Diablo Cody and Elizabeth Sarnoff

In the male dominated domain that is Hollywood, there are few females to compete with their male Director/ Screenwriter competitors. In fact, it is hardly a compitition at all considering that there aren't nearly as many females in the field as males. Thus, when looking for a female Director or screenwriter, it was not surprising that the selection was limited. However, Diablo Cody came to mind when looking for a female screenwriter for movies. I also wanted to include Elizabeth Sarnoff, because it is important to acknowledge female screenwriters for T.V., as often there are even more female writers in that category. Sarnoff wrote for the critically acclaimed T.V. show, "Lost" and was continually promoted each season until she was executive producer for the show. Sarnoff and the writing team for "Lost" were nominated numerous times and eventually won the award for Best Dramatic series. Curiously, there is little information on her. Once again it showcases how such information on female screenwriters is kept out of the public spotlight. This leads to Diablo Cody's work, which even more curiously managed to yank the spotlight from the usual Hollywood screenwriter and instead focused it not only on an unknown screenwriter, but an unknown female screenwriter.

Diablo Cody herself seemed the least likely person to be an award winning screenwriter. Before writing "Juno", she worked as a stripper and blogged about it. Cody gained worldwide recognition, after her original screenplay was chosen to be adapted to a movie. Later on Cody would go on to win the Academy Award for best original screenplay. Cody incorporates her own experiences into the script, making room for new subject material not explored in current movies. Auteur theory would classify her as an "edgy" woman who's writing style holds nothing back. Cody is quite honest and the experiences she uses from her own life show through her writing, displaying an unique quality that not many scripts have today. "Cody was never pregnant as a teen but the character of Juno MacGuff (played by Ellen Page) is, in many ways, autobiographical.""I can relate to that character on a really deep personal level, " Cody explains."

Almost overnight Cody went from unknown to one of the most discussed women screenwriters of today. Cody says of her writing style, "The same stories get told over and over again in Hollywood, says Cody, and I wanted to do something different. Juno is like a personal, emotional scavenger hunt for me. I dragged so many of my own experiences into it that I'm shocked the movie is so coherent."

So why was Juno met with such success? On the surface it appears to be a simple movie, hardly something one would expect to be amongst the other nominees for "Best Picture". And yet, there it was. As Bell Hooks says, "Movies not only provide a narrative for specific discourses of race sex and class, they provide a shared experience, a common starting point from which diverse audiences can dialogue about these charged issues." Using humor as her main tactic, Cody is able to gain the audiences attention. The humor opens the door and people relax and are open to subjects they might not often be as comfortable watching or talking about in a serious manner. Adults and the youth alike found themselves relating to the wisecracking 16 year old teen. Even the elderly movie reviewers and the Academy seemed to find something intriguing about the film. Cody's screenplay makes it very easy for viewers to relate to Juno. Cody was able to take a somewhat controversial, previously hushed up topic, and make it an acceptable discussion for a wide audience. As Bell Hooks says, "Movies do do not only offer us the opportunity to reimagine the culture we most intimately know, on the screen they make culture. This work interrogates even as it continually celebrates cinema's capacity to create new awareness, to transform the culture before our very eyes. "

Cody and Sarnoff both continue to write screenplays. Cody is currently working towards her directorial debut, but is still remembered most for taking her own experiences and incorporating then into her work. The scene where Juno tells her parents about her pregnancy came from Cody's own experience of telling her parents about her scantily clad previous occupation. "First I told them the good news that I was getting a book published, then I had to tell them it was about something that I did for a year that would horrify them and I guess my mother thought I'd been a crack dealer." No doubt her honesty will be remembered and leave a lasting impression on future movies and as inspiration for future women screenwriters.

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