I suspect much of the disparity in critical reception of Juno stems from a generational gap. Her poise, self-belief, intelligence, and yes, even her flip and dry sense of humor are elements of a new American persona, one unfamiliar to audiences accustomed to older tropes.

One of the reasons Juno's character resonated with me from the first was how her tics reminded me of people I know. Coming to maturity at the height of our information culture, my generation has enjoyed instant access to practically all specialized knowledge, not to mention instant communication with anyone, anywhere. We are emerging from families with more money than at any time in our past and we have seen more of the world than those before us. Just look at our musical tastes: adventurous, bordering on the ubiquitous. Unlike our parents, we don't have to spend much money buying records and slowly nursing our passions. We can instantly sample tracks or pay for them one-by-one. And there's no physical act of disposing of an artifact if we decide to delete it.

There is a flip side to all this openness, freeness, and access. We value our music collections (and everything else we were given and have experienced) less because they were acquired so easily. This is not to say we value nothing, just different things. My college friends share the same ranges of quirks that my parents' friends did, but under the banner of a different vocabulary and a slightly different approach. If you're 18, it's OK to be a man sans testosterone or a woman without family goals. In our post-post-everything, wiki-dominated world, we young people seem to 'know' everything without the hard-won feeling of having learned it. And so, on the surface, Juno appears glib, her vocabulary over-revved, the way she diffuses many situations with her wit a bit superficial. I think this makes older people who are unfamiliar with this very real worldview uncomfortable because they didn't have synomymous sensations growing up.

The new American character typology also appropriates new masculinity. Explore Judd Apatow's recent film Superbad. Apatow produced Juno but didn't write it; however I think all of the characters in the films Superbad, Knocked Up, and Juno share a certain DNA. If you can get past the crass one-liners and the obviously and self-parodying sophomoric plot line, you'd have to notice and fall in love with Michael Cera's character (very similar to his on-screen presence in Juno). He's quiet, fiercely bright, gentle, quirky, He's accepted to an Ivy League school but isn't showy about it. Can you find a precedent for this type in a previous American film?

You need look no farther than the Kimya-Dawson-rich soundtrack as a key to understanding Juno's world. I've seen her music described as geek-chic, indie, and everything else under the sun. I'm not comfortable categorizing it. Sometimes it's purposefully out of tune, mind-bogglingly simple (the entirety of 'Anyone Else But You' is sung over literally two alternating chords), yet at other times it's prolix and clumsy, see 'Loose Lips'). But it's always endearing, and more importantly, it's knowing. Juno comes from a limited, hyper-consuming, too-comfortable suburban life, and yet she, like Dawson, inhabits this world comfortably, despite the fact that we know she transcends it. Don't you just see her at the same Ivy League school with Michael Cera's character?

It's a beautiful film, I think, that signals a change in the American consciousness...and yet shows that it never changes - all at once.

Your description of an emergent, hyper-informed teenage typology and your description of Juno do not match. At what point does Juno use a cell phone? A computer? Wikipedia? We could assume she does because of her age, but we are then molding her in our preconceived notions of today's teens. If anything, Juno is a poorly-drawn mishmash of today's teen and yesterday's wisecracking wallflower, aka Diablo Cody. She displays no recognizable intelligence. She reveals no discernible worldview. And no, I couldn't see her at the same Ivy League school with Michael Cera's character. But let's explore a few of your comments in more details.

"Coming to maturity at the height of our information culture, my generation has enjoyed instant access to practically all specialized knowledge, not to mention instant communication with anyone, anywhere." I've been over this already, but it bears repeating. For the record, I agree with your assessment of modern youth: Information access is at an all-time high. (Information analytical tools, however, are on the decline. But that's neither here nor there.) Juno, her arcane tastes aside, never shows us this side of today's teenager. Again, she never uses a cell phone, opting for the oh-so-precious hamburger phone instead. She never uses a computer, nor can I recall a computer being shown in her house. Juno is frequently shown visiting people in person, sometimes unannounced, a far cry from the texting, facebooking generation we're both familiar with. In fact, amazingly enough, the entire plot of the movie shifts around Juno and her best friend finding an adoption ad in the Penny Saver. In the PENNY SAVER!!!!???? This gets into a whole new area of criticism regarding plausibility and realism, so suffice it to say that Juno is not the herald of the information age you indicate she is. If anything, she heralds BACK to simpler times, when the doorknock was a more familiar sound than the Ding! of a text message.

