avphibes

So you may or may not have heard of this new screenwriter Diablo Cody, who wrote this acclaimed indie movie "Juno" and is now the toast of Hollywood and just won an Oscar. I have issues with this that are many and varied. First, however, I'll say what I thought of the movie:

"Juno" was a movie that I 80% loved and 20% hated. Starting off, the dialogue was so affectedly and self-consciously "hip" that it felt like fingernails on my psychic chalkboard and I didn't know if I could tolerate a whole movie of it. The "look how clever I am!" non-sequiturs were also pretty obnoxious. Like the whole bit about "pork swords." That line was totally irrelevant and was just shoehorned into the script for the sake of saying "pork sworks" (oh man, could you just DIE! the kids are gonna think this is HIGH-larious!), and it FELT shoehorned into the script. So many lines seemed to be there as some sort of "ta-da! this script is CLEVER! SEE!" Once the movie got rolling, though, it eased up, got into a groove and was cute and fun to watch with plenty of laffs and a pretty deft ending that managed to be simultaneously sweet and believable. It managed to strike that hit-making balance where it was quirky enough to be "indie" but could still play to middle america since it was, at it's core, a feel-good pro-life movie about love and family.

This leads to an interesting observation I've made when talking to people about this movie: Young people seem much more likely to think that it was "trying to hard" and "overrated," while middle aged people all seem to think it's fantastic and brilliantly written (and when I say "middle aged people, I am referring to baby boomers even though I am technically middle aged). To be honest, I'm not 100% sure why this is, but I have a theory: Young people are hip enough to know hip and be critical of things that are trying to be hip, which they are judging within the context of hipness. Middle aged people are not so hip, so they are judging outside the context of hipness and therefore just think "oh, those kids are so clever!"

But my issues, for the most part, do not revolve around Diablo Cody or "Juno," so much as they are focused on the hype surrounding the aforementioned. The hype, I'll admit, is torturing my soul.

Firstly, the hype about the writing... People are talking about this like it's brilliant, genius, amazing writing. The hottest new writer to hit hollywood! This tortures me for two reasons: First is the fact that I think this overestimation is the result of hollywood stupidity...the same hollywood stupidity that gives people acting oscars for wearing makup instead of for acting. It's mistaking showy writing (in the form of all those "ta-da! I'm clever!" lines) for good writing. The frustrating thing for me is that the good writing in the movie was the stuff that wasn't showy, but the showiness (which I considered the flaw in the writing) is being mistaken for genius. It was a good screenplay, but I think it's being mistaken for a brilliant screenplay for the very reason I think it's not brilliant. When I took costume design in college, I was taught an important lesson which I never forgot: "If you go to a play and all you notice are the costumes, the costume designer did a bad job." And so I feel like if you go to a movie and all you notice is the writing, the writer got a little overzealous. But unfortunately, everybody else seems to not notice if something is good if there's not a sign hung on it.

But really, let's get beyond my abstract opinions of "quality" and get to the personal issues...

My personal issues started when I read a big article about Diablo Cody in some magazine prior to the release of "Juno." The article was long and fawning. Get a load of this: Diablo Cody has tattoos! and Hangs out in dive bars! And she wrote a blog! and she was a stripper...but she's actually smart and snarky! Can you believe what a stunningly unique voice she is?

And so I'm sittting there gape-mouthed thinking "Has nobody in hollywood ever heard of a hipster?" This shock was then followed by a rush of indignation that the scores of women I know who are smart, snarky writers with dive-bar-going, tattoo-having, blog-writing proclivities and racy pasts have suddenly been dismissed wholesale as nonexistent, because Diablo Cody is a "unique" voice. It's the chagrin of seeing someone treated like a unique daisy picked from a barren desert when they are, in fact, just the daisy in the daisy field that got picked.

The style of Diablo Cody's writing is more or less the style that young women of a more ironic bent have been putting out for the past decade. In fact, one of the first thoughts I had watching "Juno," was that many of her witty turns of phrase reminded me of various contemporary young woman authors, (and several livejournalers!) And there was even a moment when, because of the ridiculous nom de plume, I actually thought "'Diablo Cody'...haha very funny...who is this really? It must be someone I know, right? I know way too many clever women who fit this bill..." And then my issues turn to a feeling of helpless envy...why wasn't it one of us?

Of course, I know why it wasn't ME. Because I never wrote a screenplay, or, for that matter, ever thought it would be a good idea to write a screenplay and, if I did, I don't know that I ever would have finished it. And so, as I read the many accolades for "Juno" and see it win the acadamy award for best screenplay, I'm sitting here filled with dumbfounded angst, thinking: "That's all it took? That's what Hollywood wanted all along? Why didn't I write a screenplay? Why didn't I change my name to 'Tucson Chupacabra' and go make a million dollars? WHHHHHYYYYYY???"

Of course, with Hollywood being as trend-driven as it is, it would seem that now would be the time for snarky young women to sell screenplays. So let's get on it, ladies! GO GO GO!