pretty: interstitial
You can’t move in this town (or probably in this country at this particular moment) without running into yet another Moment With Diablo Cody. I’ve always liked her work, but jeez. Regardless, I’m compelled to pluck out a snippet from the City Pages Triumphant Return Interview for you:
And it also bothers me when—this is a real paradox for me: My entire life I’ve been told I wasn’t pretty enough. My entire life I was told by people that I was ugly, that I was too tall, that I was flat-chested, that I was this, that I was that. When I was a stripper I was never quite pretty enough. I was never one of the beautiful girls. I was never one of the top earners. Suddenly I achieve something in my life that is purely intellectual and purely creative, and I'm being told that it’s because I’m pretty. To me that is the weirdest, most ironic thing ever. Like all of a sudden I’m attractive when it suits people’s purposes. But in the past when I needed to be attractive I was ugly. So let’s pick. Which is it?
Comments
Didn't she write in Candy Girl that she was not pretty enough to be molested as a child? I haven't seen Juno yet, but her book both fascinated and annoyed me. I don't know what to think of Cody. Is she an intellectual who stripped, or a stripper who wrote a memoir? I’ve always thought the former, but she plays both sides and that’s probably what irritates me, because I figure she’s smart enough to know the repercussions. But then I should be smart enough to know that not everything I read is 100% true and that journalists love to misrepresent things. So there you go?
It's frustrating I'm sure, and somewhat true, but I don't think the ability to be both an ugly stripper and a pretty writer is all that ironic.
I went to the British Television Advertising Awards yesterday and one of the winners was the Maria Sharapova "I Feel Pretty" ad for Nike, which implies that pretty is only a hindrance up to a certain point. How true that is I don't know, but it's a fun ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au17YpGAa-s
Posted by: shannon | December 31, 2007 11:27 AM