Every year or so, a Cinderella movie leaps into the ultimate Hollywood A-list \u2014 the Academy Award nominees for best picture.<\/p>\n\n
The sleeper this time around was \u201cJuno,\u201d the sweet but edgy story of Juno MacGuff, a geeky teen who gets pregnant after a sort-of-bored sexual encounter with a friend. The movie also drew Oscar nominations for Canadian Ellen Page, 20, as best actress, for director Jason Reitman, 30, and former stripper turned screenwriter Diablo Cody, 29.<\/p>\n\n
Now it\u2019s time for the winner-take-all round of campaigning, which often includes behind-the-scenes maneuvers in the tradition of Niccolo Machiavelli. Do not be surprised if rival studios try to hurt \u201cJuno\u201d by circulating shocking rumors that many religious conservatives who oppose abortion have praised this movie.<\/p>\n\n
It helps that the rumors are true. <\/p>\n\n
Take former Republican Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, for example. He has listed \u201cJuno\u201d among recent hits \u2014 including \u201cKnocked Up\u201d and \u201cWaitress\u201d \u2014 that suggest American popular culture is \u201cawaking to the reality of life in the womb.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
While these films come from the heart of the \u201cbawdy mainstream,\u201d they include images and themes that will surprise traditionalists, argued Santorum, in an essay written as a senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cUltrasound images awakened characters and audiences to the humanity of the unborn. Having a baby, even in the most challenging circumstances, became the compelling \u2018choice,\u2019 \u201d noted Santorum, a devout Catholic and author of the book \u201cIt Takes a Family,\u201d written during his unsuccessful 2006 bid to stay in the U.S. Senate. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cAdoption was held up as a positive alternative to abortion. And, unlike the news media\u2019s portrayal of pro-lifers, protesters outside abortion clinics were authentically depicted as warm and concerned. This stood in contrast to the indifference of the staff within.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
In a pivotal scene, Juno calls the \u201cWomen Now\u201d clinic \u2014 a parent\u2019s signature is not required \u2014 and bluntly tells the switchboard operator she needs to \u201cprocure a hasty abortion.\u201d But when she approaches the facility, Juno discovers that a high school friend is staging a solo protest outside.<\/p>\n\n
This scene is played for nervous laughs, with the Asian girl chanting, \u201cAll babies want to get borned!\u201d But when she realizes that Juno is headed inside, the friend urgently adds, \u201cYour baby has a beating heart! Your baby can feel pain! Your baby has fingernails!\u201d<\/p>\n\n
This last line sticks and, in the waiting room, Juno is haunted by the sound of the other patients around her tapping, clicking and chewing their fingernails. As she flees the clinic, her friend calls out, \u201cGod appreciates your miracle!\u201d The pregnant teen chooses \u2014 with strong support from her loving father and stepmother \u2014 to endure the public ordeal of her pregnancy, surrender the baby through adoption and then move on with her life.<\/p>\n\n
The key is that \u201cJuno\u201d is about people struggling to make real decisions in the real world, according to screenwriter Barbara Nicolosi of Act One, a group that trains Christians to work in the Hollywood mainstream. This isn\u2019t a connect-the-dots sermon targeting true believers. The movie doesn\u2019t preach, because it wasn\u2019t created by preachers.<\/p>\n\n
But \u201cJuno\u201d can be called \u201cpro-life, in the way that just about every Gen-X movie about pregnancy is pro-life,\u201d wrote the former Catholic nun, at her \u201cChurch of the Masses\u201d website. \u201cI would say \u2018Juno\u2019 is a cultural message movie without being a political one. Certainly, that will be an inscrutable nuance in contemporary Christendom in which almost everything is politics. \u2026<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe movie is also anti-divorce in the way that just about every Gen-X movie about family is anti-divorce. And people with faith are here too, in a decent and gritty way that shows mere secularism to be selfish and shallow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The bottom line, said Santorum, is that a mainstream movie like \u201cJuno\u201d has a chance to connect with mainstream audiences. Secular critics have, so far, even responded with \u201cthumbs up\u201d reviews.<\/p>\n\n
The most hopeful possibility, he added, is that these movies symbolize a kind of power shift as one Hollywood generation is exposed to the hopes and fears of the next. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cThey are \u2026 chronicles from the children of our divorce- and abortion-oriented culture,\u201d Santorum added. \u201cThere is lived experience, emotional understanding, hard-earned authenticity at the heart of these scripts. And pain.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every year or so, a Cinderella movie leaps into the ultimate Hollywood A-list \u2014 the Academy Award nominees for best picture. The sleeper this time around was \u201cJuno,\u201d the sweet but edgy story of Juno MacGuff, a geeky teen who gets pregnant after a sort-of-bored sexual encounter with a friend. The movie also drew Oscar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,99,197,431,1544,1545,742],"class_list":["post-1474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abortion","tag-barbara-nicolosi","tag-christian-movies","tag-hollywood","tag-politics","tag-popular-culture","tag-rick-santorum"],"yoast_head":"\n