I’d also like to address this whole Diablo Cody backlash thing, because the web seems to be in high attack mode, and no one is attacking back. There’s more venom getting slung at this one girl than some presidential candidates. She’s just a screenwriter for God’s sake. Here’s Brian Orndorf of DVD Talk: “If Diablo Cody is the future of screenwriting, then I'll bite down angrily on a cyanide pill now.”
Please do, Brian, that’d be kinda cool.
His sad diatribe continues: “I don't want to live in a world where random ‘ThunderCats’ references pass for wit… I chalk up this lack of affection to the screenplay by scribe du jour Diablo Cody. The writer-turned-stripper-turned-blogger has made a name for herself with a droopy sense of humor, which runs along the lines of the ‘I Love the 90s’ cable series, only stickier and intensely crowed with self-awareness. Cody is mesmerized by affected, stagy dialogue delivered in a rat-tat-tat style, which is fine for the average production, but when the lines consist primarily of lofty pop culture references and heavily considered mallrat gibberish (think the boozy secret language of twins, only thickly underlined), it forms a puddle of artistic poison that serves no purpose but to parade around the writer's questionable gift for capturing self-aware alternateen lifestyle masturbation…”
You don’t get laid much, do you, Brian?
Here’s a question to all you haters out there: whatever happened to sheer entertainment and a celebration of style?
Even my good friend Dennis Cozzalio chose Juno as the worst film of the year (in a year that had Hostel Part II, I Know Who Killed Me, Norbit, Epic Movie, The Number 23, and Who’s Your Caddy?). Are you kidding me? Dennis wrote, “flavor of the month screenwriter Diablo Cody shovels a lifetime of what are surely Diablo Cody obsessions and pop culture references onto a very slight frame of a character, all in the name of speaking for, or to, the MySpace generation.”
So? She has 10,000 MySpace friends. You have 39.
Rock critic Jim DeRogatis couldn’t resist bashing the film in what was supposed to be a review of the soundtrack. He accused Juno of “glib insincerity” and suggested it could be seen as “anti-abortion and therefore anti-woman, despite its arch post-feminist veneer,” and declared, “as an unapologetically old-school feminist, the father of a soon-to-be-teenage daughter, a reporter who regularly talks to actual teens as part of his beat and a plain old moviegoer, I hated, hated, hated this movie.” Even Julie Klausner and Kathryn Palmateer accused the film of being “anti-abortion.”
What the hell is wrong with you people? Just because a character chose to keep the baby doesn’t make the film anti-abortion. It means the character CHOSE TO KEEP THE BABY. She was never denied the chance to choose. Yes, she had her own quirky reasons for keeping it, but those were HER REASONS. That’s all there is to it.
“Diablo's win is irrelevant,” said Holly, 35, a stand-up comedian and stripper who once danced at New Jersey's Satin Dolls, the inspiration for Bada Bing in The Sopranos. “I have seen a lot of girls achieve their goals while dancing on the side. I'm glad to see that the media has put her in a positive light, but I doubt it will change things for most women trying to do something else who are always going to be judged for having danced.” That certainly seemed to be the case in Lauren Wissot’s review. She described Cody as “a first-time screenwriter lacking in (emotional) life experience.” I left a comment: “What do you know about Diablo Cody that you can say she’s ‘lacking in (emotional) life experience’ in order to give her characters depth and substance? What kind of harsh judgmental statement is that?”
I didn’t get a response.
Then there were the leaked nude photos, which Diablo said she had posted on her blog ages ago. She wrote, “Hey! Did you guys hear about the ‘nude’ (except not really) pics I voluntarily posted on the Internet myself? What a tantalizing ‘scoop!’ Seriously, I thought nudity was only a scandal if it the photos were leaked by some crumb-bum rat or vengeful ex. I personally put my vag out there with pride, ladies and gents. And you bet your ass I'd do it again if the Beef Council would cough up the proper endorsement money.”
Hehehe…
And then some dork posted a sequel to Juno on eBay. “ A writer claiming to have penned a sequel to Juno is selling the script on auction website eBay.com for $100,001. In the seller's note online, the mystery screenwriter insists the script is available to any legitimate production company which ‘wants to jump on the bandwagon.’” I’m honestly offended that a mysterious screenwriter could be this stupid. This gives us anonymous writers a really bad rap.
I guess I should mention that the Associated Press recently reported Diva-like behavior over Diablo’s shoes for the Oscars, and I must confess, I’m a little confused by this. Why, Diablo, did you think you were trying on those shoes in the first place? Did you think he had a foot fetish or something? Wearing personalized clothes for advertising is Oscar tradition! It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You better be careful what you rant about. The press will most certainly jump at the chance to tear you down if they even catch a whiff of you acting like a Diva.
And finally, there was the video spoof and leaked pages of ‘Quotey’ that were really below the belt. Apparently, certain creative types who aren’t talented enough to write their own award-winning screenplays felt the need to take out their own shortcomings on Diablo. And then some cheap little marketing group posted an article called Can’t write an ad? Write a Screenplay. They said, “After Diablo Cody’s Oscar win for best original screenplay, the Star Tribune interviewed some of her former co-workers. This is from Rosemary Abendroth at Fallon: Diablo Cody ‘was a very low-level employee here for a brief time. She was a copy typist, an administrative person. She was never creative.’”
Oh yeah? Who’s got the Oscar now, ROSEMARY?
