Recently, I've been thawing a little bit. In one of my internships, I wrote a bunch of politics trend stories. And recently I wrote one that was backed with numbers and graphs and quotes, which is a bit of a coup.
And then Fox News has to go and shatter all of that warm and fuzzy feeling I was developing towards trend stories:
"The "Juno" effect seems to be reverberating all over the place.
In the year since Diablo Cody’s screenplay became Jason Reitman’s hit film, "Juno," we’ve seen unmarried 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears, single 22-year-old Ashlee Simpson and now 17-year-old unmarried Bristol Palin all get pregnant and decide to keep their babies....
For years, advocates on all sides of abortion and birth control issues have agreed on one thing: Unmarried teenagers should not get pregnant. They may have disagreed about whether abstinence or birth control were the best ways to accomplish this, but the end goal was the same.
Then "Juno" came along."
OMG! THREE'S A TREND!
Or, as a friend put it: "You're right. Teenagers never thought to get pregnant until they saw Juno."
It's not like there were pregnant teens in the premise of Gilmore Girls. Or Hester Prynne she totally must have been inspired by Juno 'cause that baby of hers was out of wedlock. So maybe its the Hester effect? The Lorelai effect?
Firstly Ashlee simpson wasnt single. She was with Pete whats his face and then they got married.
Secondly I disagree. While I havent seen Juno yet ( I plan to soon) I dont think any movie can start a teen pregnancy trend. Have you seen "saved"? its a lame film with mandy moore and some christian girl has sex with her gay boyfriend and she gets pregnant. That came out way before Juno and there arent any christians with gay boyfriends having babies.
I would like to think that these people are just ordinary people who took on the responsibility of having sex and then fell pregnant. They are now also having the baby sintead of any other options.
I started watching Gilmore girls when i was 16 I'm now 22 and I have no children. Still love gilmore girls though!!
I really think that the people in the media especially that vice president candidate's daughter are taking the option to be open with everyone and tell us instead of covering it up like they used to.
Sorry I had to delete this comment because I messed up. Here is the correct one:
Queenbitch,
Sorry that I wasn't clear; I had hoped the hed and the tenor of the post would have conveyed that I thought the premise was entirely ridiculous. The comment from my friend was also meant to be entirely sarcastic.
"While I haven't seen Juno yet ( I plan to soon) I don't think any movie can start a teen pregnancy trend" is exactly the conclusion a rational person would come to. The author of the linked article seems to have no such rational thinking skills.
I am not sure I would praise the press for covering Bristol so closely, but you do have a point about openness. It's certainly better than the way Hester and Pearl were treated in the Scarlet Letter.
The last time I checked, teens were getting pregnant long before Juno's eggers were preggers.
Great movie, by the way.
Hey, I'm a Christian girl with a gay boyfriend and I've had loads of babies. And I watched Juno and I even liked it despite its oh-so-unpopular status with hipsters who would just oh-so-hate to be pegged anything by an "adult" not-with-it community.
Oh my God you should all follow my twitter account about my Christian gay babies!
i think it's beyond preposterous - and honestly, a bit lazy on the part of the journalists to declare such a trend.
once upon a time, i was one, and i *know* that it's an easy story to jump on something in the national news and find a new spin on it. like for instance, call the local high schools and find out if pregnancies are on the rise (never mind whether or not they have been for the past several years PRIOR to the movie - an awesome movie - coming out.)
it's all such silliness.