72) Former Selves

Today I got to thinking about Diablo Cody. (The exact train of thought was that I watched Milk last night, and writer Dustin Lance Black somehow made me think of Diablo Cody.) Aside from her witty and well-received writing in Juno and United States of Tara, Cody's fame can also be attributed to the fact that she is a former stripper. Some might even suggest that her rise to fame is made even more compelling by her past.

Indeed, one of Cody's first recognized forays into writing came in form of Pussy Ranch, a blog about her year as a stripper. According to Wikipedia, "At the age of 24, Cody wrote her memoir Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper. The memoir began after Mason Novick, who would soon become Cody's manager, showed interest in Cody's acerbic wit. Based on the popularity Pussy Ranch had received, he was able to secure her a publishing contract with Gotham Books." Though the infamous original blog has since been taken down, its very concept piqued my curiosity. How many blogs out there are written by current or former strippers? Has the number of said blogs spiked relative to Cody's success? How many aspiring writers who are also strippers have taken up the proverbial pen in the hopes of being the next discovered talent? (Google search at your own risk.)

The concept of our "former" selves helping to define our "current" selves is also interesting. Cody's story instantly hooks us - a former stripper turned Academy Award winning film writer. The seemingly more polar the two professions are, the more compelling - like a former garbage man turned fashion designer. Our fascination underlies the basic stereotypes we apply to these positions - that strippers aren't smart, let alone witty, or that garbage men aren't fashionable. So in the rare instance that someone disproves the stereotype, we are fascinated.