I Hate Diablo Cody, or, My Struggles with NPD

Let me just start out by saying that I didn’t care for the movie Juno. It got progressively better towards the end, yes, but for much of the movie, the writing was absolutely appalling. After the exchange with the convenience store clerk at the beginning of the film, I had to get an usher to help me find my eyes because they had rolled clear out of my head. Juno is hip, Diablo, I get it, please stop beating me over the head with those million dollar shoes you didn’t end up wearing.

That being said, her writing isn’t why I dislike Diablo Cody as a whole. It’s also not her vomitously rebel-cutsie name, although it does make me cringe a little bit every time I hear it. Like when it was announced at the Oscars. For winning best screenplay.

Admittedly, my dislike is partially rooted in that Cody reminds of the girl who is always at the coffee shop, reading Kurt Vonnegut and making me feel intensely uncool. “That girl” also has all these esoteric tattoos and an inexplicable haircut that I would never grow the balls to attempt. Cody seems a little more approachable than “that girl”, however, which is a point in her favor.

Mostly, I don’t like Diablo Cody because (a big) part of me wishes I was Diablo Cody. I call it the Natalie Portman Disease, or NPD. I first acquired NPD when I first watched Portman in The Professional.

I too was a struggling actress (VERY struggling; I couldn’t even get cast in the school plays) and to see someone so beautiful do exactly what I wanted to do really pissed me off and I’ve hated Natalie Portman ever since. She went on to international stardom as a lovely, talented artist and I decided to give up my dream of being an actress and decide to be a writer.

Little would I know that 7 or 8 years later, Diablo Cody would arrive on the scene and bring with her an intense relapse of my NPD. I sit at my desk, writing my little stories, dreaming of one day creating akick ass screenplay that everyone would love and that bitch Diablo beats me to it, with her quirky, strangely sexy style and her former stripper schtick. She’s even got a clever little column in Entertainment Weekly (that is lightyears better than her screenplay for Juno, IMHO. But what do I know? I don’t have an Oscar), a magazine I’ve been reading and loving since I was a teenager.

But Jessica, you say, don’t you think you are being a little childish? As a fellow woman writer, shouldn’t you be congratulating Cody on her success rather than begrudging her it?

Well, yes, I should. Touche. You are absolutely right. And I have no way to apologize or explain myself other than saying its not me, it’s my NPD.

Also, Natalie Portman’s British accent sucks. So there.