A Valentine to Juno; or How Pulp Fiction Saved My Life

I want to apologize to Juno. In order to do that we need to take a trip in the way back machine...

In the fall of 1994, I had a transformative experience. An experience that I recall here in startling detail. I remember being dropped off at the Century 10 (it would later be rebuilt as the Century 16) Cinemas in Mountain View, California. Indian summer was waning and there was a chill in the air. I remember sitting in the second row of the theater with three friends, one named Nick and two named Alex. I remember the twenty-something goobery guys in front of us who chatted endlessly before the lights dimmed. I remember that the movie started forty minutes late, though I don’t think that a rationale for this was ever supplied. Perhaps just to build anticipation. I remember all this before one centimeter of celluloid was projected.

Pulp Fiction was over 154 minutes later and I was a changed fourteen-year old man. I was certain no film would ever matter to me as much as Pulp Fiction. I now had a concrete definition of cool and it involved large helpings of blaxsploitation, Dick Dale, and Royales with Cheese. The film became a focal point of my social life. My friend’s and I devoured the soundtrack and the paperback version of the script. I performed Jules’ speech from the diner in my 9th Intro to Drama class. I immediately started typing out a script on my Macintosh Performa (it never got past the first page but it involved a car full of cool cats in on the run from the law and about 36 pop culture references, many from movies I had never seen). I even borrowed my mom’s bible and looked up a certain passage about the path of the righteous man.

Fast forward. I am now twice the age I was on that October night and I can no longer watch more than eight minutes of Pulp Fiction at a stretch. I find it hopelessly dated and chock full of hard to swallow dialogue (which I still have memorized). Perhaps it also reminds me of a time when I was at the apex of adolescent awkwardness. That being said, I still love this film for showing me the force that the medium can have. Seen at the right time of life, a movie can make you feel connected to a world that you have no physical connection to. Quentin Tarantino’s imagination reached out and grabbed hold of me. His movie validated my sensibilities about art which were only in their earliest stages. Because Pulp Fiction existed, there must be something right about the world.

What does this have to do with Juno? As I have observed the outpouring of elation over a movie that I found rather jejune, I had a revelation. The dialogue hit my adult ears just like the lines in Pulp Fiction do. This movie is not for me. This movie is for all of those fourteen year olds out there who think they are smarter than everyone else in the 9th grade and most of the teachers. Not book smart, but world-wise. For those kids, Juno is a sign of life, a touchstone, in a world where they are expected to accept Meet the Spartans as entertainment.

In the early spring of 1995 I sat in front of my television and made a wish. I wished that Pulp Fiction would win the Academy Award for Best Picture. I wished that Forrest Gump would be exposed as drivel and Quentin would get to bask in the glory of Oscar. I wanted him to be rewarded for giving me and my friends something to rally behind, something to identify with (though none of us has ever come close to shoving a hypodermic needle through someone’s breast plate). I am sure there are kids out there who have the same wish for Juno. My feeling is if this movie is providing these kids something along the lines of my Pulp Fiction odyssey, it has more value than I initially thought. Perhaps it merits a humanitarian award instead of an Oscar.