Off the Stripper Pole and Into the Movies

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A few years ago, Brook Busey-Hunt was typing copy at a Minneapolis advertising agency and walked by the Skyway Lounge, a skeevy strip bar where desiccated women grind out a living a dollar at a time. Good Catholic girl that she was, Ms. Busey-Hunt saw an ad for amateur night and had a naughty epiphany. And the rest is, well, a stage name, a blog, a book and a screen writing career.

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Now named Diablo Cody, she wrote a screenplay that became “Juno,” a film directed by Jason Reitman set for release by Fox Searchlight on Wednesday. The story of a maniacally verbal 16-year-old girl who becomes pregnant and decides to give the baby to a childless couple, “Juno” is on most every short list for an Oscar for original screenplay.

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Sitting recently at the Rainbow, a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles draped in rock history, Ms. Cody, 29, did not pretend that her life was anything other than a fairy tale, albeit one where the role of the glass slippers is played by a pair of stripper’s stilettos.

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“You make this really unexpected, half-cocked decision and all of a sudden it creates this weird energy that turns into something else,” she said during lunch. A self-described geek who had led a very insular life, she said that getting naked for strangers was her version of self-improvement, a way of transgressing her upbringing and opening up other doors. Unlike many strippers who resemble balloon smugglers with very large hair, Ms. Cody is a crisscross of tattoos and post-punk fashion, sort of Suicide Girl meets Riot Grrrl.

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Those trips down dimly lighted runways, followed by a short stint as a phone-sex worker — “You have to convince them that your parents don’t know you are on the phone and that you are just aching to get with your physics teacher” — became an unmentionable titled blog. Mason Novick, a talent manager from Benderspink, a Los Angeles agency, came across the blog and eventually put her in touch with a New York literary agent, who sold “Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper,” which was published in 2005. Mr. Novick suggested she give screen writing a crack, and she bought a copy of the “Ghost World” screenplay so she could correctly format what became “Juno.”

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The movie has all the hallmarks of an art-house film — endlessly quirky dialogue with a soundtrack to match — but contains an old-fashioned moral center. At a time when many films about teenagers are a mess of machinations and hookups, “Juno” ends in a very tender hug.

Ellen Page, the young Canadian actress who starred in “Hard Candy,” plays Juno, a teenager who can’t get through a sentence without coining a metaphor. Juno becomes pregnant after a single sexual experiment born of ennui and friendship, and proceeds to waddle her increasing heft through the rest of the film while using her mouth as a plaything and weapon.

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In one instance she turns it on Michael Cera (from “Superbad”), who plays her so-geeky-he’s-sweet boyfriend. When she finds out he is going to the prom with a girl he admits “smells like soup,” she is livid and trapped. “I am wearing a fat suit I can’t take off. I am a planet,” Juno says, a huge belly protruding under her vintage T-shirt.

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Apart from the pregnancy, the character is heavily autobiographical, with her thrift-store fashions and kitschy taste; Ms. Cody’s beloved hamburger phone gets a cameo. And like Juno, Ms. Cody has an ability to capture the human transaction between genders and generations. In Ms. Cody’s case, she understands the nature of the compact between the demanding lout with a dollar in his hand and his objectified temporary fantasy. Stripping, she wrote in her memoir, required her to “bounce like the phantom cheerleader in the vault of every man’s memory.”

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Ms. Cody smiles plenty, but she is all done preening for the benefit of others. She now prefers creating characters on the page as opposed to the stage. Especially after her first script fell into such eager, talented hands.

Her new life may not always be so sweet, but the work is plentiful. Her future includes another book; a pilot for a series about a woman with multiple personalities called “The United States of Tara,” which was conceived by Steven Spielberg for Showtime; and several more features. (The Hollywood writers’ strike, however, has put a temporary hold on her movie and television work.)

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“I have never been an ambitious person, and my participation in this industry is a fluke, but only male writers can afford to be coy and self-deprecating,” she said, her hand absently stroking a Hello Kitty necklace. (“Tarina Tarantino. I bought it for $75 at a trashy mall in the Valley. I bought $220 jeans that same day and my cheeks burned with shame.”)

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“I plan on hanging on to my soul, but I am not precious about writing,” she added. “I am here to work and make money.”

Mr. Reitman said Ms. Cody would do just fine in Hollywood.

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“Just look at the name she chose for herself,” he said. “Yes, this is a fairy tale, but she is going to jump on every opportunity that comes her way. Her writing is both original and real, which is very rare in Hollywood.”

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The blow back from such immediate success did not take long to materialize, including a suggestion by Rob Nelson, a hometown film critic who once edited her newspaper work, that she is a self-conjured confection. “It’s as if the kid wrote her own Wikipedia entry before living it,” he wrote in The Rake, a Minneapolis monthly.

