Diablo Cody, Megan Fox Team Up For Horror Comedy

By Katey Rich

Cody: stripper turned Hollywood power player

Just when it seems Hollywood doesn't create real-life fairy tales anymore-- or that they all end in rehab or flashing the paparazzi--here comes Diablo Cody to warm our hearts again. While she's not exactly Laura Ingalls-- she did, after all, make her name writing a blog about her experience as a stripper--she's the latest example of a small-town girl made good, having wowed audiences with her screenplay for the Toronto Film Festival hit Juno and subsequently signed a deal to write a TV show for Showtime and, it was announced today, a horror comedy called Jennifer's Body, starring Megan Fox (Transformers). Fox plays a perfect-seeming cheerleader who becomes possessed and starts killing the boys in her town.

Normally casting news that involved the random chick from Transformers wouldn't catch my attention, but I've kind of fallen in love with Cody in the last few days, from reading her new blog about her experiences promoting Juno and getting incredibly excited about finally seeing Juno for myself. Cody also makes a great point about Jennifer's Body, which on first read seems to be standard horror-with-a-hot-chick fare: "And now-- Hollywood's tiresome profusion of 'girlfriend roles' be damned-- she's going to literally get out there AND DESTROY SOME FUCKING BOYS."

I've developed a personal vendetta against the "girlfriend role" lately, thanks to Michelle Monaghan and Mary-Louise Parker's wasted performances in Gone Baby Gone and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, respectively, and also Eva Mendes' elegant performance in We Own the Night, which proves that a girlfriend doesn't have to be a one-dimensional stand-in for a real emotional partner. Whether or not Cody will actually have any real power to change this trend--my guess is not, as much as I love her-- it's great to hear someone actually yelling about it, especially someone who's on the verge of making a serious  name for herself in Hollywood. It's outrageous that we're still struggling for real female characters onscreen, and I never would have expected Megan Fox to become one, but I'll take it in whatever form it comes.