The Male Gaze and the Manic Pixie Torie Rose DeGhett
The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG), a popular pejorative for a recurring feminine archetype in contemporary art (particularly film), can be somewhat loosely defined as a female character who exists in her role exclusively for the development of the male lead, and who exhibits some of those qualities of femininity that elicit an almost reflexive love-to-hate response from many critics, think Zooey Deschanel's Summer in 500 Days of Summer or Kate Hudson's Penny Lane in Almost Famous. When Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club coined the now-ubiquitous term, he used it to snark Kirsten Dunst's character in Elizabethtown, describing the MPDG phenomenon as "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." In many ways, criticism of the MPDG phenomenon has played fast and free with that definition: casting similarly-framed aspersions on any of those female characters considered "bubbly, shallow" creations that appeal to the sensitive. These are the female characters that wear thrift shop dresses and ribbons in their hair, who have live-in-the-moment life philosophies, who act as sexually-liberated muses and are culturally bound to that vague yet damning term: quirky. You all know her, and many of us have shunned her as false and irritating, yet she is far more complex and far less cookie cutter than many critics and viewers give her credit for. The MPDG as an element of cinematic criticism has gained surprising traction across the blogosphere in a short time, clearly tapping into a powerful undercurrent of shared sentiment. The critical concept does not exist entirely without good reason: the general means of portraying women on screen in typical film and television is impoverished and superficial. We should be critically discussing the social and aesthetic failings of characterizations of cinematic women. This essay, however, aims Torie Rose DeGhett freelances for a variety of publications, frequently writing about politics and music, and is a contributing arts writer at Aslan Media.
31 ♌ Somersault