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While Ms. Cody said she was enjoying the success of “Juno,” the criticism can sting. “Stripping toughened my hide,” she said, “but exposing myself as a writer has been a lot more brutal.”

Her hair may be a riot of colors — red is usually featured, but it can change almost depending on her mood — and she may have once made a living letting it fall in the faces of her lap-dance clients. But Ms. Cody has mastered the fan dancer’s art of showing much and revealing little.

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“I’m totally a person who hides in plain sight,” she said. “I think there’s a lot written about me being totally candid and outrageous, when I’m actually pretty cagey.”

Part of the mystique came from an appearance promoting her book on “Late Show With David Letterman,” during which she referred to herself as the “naked Margaret Mead.” She went on to assert, “Everything is prostitution in a way.”

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As with her history as a do-me feminist, she makes no apologies for what she said. “I actually think everything is prostitution. We’re kind of constantly bartering with our dignity in life,” she wrote in an e-mail message after the lunch, adding that she always thought it was hilarious when strippers would draw the line at certain activities. “Same goes for people’s ideas, talents, emotions, etc. There’s a price on everything.”

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Michael Tortorello, who edited her when she brought her blog and writing to City Pages, an alternative paper in Minneapolis, senses a mixture of honesty and artifice in her transformation from Brook to Diablo.

“My impression is that once she started blogging and writing, it was if somebody popped a cork on a Champagne bottle and it has not stopped overflowing since,” Mr. Tortorello said. “She is a sweet and honest person, but there is also a mythology, a kind of self-invention by someone who grew up in suburban Chicago.”

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Ms. Cody, who just moved to Los Angeles with her husband, Jonny, a graphic designer, has ambitions beyond writing. She said she would like to direct at some point, partly because she loathes the way women are portrayed in most contemporary films.

“The attitude toward women in this industry is nauseating,” she said. “There are all sorts of porcine executives who are uncomfortable with a woman doing anything subversive. They want the movie about the beautiful girl who trip and falls, the adorable klutz.”

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Ms. Cody, who said she was less than graceful when she first went to work as a stripper, has her boots pretty firmly planted on the ineffable terrain of Hollywood.

“Obviously this is a very image-conscious industry, and I have mine to contend with,” she said. “I answer a lot of questions in meetings here other people probably aren’t asked.

“I show a little leg. But of course I am speaking metaphorically.”

Source – David Carr

The New York Time Movies

Joy says – The review totally intrigues me. What a refreshing angle! I can’t wait to watch the movie!

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Our Vision – One More Happy, Healthy and SensUal Woman

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Eleanor Roosevelt once said, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. How easy it is to forget this simple but profound truth. Often, we simply give our power away because we have been conditioned to do so. Especially if you belong to the female species.

There is an unspoken understanding going on. That your parents call the shots before your husband comes along. After which, he sits on the throne of your life. Men is always more …

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Carmen Electra’s Disc 4, the Lap Dance

SensUal Joy

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I have to say that I am pleased with this Carmen Electra’s instructional disc on lap dance. Although the dance was simple, there are still some challenging parts for a non dancer to grapple with. She comes across as very personable and encouraging. However I am not sure how knowledgeable she is in terms of anatomy. Still, she is a great dancer with wonderful smiling eyes.

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What I love most is that be it her mannerisms or her attire, there were no traces of sleaziness. I can’t say the same of certain videos out there. It is great that she is not of super thin build which might have led to the wrong motivations for the viewers.

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The warm up was useful with her dishing out relevant do’s and don’ts. There is also a bottom bar with helpful tips for beginners. I like the fact that she blended a blonde and a black dancer together. Also, sometimes the dancers do different variation of the same warm up which you can choose based on your own body abilities and limitations.

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Music is not distracting and there is this nice option of choosing your preferred music; techno, hip hop or rock. My favorite was the hip hop option. Of course there is the usual pictures gallery and interviews. Her life might not seem as put together as the video. Still a really good effort by her. Overall, a definitely above average video. Go for it. Worth every cent!

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Carmen Electra Official Website: http://www.carmenelectra.com/main.htm

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p.s. Send a blank email to loveprogram@getresponse.com for your complimentary one week coaching program with inspiration stories from your favorite female celebrities such as Kylie Minogue and Madonna - Jumpstart your Happy, Healthy and SensUal life today!

p.s.s. Love Kitten Bootcamp Live! (Love Program Beginners Part I) 7th June 1pm Sat is OPEN FOR BOOKING NOW.

please email to sensualjoy@gmail.com for your reservations.