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Juno, Praised
Emily: You nailed the problem with Flanagan's piece—the overarching, equalizing is that so officiously announces to women how "they" experience the world. Everyone's a Platonist when it comes to teenage girls and sex. One thing that was great about Juno was that it tried to take that is and smash it into pieces so that girls might know for a second what it might feel like not to have fretting, anxious adults telling them how painful their sexual experiences really are. Juno tried, instead, to tell the story of a young girl who goes through a complicated, painful experience and finds it to be—upsetting, absolutely, but not life-ending or even life-defining. I don't think that's a fairy tale at all. Juno makes a point that so often gets lost when we in the media put on our gender lens: Women, young women, react to similar experiences in a plurality of ways.
By the way: Wouldn't it be nice if pundits could retire that old saw, "Biology is destiny?" At best, it's a half-truth, applicable at certain moments (even stretches) of a woman's life. But time and again it's hauled at as the only truth.
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