Nick and Norah\u2019s Infinite Playlist<\/em>, released in the theaters last fall and on DVD this spring, was billed as 2008\u2019s Juno<\/em>: a hip, music-infused tale of smart, quirky teens penned by a female screenwriter (who also happens to be friends with Juno<\/em>\u2019s screenwriter, Diablo Cody). As much as I want to support women directors and writers, I was extremely disappointed by <\/strong>Nick and Norah<\/strong><\/em>; it desperately wants to be smart and innovative, but it\u2019s really just the same old romantic-comedy plot of a girl finding her ultimate fulfillment in a guy.<\/strong><\/p>\n The guy in question, Nick, is played by Michael Cera and could basically be a stand-in for Cera\u2019s character in Juno<\/em> (with a little bit of Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall<\/em> thrown in): he\u2019s sensitive, lovelorn, musical, and prone to making bewildered-puppy faces. He worships the ground his mean-girl ex-girlfriend walks upon, and we cluck to ourselves about how he deserves so much better.<\/p>\n \u201cBetter\u201d is, of course, Norah, who is suited for Nick because . . . they like the same music. Very deep. Granted, the movie takes place over the course of one night, so it\u2019s not as if much depth can develop, but what I find disturbing is that, in the world of the movie, sharing a favorite band (admittedly, it does have possibly the best band name of all time: Where\u2019s Fluffy?) seems to indicate that two people have a deep bond grounded in (a) musical preference and (b) feeling superior to others who do not share that preference. One of the things I appreciated most about Juno<\/em> was that Juno starts off assuming that people who share her taste in movies and music are cool and therefore worthy of raising her child\u2014but then she matures, discovering that even the \u201cuncool\u201d have qualities and strengths that go beyond a fondness for the same song.<\/p>\n However, Nick and Norah never quite get beyond the music-defines-me level. Even religion, in the one awkwardly inserted reference it receives in the script, is reduced to the realm of preference. Norah tells Nick, \u201cThat reminds me of this part of Judaism that I really like. It\u2019s called Tikkun Olam. It says that the world is broken into pieces and it\u2019s everybody\u2019s job to find them and put them back together again.\u201d Notice that she says \u201cthis part of Judaism that I really like\u201d\u2014not \u201cthat I believe\u201d or \u201cthat is true,\u201d but \u201cthat I really like.\u201d What\u2019s important about this particular belief is that she likes it, in the same way that she likes Where\u2019s Fluffy?, and therefore it gives her some sense of identity.<\/p>\n This moment does have the potential for revealing something more essential and less superficial about Norah\u2019s character, but when Nick replies, \u201cWell, maybe we\u2019re the pieces, you know, maybe we\u2019re not supposed to find the pieces, maybe we are the pieces,\u201d the immediate result is that she jumps straight into bed (okay, couch) with him. So much for that conversation.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s where we get into another issue I have with the movie: the creation of a smart, strong female character who is still portrayed as incomplete until she has a sexual experience<\/strong>. Earlier in the film, Nick\u2019s ex-girlfriend taunts Norah with the rumor that she (Norah) has never had an orgasm. (Surely not! And at the ripe old age of seventeen, too.) The most disappointing aspect of the movie is that it seems to agree that Norah is somehow defective until she does have an orgasm, which of course magically happens when she meets the right guy.<\/p>\n Now, when I\u2019m watching a movie, I don\u2019t expect the characters to abide by Christian sexual ethics (unless the characters are actually supposed to be Christian), but I do expect characters to be treated with respect by their writers. And when a female character is depicted as prickly and frigid but then \u201cfixed\u201d by sex, that seems disrespectful and offensive to women\u2014and to anyone who feels that his or her identity is not entirely defined by sexual acts.<\/p>\n The shallowness of identity in Nick and Norah\u2019s Infinite Playlist<\/em> is presented, without judgment, as the reality of today\u2019s teens. Juno<\/em>, by contrast, showed the painful consequences of both \u201chook-ups\u201d and relationships based merely on similar tastes. Though Juno<\/em> was ostensibly about 21st-century teens, I suspect it may be more reflective of the worldviews of my generation (Diablo Cody was born in 1978). Nick and Norah<\/em>, whatever the age of the writers, seems more indicative of a younger generation that accepts the superficial as a basis for identity, without even realizing that it\u2019s superficial. Thanks, Nick and Norah<\/em>, for making me feel old.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How a teen comedy aspired to be the next Juno and failed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1236,"featured_media":3200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,11],"tags":[882],"class_list":["post-3172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-film","category-headline","tag-nick-and-norahs-infinite-playlist"],"yoast_head":"\n