"Her poise, self-belief, intelligence, and yes, even her flip and dry sense of humor..." OK, I'll grant you poise, although I've traditionally reserved that word for people who seem to appreciate the enormity of an exceptional and challenging circumstance, and hold their emotions in reserve. Juno certainly holds her emotions in reserve (until the glibness demands a tonic, and finds it in an affected teary scene), but she never really shows she appreciates the seriousness of her situation. Self-belief? I'm not sure I know what that means. She believes in herself? OK. She believes in herself. Moving on. Intelligence. This one gets me. Whence this supposed intelligence? I've heard her character described as intelligent, smart, witty, sharp, and perceptive. All evidence in the movie, however, suggests otherwise. I saw a nigh unceasing string of pop cultural references (some incorrectly used, i.e. Bone Collector, Thunder Cats) and clumsy alterna-phrasings ("...procure a hasty abortion...", "chosen custodians of this big-ass bump...", "I'm allergic to fine home furnishings", etc.). "Silencio?" I'm blown away by her intelligence. Get me a Harvard application--this one is familiar with over four decades of television trivia, and she knows how to use it. Mostly. (I say all this as a person who has, in the past, mistaken his own sarcasm and glibness for intelligence, and who has learned that it is not.) I'm sorry, but I just don't think "intelligent" when I see Juno. Please provide some examples.

"And so, on the surface, Juno appears glib, her vocabulary over-revved, the way she diffuses many situations with her wit a bit superficial." You lost me again. You say that Juno is glib, and that her vocabulary is "over-revved." I'll grant you glibness, and I'll grudgingly concede the vocab comment, if only for ill-fitting phrases "shockingly cavalier." But to confuse these qualities with wit is a miscarriage of analysis. Sunny D. Maker's Mark. Thundercats. The Goonies. Argento. iPod. She is a repository of popular culture, a collection of cultural signposts by which audiences can navigate the script. Hey, I know the Thundercats! Hey, I know Patti Smith! To these signposts there are two appropriate reactions: a knowing smile or a knowing laugh. If this is what passes for wit these days, I weep for the future of comedy. Additionally, these references do little to diffuse anything in the movie, except perhaps the encroaching realization that one is being played for the informed consumer s/he is, instead of entertained by originality, or challenged by complex characterization.

"I think this makes older people who are unfamiliar with this very real worldview uncomfortable because they didn't have synomymous sensations growing up." What worldview? Juno downplays the seriousness of her pregnancy. OK, we get it--she's an emotionally risk-averse, tetchy teenager. But from her teary breakdowns--the lighter one after her exchange with Bleeker, the heavier after Mark tells her he's leaving Vanessa--we are led to believe she is no one-trick--or one-line, as it were--pony. What does she realize? What is her worldview? That you should be with the person "who thinks sun shines out of your ass?" That she's really in love with Bleeker? If I thought Juno had an opinion about anything of import, I would certainly feel more engaged with her character, even if I didn't have the same opinion. But what exactly are these sensations that I do not feel synonymously? The sensation of knowing nothing? The sensation of caring about nothing?

"But it's always endearing, and more importantly, it's knowing. Juno comes from a limited, hyper-consuming, too-comfortable suburban life, and yet she, like Dawson, inhabits this world comfortably, despite the fact that we know she transcends it." What endears Juno to you is precisely what alienates me. To each her own. But to say that Juno transcends anything is to overstate her characterization considerably. And this is, I believe, your mistake. Juno's lack of anything resembling a core set of beliefs, her sarcastic commentary on the events around her, her absolute detachment from her pregnancy--these hardly add up to something more than their sum. What I do think emerges from the character of Juno is an excuse for Diablo Cody to showcase her ability to hoodwink the American public into thinking they are experiencing a bold new type of dramatic comedy, or, to borrow one of your phrases, a "new American persona." Let me pull the wool away, folks: this type of comedy has been around since at least 1996 (Bottle Rocket), and snarky, shallow teens been around for even longer.

