Juno Whips It

The two Ellen Page (b. 1987, Canada) movies, Juno (2007) and Whip It (2009) are usually seen as female empowerment films. I loved these two films and agree, but see another consistent theme, strong families headed by men who take seriously their responsibilities as fathers.

In Juno, a teenager has to respond to finding herself pregnant. The "boy" is Paulie Bleecker (Michael Cera), an immature and nerdishly nerdy nerd. I mean it; nerd.

Fighting back his urge to punch Paulie in an unhappy place, Dad (J.K. Simmons) decides instead to support his daughter Juno in whatever decision she makes.

At the abortion clinic, Juno can't stop thinking about what the lone protester outside, a Chinese girl (Valerie Tran) has told her. Juno makes her decision; to bring the baby to term and place the child with a family she chooses. Her dad supports her all the way.

In Whip It, Bliss Cavendar is destined, according to her mother (Marcia Gay Harden), to be a beauty pageant queen, just like Mom was. Mom is going to make sure of it.

Seventeen year old Bliss unhappily works as a waitress at the Oink Joint, a barbecue diner, and dreams of escaping little Bodeen, Texas ... and her mother.

While on a shopping trip to Austin, the nearby big city, Bliss sees THEM; roller derby girls, and her future opens up before her. She pulls out her long discarded roller skates and actually makes the team roster of The Hurl Scouts, eventually becoming their star player.

At the height of her success, everything suddenly unfolds until Dad (Daniel Stern) decides that his role as Father is more important than the unrealistic fantasies of his wife and his own indecision and cocooning from real life. He chooses his daughter and his family.

Neither of these movies are Christian films, but there are two things I find significant about these comedies.
1. The fathers are treated as important to their families. In much of modern entertainment in films and television, the father is presented as absent, disinterested, or as an ineffectual doofus. Think of Al Bundy.
2. The main characters, Juno MacGuff and Bliss "Babe Ruthless" Cavendar, take responsibility for their own lives. In much of modern culture, everything is someone else's fault. I'm the way I am or I did that because ... 1,2,3,4, etc.

In Whip It, Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig) tells Bliss to "Be your own hero," In other words, don't depend on someone else to straighten out your life. You have to make the choice.

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The movie title, Whip It, refers to a classic roller derby move in which two players skate arm in arm and a third holds onto the outstretched leg of the second skater, who whips the third skater forward at a very fast speed.