Diablo Cody, Hollywood’s unlikely new darling

America's warring presidential candidates could learn a thing or two from Diablo Cody, writer of the wildly successful indie film Juno, for which she's just been nominated for an Oscar.

Cody, a lavishly tattooed ex-stripper, phone sex worker and self-declared radical feminist, has managed to bridge the frontlines of America's raging culture war. She has fashioned a film which has not only charmed Hollywood liberals with its hip, in-your-face feistiness, but has won over conservative evangelicals in Middle America with what they see as its anti- abortion, pro-family message.

Juno is about a deliciously independent, fast-talking, 16-year-old girl called Juno McGuff, played by the young Canadian actress, Ellen Page.

Juno gets pregnant the first time she has sex but decides to give her

baby up for adoption rather than have an abortion, a decision she takes after visiting a depressing abortion clinic where the terminally bored female receptionist prattles on about the smell of her boyfriend's penis and offers her a boysenberry-flavoured condom. The teenager flees.

Juno's decision has been applauded by conservative evangelicals unused to liking anything much that emanates from the Gomorrah they consider Hollywood to be.

"Pro-aborts will hate it," thrilled Jill Stanek, a leading anti- abortion campaigner, as the movie was released. "Juno is a great story that undermines almost all their talking points. The movie's ending goes almost as social conservatives would want it to go."

Although neither the filmmakers nor the distributor, Fox