Candy Girl

If you’ve seen “Juno” and I think most of us have, you have an immediate fascination with its screenwriter, Diablo Cody. She is one of those Hollywood stories we love. She basically came out of nowhere and wrote a hilarious, Academy Award winning screenplay. She’s our new Matt Damon and Ben Affleck back in the “Good Will Hunting” days. Let’s just hope the similarities end there. I’d hate to see Diablo breaking up with a lover on Oprah or see her dating J Lo!

So the curiosity with the new Hollywood babe naturally led me to want to read her memoir, “Candy Girl: The Story of an Unlikely Stripper.”

First, I have to say Ms. Cody has an unusual definition of unlikely. She has some tats and she mentions disliking a particular mesh stripping outfit because it always snagged her nipple piercings (normal?). She and her boyfriend (now ex-husband) would frequent “booby bars.” I feel she refers to “unlikely” because she’s college educated, doesn’t have enormous fake boobs and is not a drug addict. In that vein, I guess I’ll agree with her definition, which does, unfortunately, uphold a particular stereotype, but still…this not quite the girl next door.

This memoir was apparently written, not only pre-Juno, but pre-anyone even being interested in her stripper bio. Once her stripper days were behind her, Diablo attracted attention for her writings on the now defunct “Pussy Ranch” web site. You can still read some older content at: http://blogs.citypages.com. She had already had “Candy Girl” in the can when approached by Mason Novick of Benderspink.

So the memoir itself is really just a stop on Ms. Cody’s evolution to who she is today. Her humor and pop culture references abound and we also learn a bit about the stripping world.

For those of us who don’t know, it’s pretty surprising how much a stripper owes the house by the end of her shift and it’s even more surprising that you can shake your goodies all night and go home with nothing. There’s also not a lot of camaraderie because no one has time to chit-chat. Time is money and you’re only as good as your last performance. These are learned skills that I’m sure Ms. Cody now finds prepared her perfectly for a career in Hollywood. This is written about as clean as a stripper memoir can be, but even with the interest young girls may have in her, I’d still make sure it’s an adult read.

Now, with an Academy Award under her belt, Diablo Cody is a busy woman. She writes a regular column for Entertainment Weekly, has a couple of other flicks in the works and a TV show for “Showtime.”

In a sense, women are still taking off their clothes to make it in Hollywood, but at least it’s not a dirty little secret anymore. “Have you seen these? Yes, they are my breasts. Now, can we move on?” You go Diablo!