure that there is absolutely no doubt as to who is being told off, why they're being told off, and we'll hash it out right there and then until the loud (but usually not at all bitter) end, and everyone present will become involved and have an opinion on the matter which they will (loudly) tell everyone else, usually all at the same time.
So, for me, in real life, a trip anywhere really, has a lot more potential for entertainment and it's even free.

Roslyn you read way too much into what I said. Your review actually made me decide NOT to consider seeing Juno. You took a shot at the "Nordic" community and I responded. Then you questioned who I am or where I have been and I responded. I respect you and your opinions but your artistic ability to spin sarcasm with intellectual wit should inoculate you from wise cracks from the likes of me.

I will admit that the Oslo accords reduced the Nordic people to a ridiculously tolerant people and shamed them for eternity. So to credit your point, the Nordic people can be incredibly passive and boring. So from that stand point your point is well taken.

As far as castigating me for branding Saudi Arabia with comments you made I stand by them and all of Islam that sees woman as a less than man life form. I actually do have a mother and four sisters. Fundamentalist Islamic views insult me personally and I could care less if my views insult them. I am talking about equality and they are complaining about my disrespect for cultures that treat people less than human.

Your references to the Latin community as being in line with your "realistic" reaction to a teenage daughter getting pregnant is very true. It would make sense then that most female Mexicans in America would prefer to marry a "non mexican". That machismo can get pretty old or dare I say.....boring....

For the last time, I did not take a swing at "the Nordic community" - it's your tourist boards and companies that make constant advertisements involving blond, blue-eyed people running around pristine lakes in cotton-print type bathing suits advising us all to be wholesome, relaxed and generally unconfrontational. If you don't want people to then refer to what you are trying very hard to portray as "Nordic culture" as "Nordic culture" than just hire an advertising executive for an image change. Until then, this is generally what people expect when they go there, these expectations are generally fulfilled, and to many people it's their idea of a good time.

And also for the last time, having a blow out over teenage pregnancy, has, as I think I have made clear now, very little to do with the actual topic of pregnancy or being "macho" and more to do with simply general behaviour. My mother and I once had a heated debate for over an hour about whether our house was two and half or three stories (it's built on the side of a hill). The only reason we broke it off was that she was driving at the time and those in the back seats were starting to get concerned about causing an accident.
If you grow up with it, you get more than used to dishing it back, so no I don't find death threats anything to get particularly alarmed about, but by the same token the absence of this background noise does seem particularly boring, or not so much boring as that you start to wonder why people are reacting in this really apathetic way. And since you haven't seen the movie, I have to say the reaction in it was beyond apathetic. So, in a movie, it's boring, or rather the lack of emotion is unrealistic. I mean, Germans are obviously also very emotional - you just have to get used to the extremely subtle signs of this. These signs were not there, either. So only if you actually are a person who enjoys the idea of buying into the stereotypically portrayed Nordic culture, which is rather sanitized, are you going to enjoy this movie. It's the idea, not the reality.

How Saudi Arabia and the idea of being macho became involved in this, I don't know, especially since I made clear, it was only another point of lameness to me that the boyfriend totally cops out of bearing any responsibility and this is somehow not really held against him. That only "the woman" is seen to be at fault for unplanned pregnancy at an early age, which does not permit her to cope with it alone and thus places a burden on the family as a whole, is not a concept that has any place in our world-view. Rest assured, we would equally chew out both parties. In this case, however, the movie centered around the experiences of the girl.

"""it's your tourist boards and companies that make constant advertisements involving blond, blue-eyed people running around pristine lakes in cotton-print type bathing suits advising us all to be wholesome, relaxed and generally unconfrontational."""

Actually yes. That is the stereotype and the fact that Norwegians were behind the Oslo Accords it has merit. BUT...... Stereotypes are stereotypes. It's the international community and Canada that would make me assume that while you were arguing with your mother about how many levels your home has, you were on your way to club a bunch of baby seals to death. We have all seen Canadians club baby seals to death and we assume that it is highly regarded as Canadians favorite past time since it isn't illegal. Yeah Norwegians are passive and can be stupid enough to think talking peace with Muslims might work. Good thing they aren't like Canadians.....

By the way. I never saw a lake in Norway that wasn't pristine.

If you want to discuss a topic, please try to stay somewhat on track.
As the only person between us who has seen this movie, I can say that it does NOT feature:
a) Islam, in any shape or form
b) baby seals
c) the environmental state of Norwegian lakes you have seen
d) the Oslo Accords

If you want to discuss anything in a manner that would suggest that we as a species have even heard of the Age of Reason, be my guest.

If you want to bicker about all and sundry, go find someone willing to sink to that level, or who has the time to do it.

I have already done you the honour of going out of my way to state my position on the relation of the movie, which as you say you haven't seen, and its relation to the commonly portrayed image of Nordic culture on a very abstract level, to accommodate your personal thoroughly humourless and choleric sensibilities.
That's as far as I'm going to go.

If you would like to discuss the fur trade, hunting methods, the Oslo Accords, or your personal view of Islam, I believe you are provided with your own page on this social networking site to do so and I suggest that you use it, instead of bombarding the pages of others with your own incoherent, very illusioned spleen that has as its object only self-aggrandizing bickering involving extremely obvious attempts to change the topic every time you've had the wind taken out of your sails, which I have hitherto attempted to do in as painless a way as possible.
Absolutely no one is interested in being a spectator at a pathetic and pointless bickering match, so kindly get lost until you have something mildly constructive to say.

Hehehe.....

Since you are a lawyer or at least a person aspiring to be one, You know you opened the door to stereotypes since a large part of your review was admittedly based on stereotypes. That is how stereotypes became the issue at least from this commentator's perspective. I wasn't trying to change the subject. I was simply being analytical on your review process. Yes you have the right to ask me to write a review of my one but if I did I would expect people to not only consider my review, but to consider the method of madness. You don't have a right to ask somebody to only make comments that you agree with based on your own analysis I may have been naive to assume you were intelligent enough to see the connection of stereotyping regardless of whether it is you making a movie review or me judging your movie review.

I would be open to any form of criticism in any article i wrote. Apparently your skin is too thin and I will honor your request with a side note. Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house regardless of how many stories it may be.