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//Juno// is a fictional film about a 16 year old girl who lives in a dull northern suburb. She is the first person narrator. Different aspects of her personality and what she tells throughout the movie shows the audience various insecurities that she is dealing with and the motives of her actions. Her bedroom and the bedroom that belongs to her best friend, have magazine clippings of their interests all over their walls. This shows some disorganization and clutter that is put up, not only because it’s their walls, but because that is what is going on in their lives. At 10:12 Juno is waiting on front yard of the boy who got her pregnant and watches the track team runs by. She says “when I see them running around like that with their things bouncing around I always picture them naked, even if I don’t want to.” On pg. 313, the sexual prevalence of eleventh graders is “roughly 41%...while only 20% of ninth grade females did so.” Thinking about a bunch of boys penises could be the cause of sexual tendencies; this could allude to Freud’s psychosexual theory of id. Which “contains the libido and operates at an unconscious level; the id is a person’s basic sexual and aggressive impulses, which are present at birth. (pg. 27) When a “jock” insults Juno at school, (12;09) she justifies his comment with thinking that it is because he really likes her. I do not think that at that age guys try to make girls feel bad about themselves because they really like them. But then again, older men do it to make women feel down on themselves so they will sleep with them. This could be a way of dealing with the incapability of actually feeling intimate with others. Perhaps because they are in different social groups, they feel pressure from their peers to only date pretty, popular girls. Some could consider that to be shallow. She later goes on to talk about (14:48) how she was unaware of how to perform protected sex. It cuts away to a sex ed. Class to a teacher putting a condom on a banana; maybe she did not comprehend why her teacher was talking about it and showing them useful education. If teenagers are being told the risks of unprotected sex, and how to make it safer, then why is teenage pregnancy rates so high? Why do STD’s and unwanted pregnancy have to occur for people to realize they are not invincible? Juno mentions at (17:11) that she was diagnosed with ADHD and took a bunch of Adderall that she was prescribed to from her doctor. “She went into this crazy freak out…and ripped off her clothes and dove into the fountain” at the “mall and was like ‘I am a Kraken from the Sea!’ ” This might be considered as a negative effect of the stimulant. The book talk about these types of medications on Pg’s 269-270. “Many Children with ADHD take stimulant medications, such a methylphenidate (Ritalin). Most if those who do are calmer and can concentrate better (Demb & Chang, 2004…..) However some studies show that many children’s “response to the medication” may actually be due to changes in expectations on the part of their teachers and parents-sort of self prophecy. In addition, studies suggest that the concentrations skills of children with ADHD can be improved with training … Effects usually result in improvements in classroom behavior and peer acceptance … Medications such as methylphenidate have the greatest effect on school grades among children with ADHD symptoms are so severe that they interfere with actual learning (Spreen, Risser, & Edgell, 1995). For this reason the use of stimulant medications for children who have mild or moderate ADHD symptoms is controversial. Moreover, recent studies show that many newer drugs to treat ADHD (e.g., Adderall) are associated with changes in thinking that may increase a child’s risk of developing more serious psychological disorder (Gardner, 2007)… many of these drugs… have been found to increase the risk of cardiovascular events such as strokes and heart attacks in adults.” The fact that these drugs are easily abused, addictive and can lead to other drug abuse, parents should contemplate whether a little bit of hyperactivity is the worst thing that they and their children should have to deal with. Juno lives at home with her father, half younger sister, and her stepmom. She has only one close female friend. She has unprotected sex with a boy that’s in her class, and she gets pregnant. She also does not have a job. At (15:31) her family is sitting at the dinner table and she has a monologue inside of her head about how her “mom and dad got divorced when she was 5 and lives in a mobile home on a reservation in Arizona with her boyfriend”. This is not said, but implied that poverty is an issue for her mother, and Arizona is far away from where she lives. She does not speak to her mother anymore. She goes on to say how “the cactuses she sends every Valentine’s day hurts more than her abandonment.” The book can describe this is likely to happen to children who have divorced parents on pg. 229. “Children growing up in single-parent families are about twice as likely to drop out of high school, twice as likely have a child before age 20, and less likely to have a steady job in their late teens or early 20s.” On pg. 228 it says “It’s also important to keep in mind that that divorce is not a single variable; children are probably affected by a multitude of divorce related factors- parental involvements of the noncustodial parent, and so on (Bailey & Zvonkovic, 2003)…Children living in step-parents families also have higher rates on delinquency, more behavior problems in school, and lower grades than do those in intact families….Children whose parents divorce have a higher risk of mental health problems in adult hood.” These were not directly brought up in the film, but events in it can show that negative effects such as having bad behavior in school, and low grade can be interpreted because the protagonist had been prescribed ADHD medications years after her parents’ divorce. Although the quote of the book is from early development and she is a teen, it mentions how females deal with it years later, and in different ways than males. After Juno makes a decision on how she should deal with being pregnant, she goes to an abortion clinic to “nip it in the bud.” Most likely to avoid having to tell her father because it would be too overwhelming, as would going to school every day and get judgmental eyes from peers and teachers. When she goes the abortion clinic (16:43), one of her peers, Su Chin, is chanting “All babies want to get borned” She then tells Juno “Your baby has a beating heart, it feels pain, and it has fingernails”. When Juno is sitting down in the clinic, her conscience tells her that she cannot kill the fetus because it has finger nails. She decides instead, to have the child, and give it up for adoption. With her actions at the adoptive parents house, mental illness can be detected by her mannerisms and thinking processes. (Time) The adoptive mother seems concerned about her actions and distracted demeanor. She over looks these, because of her deep desire to be a mother. Later on in the film, she found an inappropriate bond with the adoptive father. They both had interests in similar films and music, but as most young adults, she did not realize how inappropriate that was until, (time) when he told her “insert quote”. Although it was not her intention for him to fall in love with her or cause him to want to move out, she appreciated how accepting he was of her. Perhaps she was looking for some sort of acceptance from an older man because she was not getting the attention from her biological mother, or father. Juno has received much criticism due to its untraditional values, with teenagers being unwed, unemployed and having unprotected sex. Without the understanding and support from the parents of her, the situation could have been a lot worse. This is one scenario of things that can occur in one’s life where there are difficult decisions to be made and how to best handle it. Some say that teens will be teens and get themselves into predicaments that are beyond themselves. This shows various developmental occurrences that could determine ones psychological attributes.

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__Subject Matter—18 points out of 20__ You need a list of references so I can evaluate your research

__Higher-Order Thinking—20 points out of 20__ :

__Organization--25 points out of 30__ Your structure is a little loose--you appear to be following the movie, but then you stop and focus only on specific topics.

__Format--5 points out of 10__ no references/works cited

__Grammar/Punctuation/Spelling--10 points out of 10__

__Readability/Style--8 points out of 10__ Awkward paragraph transitions--try breaking them apart using empty lines (hit "enter" twice).

Grade: 86/100