Teenage pregnancy has always been with us, but attitudes toward it have changed. A generation ago, the situation of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's daughter — 17, pregnant and unwed — would have inspired conservative tut-tutting. Now it's a cause of conservative celebration.
But would those same conservatives be celebrating if she were 11? That's the age of the pregnant heroine in Koji Hagiuda's new film "Kodomo no Kodomo (A Child's Child)." Almost certainly not, and rightly so. In the real world, girls who conceive so young are often the victims of poverty and abuse and risk severe physical and emotional problems.
"Kodomo no Kodomo," however, takes an unexpectedly positive view of its heroine's condition, but it is not Japan's answer to "Juno," the 2007 hit film accused of glamorizing teen pregnancy. In contrast to Ellen Paige's snarky, self-aware heroine, Haruna (Haruna Amari), the title's "Kodomo," is a naive, tomboyish country girl who may be blunt and even defiant, but doesn't have an ironic bone in her body.