I must confess I loved reading your response to my and similar posts that celebrated Juno (and your millenarian asides about academic standards). In fact, it's in your failure to sympathize with Juno and her world that I derive the greatest satisfaction from identifying with her character in the first place. You seem to have been left out of the inside joke, on the outside trying to claw your way in. And inside jokes derive their power from their power to exclude, or to elevate the included. The triumph of youth, if you will. It's no new sensation, but it feels great. Thanks!

I think it's safe to assume Juno uses a computer. Do you have to see her using one to believe she does? I did notice her using the pay phone in school instead of a cell phone...but surely this has got to do with school regulations banning cell-phone use. It would be cheaper to use her landline hamburger phone during peak hours, (when she calls her friend and the abortion clinic) but even so, who would reach for their sleek, functional cell phone when the dilapidated hamburger phone beckoned? It's a no brainer. Would you criticize a person with a CD player for listening to LPs? Who feels cool wearing shiny new shoes? The largest point of my post is that Juno is of this world, but transcends it. She's learned, by 16, to tap the cool of the retro and slightly dysfunctional (i.e.: she's smart). Again, she found the ad in the penny saver (uninteresting teenagers would have confined their efforts to the internet, I suspect) slurping a 64-oz. slushy with gigantic retro-chic sunglasses. How...unexpected/cute.

Her worldview is obviously still nascent at 16, but the framework is there. Her catholic tastes denote clear curiosity, she has a sense for what is beyond her maturity level, and she is able to read other people damn well. She knew she'd be able to score Bleeker, she knew he'd figure out she was giving birth when she didn't turn up to his final track meet, she has a read on the jock who pines after her and the way her best friend feels about her math teacher (total points for a sixteen-year-old who knows what McSweeney's is). She's adept at diffusing awkward situations...she calmed the boy who was arguing with his girfriend at the lab table with a non sequitur about peach-flavored liquor when Bleeker was able to do nothing more than stare blankly, and she mollified Vanessa's apprehension with the ultrasound photo and an impersonation of the baby's voice. She took the time to observe Vanessa interacting with another young child at the mall, and when the high-pressure dissolution of Mark and Vanessa's marriage ensued, she momentarily panicked, but didn't run home to mom and dad. She had the strength to know what she ought to do.

She knows who the up-tights (the school attendance secretary, Bleeker's mom, the ultrasound technician) the space cadets (the sex clinic secretary: now here's a glib teenage personality not worth watching a film about!) and the negligent (Mark) are and is not afraid to say so. Didn't you expect Juno to be seduced by Mark? I did. I guess I drank the kool-aid too, as you put it.

In the end, we're offered a confirmation of all of this when her father charges "I didn't think you were that kind of girl, Juno" and she responds "I don't really know what kind of girl I am." What a humbly self-aware statement for a teenager to make!

I appreciated some of the clunky and off references too...they signaled an occasionally mistaken teenager but, more importantly, one refining herself in the first place. OK, so the composer isn't Johann Brahms, it's Johannes, and so on. Then again, the ThunderCats reference seemed on to me and meant she had to be aware of TV shows airing before she was born. More importantly, she accesses the references quickly and appropriately, which while not qualifying you for Ivy League admission, is certainly a characteristic shared by many people who are here. I can't say the same for my less clever friends, I'm afraid.

I do hope you give today's young people another chance. We may have lost our analytical tools or respond to your crticisms rather maladroitly, but we mean well, and if nothing else, we mean.

Trekka is right. You're like the old guy at parties who just "doesn't get it". You think comedy such as this started with something Wes Anderson just happened to come up with? Please. The observations of disenchanted, yet rooted teens have been around for ages.

Juno is indeed hyper-informed. She embraces, and is obviously nostalgic for the 80's, yet utilizes the phrase "honest to blog," She is overly aware of both contemporary music and that from generations past, to the point of being in the know about bands not even up-and-coming yet (enter every single one on the soundtrack's songs), and being her own critical analyses of it. She is exactly like my brother and many other teens. They know and have knowledge of all this media and music precisely because they have access to the internet and others' finds.

Why did I know all the songs and bands featured in Juno before the movie even came out? My brother had come across it, liked it, ripped me a CD, and now I have it and listen to it. This unprecedented amount of granted and immediate access to information and media is apparent to those who this movie is about: us, the young generation.

Don't feel bad, though. Old people didn't get your generation, either.