>She’s Not a Wicked Stepmother

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I must be the last person in the world to see Juno, but Hubs and I had a movie date night Sunday night and that’s just what we did.

Like everyone else I know, I thought the movie was great, and I was particularly pleased with the portrayal of Juno’s stepmother. Although she was quirky and unglamorous (and so was nearly everyone else in the film), for the first time, I saw a realistic stepmother/stepdaughter relationship on screen and that, my friends, was pretty awesome.

While the stepmother had a five-year-old biological daughter with Juno’s dad, there were no tired old references to the daughter getting preferential treatment. Instead, the little girl hardly featured into the movie at all. When Juno told her parents she was pregnant, her stepmother didn’t say something rude and insulting, as most directors and screenwriters would have had her do. Instead, she was realistically disappointed and immediately determined to make the best of a bad situation.

In Juno, the stepmother and stepdaughter have an imperfect, yet clearly loving relationship, which is true of many, many teens and their stepparents (not to mention their parents!). I didn’t realize until after I’d watched the movie that stepmothers are stereotyped so negatively in film and on television that when the stepmother character was introduced onscreen, I had subconsciously steeled myself for the inevitable portrayal of her as, well, wicked.

At any rate, it’s refreshing to know that millions of people are getting an onscreen glimpse into a blended family relationship that is neither Brady Bunch-perfect nor Cinderella-style horrible, but simply affectionate and at times angsty and real.

This post originally appeared on Parents.com.