Check out this creeptastic quote from Lou Lumenick, lamenting Juno‘s failure to win the New York Film Critics Circle’s vote for Best Screenplay:
I do regret that erstwhile stripper Diablo Cody will not be joining us for the awards on January 6. She sure had my vote.
Gross, right? If the guy really thinks Juno was the best screenplay of the year, he’s entitled to that (wrong) opinion, but then what does it matter that Cody is an “erstwhile stripper”? As it stands, it reads like Cody got Lumenick’s vote not because she wrote the best screenplay, but because she’s more likely than the Coen Brothers to do something sexy at the awards ceremony (and/or, Lumenick is more likely to enjoy fantasizing about it). At best, it’s a stab at Friar’s Club-caliber comedy that does nothing to dispel the notion that these critics circles are too old, white and male for their own good.
As if it wasn’t gross enough to think that Juno’s critical success could be the product of a bunch of journalists wanting to hang out with a sometime stripper, and all the “once a sex worker, permanently a whore ie: maybe she’ll get naked during our interview” bullshit that entails, it’s almost worse to think that these dudes are, like, patting themselves on the back for spreading the urban legend about The Stripper Who Actually Had a Brain. And this is, remember, all in service of a movie that was essentially made for young girls. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of vomiting to do before the HFPA takes this line of thinking to its inevitable conclusion.
9 Comments
You’re right and this is a revolting trend.
I don’t think I’ve read a single Diablo Cody-related article where they haven’t referenced her past career; it’s an automatic suffix to her newfound fame, and it sure would be nice to jettison that part and simply focus on her talents, whatever the article-writer imagines those to be.
Not sure if your site registers these kinds of trackback links, but I’ve featured your post today in my sidebar (in the “From the brains of other bloggers” box). This is a bit in which I choose a particularly good sentence and link it - wildly removed from its context - back to your post.
Diablo Cody will survive Lou Limenick’s infatuation, I think.
She wrote an entire book about stripping and she brings it
up at the drop of a hat. Check out her recent interview
on NPR’s Fresh Air. They spend about twenty minutes on
stripping and ten on Juno. I myself conducted the most
chaste interview imaginable with her and she still gave
a wink-wink answer to my legit question of whether or not
her status as a celebrity screenwriter allows her to avoid
dealing with The Man, i.e. studio bosses. “I’m good with
the Man,” she purred. “Just bat your eyes and blow in
his ear.”
Yes, Lou Limenick wants to bang her. So do I. She’s a very
attractive 29 year-old girl and a former sex worker. I
wouldn’t say that makes anyone praise Juno. If Juno sucked,
Lou’s unfortunate compulsion to send wolf-whistles
through his blog could easily be transmogrified into
something like “I can’t say Juno deserved a place in
the top ten, but I sure had a great time hanging out
with erstwhile stripper Diablo Cody.”
Ryan Stewart
Senior Spout Commenter
You can’t just designate yourself a Senior Commenter, Ryan. There are rules.
I agree that it is a disturbing trend, but I also agree with Ryan that Cody is in no way attempting to downplay her past. In fact she’s doing quite the opposite.
I do not think it was the best screenplay of the year, but I do think it was a good one. While it’s unfortunate that some critics may be swayed by Cody’s sex appeal, it also doesn’t seem fair to dismiss a fine first screenplay based only on the way she plays to the press.
It’s not about her playing it up or playing it down. It’s about skeevy male journalists turning into Beevis and Butthead over it.
Hey…some of my best friends are old, white, and male.
Ick. Just ick. Shit like this makes me so tired. Fucking mouthbreathers.
Take a look at Lumenick in his just posted first ever video blog. That pic of him on his column must be 30 years old. He’s huge and ugly and twitchy. A Cow.
“old, white, and male…”
Sounds like someone has their own issues of racism and sexism to deal with. Why would a woman talk about her past in the sex industry? To get everyone’s attention and make them horny.
4 Trackbacks
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Juno (2007)…
Jason Reitman, succeeds in both directing and pleasing the audience in his 2nd film. Chocolate then, strawberry now.
……
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