We promised you a little more about “Juno” this week so, if you’ll allow, we’d like to wax semi-poetic about this theory we have. It seems like everyone loves Juno what with the soundtrack burning up the iTunes store and all those late night talk show apperances. They even managed to get a slot on Oprah, which is like a guarantee of another hundred mill.
You know who doesn’t like “Juno”? Guys over 30 who fancy themselves any sort of music afficianado and music critics. We’ve heard all kinds of reasons why they might object, but we propose that it’s an unconsious visceral reaction to the double hit of the Jason Bateman/Sonic Youth rejection scene.
However, our friends over at The Playlist made us aware a piece noted music critic Jim DeRogatis wrote about it called “Why Juno Is Anti-Rock” that we take issue with (btw, please do read DeRotatis’s Lester Bangs bio Let It Blurt - one of the great rock books). Check out his piece for the Chicago Sun-Times, watch MTV News’ interview with Kimya Dawson and then read our rantings after the jump.
Please note - our rant assumes that you clicked the link and read DeRogatis’ editoral and that you have seen “Juno”. There are spoilers below.
First something nitpicky - DeRogatis twists the intent of Jason Riteman’s liner notes in the “Juno” soundtrack and at no point in the notes does he say the Moldy Peaches are music that kids today listen to. Riteman does say it was intended to be the music that the character Juno would listen to. Although judging by the amount of soundtracks “Juno” has sold since DeRogatis wrote his editorial, apparently it is indeed the kind of music the kids today will listen to…if someone just tells them about it.
DeRogatis takes a few paragraphs here to say things about the movie that have nothing to do with the anti-rock sentiment he’s presented and more to do with his inability to suspend disbelief as a movie viewer watching a work of complete fiction, which are neither here nor there to us.
Then DeRogatis makes the interesting point we’ve had lots of guys make to us: why is Juno giving lip service to original punk music like Iggy & the Stooges throughout the movie and make music that sounds like the Moldy Peaches?
We ask, why does a person’s musical output have to sound exactly like their influences? We wonder if the Juno character doesn’t strike DeRogatis as enough of a person with an agenda to be original that she’d purposefully attempt to not sound exactly like her influences. There’s actually nothing more punk than that and it’s the same model that Calvin Johnson set up with K Records.
We also fundamentally disagree with calling Belle & Sebastian and Cat Power “sickeningly saccherine” as a matter not only of our own opinion but because the B&S songs on this soundtrack are in fact not saccherine (in fact most of their Stuart Murdoch songs, which both on the soundtrack are, are anti-romance) and the Cat Power song is her”Sea of Love” cover - it’s an old standard that’s been much more sappily recreated for decades. If anything the Buddy Holly and Velvet Underground songs on the soundtrack are the truly sticky sweet numbers. Additionally, when the movie isn’t about teen pregnancy it’s a love story between Juno and Bleeker. Of course the soundtrack is filled with love songs.
The big issue that we think most of the anti-”Juno” audience has with the movie is the Sonic Youth scene. DeRogitas addresses this on the soundtrack by lamenting their only inclusion being the “Superstar” cover, which he feels is not befitting the legendary noise rock band. Whether that is right or wrong is a matter of opinion we could argue for or against but it’s place in the soundtrack is fitting since it was the song prominently featured in the movie. We suspect DeRogitas, like many of the men we’ve compared notes with about “Juno”, is more put off by the diss to Sonic Youth that Juno shoots off in the movie.
First we’d like to point out that Sonic Youth themselves would have had to approve the usage of their music in the movie and the soundtrack. While they wouldn’t have controlled the script, it’s doubtful they were completely unaware of the context it would be used in - and they said yes anyway. It stands to reason that Sonic Youth are not so precious that they can’t withstand the slings and arrows of a completely fictional teenage girl.
Secondly, it’s perfectly natural that a girl who’s into the primitave sounds of punk music would find Sonic Youth to be totally unlistenable. As former teenage girls ourselves we aren’t ashamed to tell you we had the same experience with multiple bands on first listen. Eventually we grew into some and some we still don’t like.
Additionally, the Sonic Youth scene is a 30 something man proposing a relationship 3rd trimester pregnant teenage girl. She was freaked out. Teenagers pop off at the mouth, especially when they feel threatened. We know it’s hard but maybe that’s not a line to take to heart, as it’s clearly a heat of the moment toss off that had less to do with Sonic Youth and more to do with expressing her total rejection of Bateman’s character.
In the end DeRogatis’ editoral comes down to not liking the “stunted” Bateman character and Juno’s record collection. A music critic not liking the collection of a teenage girl? Huge shock. If the filmmakers were able to rouse this big of a reaction, it sounds to us like they did everything exactly right.
