Diablo Cody learned to somewhat avoid the press and specifically blogs after a media blitz ignited around her with the success of her screenplay turned hit indie film Juno. Now tougher and a bit more reclusive, the Academy Award winning Cody opened up to TheFrisky.com about her new film Jennifer's Body, the much hyped on-screen kiss between costars Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried, and how she's retaining her feminist ideals while producing a girl slasher flick!
First and foremost, Cody revealed in the interview that the press spin on the hotly anticipated smooch between Fox and Seyfried completely misses her point with the kiss. "If the two protagonists of the film were a guy and a girl and in a particularly tense moment, they shared a kiss, no one would say it was gratuitous," Cody points out. "But the fact that they’re women means it’s some kind of stunt." She goes on to reveal the kiss was actually, "intended to be something profound and meaningful to me and to Karyn [Kusama, the director]. Obviously we knew people were going to totally sensationalize it. They’re beautiful girls, the scene is hot—I’m not afraid to say that."
But Cody insisted the motivations for the kiss are deeply and genuinely rooted in adolescent female bonds: "There is a sexual energy between the girls which is kind of authentic, because I know when I was a teenaged girl, the friendships that I had with other girls were almost romantic, they were so intense. I wanted to sleep at my friend’s house every night, I wanted to wear her clothes, we would talk on the phone until our ears ached. I wanted to capture that heightened feeling you get as an adolescent that you don’t really feel as a grownup. (laughs) You like your friends when you’re a grownup but you don’t need to sleep in the same bed with them and talk to them on the phone until 5 a.m. every night."
Cody said she is hoping the talented young cast of Jennifer's Body can receive the bulk of promotional attention. "We’re lucky that we have Megan promoting this film because she is so outspoken" Cody mused, laughing at the understatement. "I’m hoping we can direct all the attention to our attractive young cast... and maybe to our director and I can just, hopefully, sit back in my producer chair and take care of the practical stuff. But I would never put myself out there again like I did with Juno and if I could do it over again, I wouldn’t. It’s not worth it."
The burgeoning screenwriter was however, full of praise for the polarizing starlet Megan Fox. "I do not know her very well. Even having worked with her to this extent, I don’t know her very well because she’s very private and mysterious," Cody shares of the raven-haired Transformers' beauty. "But I’ve [heard] these things come out of her mouth; I’ve been present for some of these interviews and she is totally fearless. What she is saying is completely genuine. It is not a front. I think people think she’s trying to create some kind of image for herself that she’s not, but she’s a really, truly eccentric person." Cody thinks those who have wrongly labeled Fox another hot girl will be proven wrong. "I don’t think people know how to process her at all. I think it’s one of those things where she does not fit the mold in any way and it freaks people out!"
Cody, a self proclaimed, "old Riot Grrl" said there are a lot of feminists who came of age in the nineties with, "our faded tattoos and... baby doll dresses" out there. Fortunately, or more likely un, pop culture has shifted away from the trend but Cody said, "it goes in cycles. Right now, we are in a cycle where it is cool to be meticulously groomed and starving to death and listen to really cheesy music. It’s unfortunate! But these are the times we’re living in. [Riot Grrl will] eventually come back around—it always does."
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Meanwhile, Cody remains loyal to her ideals. "My feminist hat is permanently welded to my head," the screenwriter/Producer revealed. "I definitely can’t take it off! It’s so important for me to write things from the female perspective and in service of women and in the right roles for women. That’s usually what I’m thinking going into it. Obviously, the story goes first. But then my next priority is how am I going to sneak my subversive feminist message into this?" Much like the LGBT rights movement, for feminism to succeed, Cody believes, "representation is obviously the first step to equality, so if women aren’t being represented in a diverse way in movies, they’re going to remain marginalized."
Feminism remains an ideal Cody is happily committed to furthering in her films. Despite all the criticisms and tactless quips [such as Andy Samberg's SNL impersonation of Cody after her Oscar win last year] so easily and regularly hurled at women in entertainment by the media today, Cody has found a way to deal with the detractors. "It’s absolutely something you have to cultivate," Cody reveals of her tougher skin. "Believe me, I’m a really sensitive, self-conscious person. It became apparent to me so quickly into my career that people weren’t all going to like me and, in fact, some people were going to hate me! It was a surprise, because no one thinks of themselves as unlikeable. I thought, Well, if this is going to be, I’m going to have to armor up!"
Jennifer's Body is in theaters September 18th and you can follow Diablo Cody on Twitter (@BrookBusey) for all her fun thoughts.
