I used to think hating Diablo Cody was only a regional pasttime. This is, after all, an area lousy with writers who have not written Writers Guild of America award-winning screenplays or gotten incredibly rich and famous or appeared on David Letterman. And sometimes, when the wind is blowing in the right direction, I swear you can hear about 500 of them grumbling: I wrote for City Pages once years ago. . . .and I could have been some skanky sex worker if I were willing to stoop that low. . . .and every single one of those screenplays sitting on my closet shelf is about a million times better than Juno.
Of course no one says exactly this. They jeer at her nom de plume and make fun of the length of her skirts and talk about how Juno — a sweet, decent film in a year full of overblown, overdone losers — sucked anyway. If Cody wins an Oscar, I imagine the gnashing and retching will go on in our local writing community (and believe me, I use that phrase loosely) for years to come.
Now, however, I come to find that the irrational antipathy for Cody has spread. In an article in Slate, writer Dana Stevens describes how what I previously thought of as a Minnesota phenomenon exists from coast to coast. People all over the world, apparently, hate D.C. and her movie (which, by the way, has grossed over $100 million, so some people must like it. . . ). And despite a mostly even-handed exposition of the whole controversy, Stevens herself even gets in a few digs.
In a strangely similar turn of events, it seems Hillary Clinton hating is on an upswing as well. Now, the Bush-Cheney set has always hated Hillary. (Since the day she announced her candidacy, my father has called her "Billary" — which causes me to grind my teeth practically into dust each time we're seated next to one another at Sunday dinner.) But here's a new twist: now, just as with Cody, it is Clinton's putative fellow thinkers who are spewing the most bile.
In "Hate Springs Eternal," his column in the New York Times yesterday, political commentator Paul Krugman wrote, "I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody."
What's going on here? We've got two immensely talented women — and I'm not going to make this a gender thing, because I truly don't think it is — being reviled as sport. Why? Jesus, I don't know. Pure envy in the first case, it seems. Zealous and cult-like political behavior [and let me say, I think this has little to do with Obama himself] in the other.
Now, listen my children: You should know that hate — whatever its genesis — will curdle your blood and cause painful ingrown hairs. It leads to cancer and shingles and bad posture. And more important, it's just bad juju for the rest of us, making this world an uglier place in which to live. So stop it!
And why should you listen to me? Because, I'm going to lead by example. I, too, have allowed hatred to creep into my heart. But I've seen the light and banished the darkness from my soul. I. . . .are you ready for this?. . . .have returned to Trader Joe's.
Back in November, I wrote about their trademark wine, Three-Buck Chuck, in a post that began, "Have I mentioned how much I hate Trader Joe's?" Well shame on me! I have been guilty of doing the devil's work with my foul words. What's more, I've actually, sort of, in a sense changed my mind.
It all started one day last week when I got a craving for white cheddar popcorn. One of my guilty secrets — even back when my soul was sullied — was my love for the snacky popcorn products available only at Trader Joe's. So at 3 in the afternoon, I drove over to get a bag. And while I was there, I stopped into the wine shop and picked up an $8 2006 Bordeaux from Chateau Michel de Vert.
It had a nice label. And we're working on saving money, my husband and I, particularly where wine is concerned. What the hell, I thought. And I trotted home with my white cheddar popcorn, which I ate immediately, and wine, which I uncorked around six o'clock.
I was dismayed even as I poured. The wine had a thin purplish color I didn't quite like. And it tasted. . . awful. A combination of fireplace ash and cough syrup. I took a swallow, gave my husband one. Then we stuck the cork back in and opened a bottle of the Portuguese wine I was raving about last week that we now buy by the case.
I had planned to absorb the eight dollar loss and call it a lesson: Trader Joe's is vile (unless you need a popcorn fix). But then, I recalled something vaguely. I'd heard a rumor, once, that TJ would take back any product for any reason. All you had to do was show up and demand your money back.
I was skeptical even so. I called the manager to ask, Could I return a bottle of wine that wasn't corked or heat-damaged or in any other way defective, simply because it wasn't to my taste?
"Absolutely!" he said. "Just look for me."
