Why Diablo Cody incorporated the criticism that Ironic isn't actually ironic into Jagged Little Pill
The Oscar-winning screenwriter talks about adapting Alanis Morissette's third album into a musical
For years after the release of Alanis Morissette's seminal album Jagged Little Pill, critics, comedians and English majors everywhere would make hacky jokes about its 10th track, Ironic, pointing out that none of the song's lyrics are actually ironic.
So when award-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody was tasked with crafting a story for the musical adaptation of Jagged Little Pill, her mind immediately turned to the question of how she was going to incorporate that particular song.
"It was one of the first scenes that I wrote for the show, actually, because I always like to attack the problems first," Cody tells Q's Tom Power in an interview. "I started thinking about the song's life outside of the album, and that sort of annoying criticism that Alanis had faced for it. And I thought, OK, what if I set this song inside an actual English class where a kid is having their work critiqued and they're being workshopped?
"So I was able to present the song as an essay that our teenage character had written. And everyone in the class is kind of going, 'Oh, that's not ironic.' You know, embodying the critics. It was just kind of a meta fun thing to do. I was worried that Alanis wouldn't like it, and a lot of people are surprised that she does. They thought, 'Oh, well, wasn't she a little offended by that?' And I was like, 'I don't know, I think she had a really good sense of humour about it, actually.'
Cody was only 29 when she won an Oscar for her first screenplay, Juno, which catapulted her to celebrity status as a Hollywood screenwriter. Jagged Little Pill is her first Broadway musical.
The story follows the dysfunctional Healy family: Mary Jane (a.k.a. MJ), her husband Steve, her star pupil son Nick (who has just been accepted to Harvard), and her adopted daughter Frankie.
As the last person to join the project, Cody was under the gun to finish the script. But she says — aside from Ironic — the rest of the album's songs easily fell into place.
"I just communed with the album," she tells Power. "I listened to the album and I realized that the story was already in there and that I knew exactly what to do. [Alanis] writes so many narrative songs, like a song like Perfect is telling a very clear and concise story about a person who's struggling to please others. Or the song Mary Jane, which was the jumping off point for me. There's a very distinct character presented in that song."
Jagged Little Pill is on stage now at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto.
The full interview with Diablo Cody is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. She also talks about Juno and Jennifer's Body. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Diablo Cody produced by Vanessa Greco.
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