Giving birth to 'Juno'

Eventually, Hollywood came calling. Cody says her Hollywood manager, Mason Novick, was googling profane names for the female anatomy when he stumbled upon Cody's blog and became a fan. After courting her for eight months, he eventually helped her land her book deal and start screenwriting. In the interim, the jobs have poured in, including a horror-comedy, "Jennifer's Body," about a cheerleader ("Transformers' " Megan Fox) who devours men, and "Girly-Style," her female empowerment answer to "Superbad." There's also a Showtime comedy, based on an idea from Steven Spielberg, "The United States of Tara," about a mother with a split personality disorder. It stars Toni Collette and is slated to start shooting when the writers strike is over. Although she's talked frequently to Spielberg on the phone, she hasn't met the icon yet. "I'm looking forward to that. It's a tough meeting to get," she says, adding that despite her flip mouth, she's a Spielberg nut. "I genuinely love his movies. I always have. I think 'E.T.' may be the first movie I ever saw in the theater."

Cody is aware that it's not been a great time for females onscreen, given the paucity of interesting roles.

"It's a grim time for women," says the writer. "I feel sometimes like we live in 'The Matrix,' " she says, referring to the Keanu Reeves film in which people live in a pseudo-reality. "People are completely blinded to the patriarchy because we're so used to it. I try to live every day completely alert and aware of how I'm being marginalized. I don't have a persecution complex, but I look for it."

This said, as a screenwriter, and potentially one day a director, Cody hopes at least to keep adding quirky, subversive, original female characters to the Hollywood canon.

"I have a responsibility to write strong female characters. I'm going to continue to do it."

rachel.abramowitz @latimes.com