And so I did. Yesterday afternoon, I grabbed that old, warm bottle, took it back without so much as a receipt, and the manager — no questions asked — handed me my money. So pleased was I, it seemed natural to pick up yet another ultra-cheap Bordeaux: Les Caves Joseph 2005, which sells for (you're sitting down, right?) $5.99.
Was it special? Er, no. But what do you expect for six bucks. It was a spot-on average table wine, sweet and decent (much like Juno!), with a cherry-ish flavor and a little bit of rough wood.
So. Heed this story. I have seen the light, given up my hatred, and cleansed my spirit with a profoundly mediocre French wine. If I could, I'd buy a thousand bottles, get all the writers and rabid Obama supporters I know, and put them all together in a room. I see a big, diverse Bachannalian event. An orgy of the liberal and literati. All cheaply lubricated, thanks to Trader Joe's.
i really liked juno. and i'm really glad that a woman screenwriter is getting some goddamn attention. the character of juno doesn't expect anything from the guy who knocked her up. how powerful is that? diablo cody is a different face of feminism, but one nonetheless. i say good luck to her. i want to see women in film.
Is Diablo Cody the name her parents gave her? If not, then the moniker and the flashed ass might explain some of the dislike.
Funny thing: The TJs in other parts of the country are much less hateable. They're more spacious and have a much larger selection of goods and everyone seems more mellow, somehow. The one here is so cramped and badly laid-out that it seems to infect customers with callousness and greed. (And yes, I do mean you, you Pilatesorexic with the 4-carat diamond and the SUV the size of Ohio who rolled over my foot in the parking lot. See? Gets me too.) But I'm willing to forgive on behalf of the chile-lime leaf cashews, even though I can't find a wine they don't kill.
People are annoyed by Diablo Cody because she's annoying. It's that simple. It was annoying when City Pages tried to cram her blog down our throats, got more annoying when they did the same with her book, and reached peak annoyance when her movie came out and everyone decided to make an even bigger deal about her. Now, I've always basically thought her writing sucks, and therefore have not read her book or seen her movie. I have, however, seen pictures of her ass (thanks), heard lame songs from her movie on the radio, had to listen to people talk about her movie and insist that I see it (always annoying when people do that with something you know you won't like), and read articles about her in almost every magazine I read. She's overexposed and that's annoying. That's the problem, and it's doubly bad for people from the Twin Cities because she was overexposed here before anyone else knew about her. If she becomes more of a writer than a personality then maybe that will start to fade and people can appriciate her work on it's own merits.
Are non-writers and non-rabid Obama supporters invited to the Bachannalian event too? I'm all for cheaply lubricated events, no matter what the cause. My autographed copy of Candy Girl is one of my most prized possessions, so maybe I'd be good for baiting the Diablo-hating wanna-be writers.
I get the feeling that, in addition to your gift of creating wonderful images of wine and food and everything else with words, your best qualities include giving up hate and supporting the decisions of others.
While I don't understand the Diablo/Brooke antipathy -- she's really actually very nice and quite funny in person -- I think I have a solid sense of why Hillary is reviled in many circles.
Feminists despise her for tacit approval of her husband's philandering ways.
Obama supporters loathe her for her smug "I'm the presumptive nominee" approach to the Democratic primary, and her desperate mud-slinging when it became apparent that caucus-goers weren't swayed by her yellow pantsuits and ill-conceived "vote for the experienced candidate" pitch.
Republicans hate Hillary for her backseat driving during the Clinton era, attempting to steer the country toward the horrors of socialized medicine. Because lord knows it has caused problems for Finland.
Everyone else hates Hillary because she represents a long list of political slights and governmental compromise that most voters in the country would rather forget. And because she doesn't dress as well as Condi.
But I'm all for getting everyone in a room full of whatever sorts of lubricants they might prefer. It could bring our divided nation together in a rising tide of solidarity and alcohol. For has sobriety done anything more than drive a wedge between us all? Though the Three Buck Chuck approach means you'll have to wake up next to a grinning birthday-suited Dick Cheney.
Oh, I'm not saying I don't understand it, even applaud it, though I think it was a more Machiavellian choice than it was one made out of love, devotion, or patriotic altruism. I make more baffling choices than that on a nigh-daily basis though. I'm just providing some background on the hate.