FE
An
infestation of
Manic Pixies JENNA BORISEVICH CONTRIBUTOR When Kirsten Dunst’s whimsical joie-de-vivre spurred Nathan Rabin to coin the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” trope in his 2007 review of the film Elizabethtown, the internet rejoiced. Finally, there was a term that perfectly embodied those quirky, idiosyncratic women-fairies who, according to Nathan, “exist solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer/directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” Yes, the fanciful Manic Pixie Dream Girl endures entirely for the purpose of titillating and inspiring her young geek boy protagonist. She waltzes into his life, a ukulele strapped haphazardly to her back, and elevates his gloomy disposition with her vivacious nature and words of unique wisdom. Then she prances right on out, generally accompanied by a soulful yet uplifting indie track. What makes her extra special is her ability to accomplish all of this without actually revealing anything significant about herself. This is because the MPDG is not allowed to have any kind of real interiority. The moment she does, she evolves into an authentic character and the magic is lost. Humans aren’t pixies after all; they’re just people. Since Rabin’s invention of the term, the mere mention of the MPDG trope is likely to elicit deep groans from enlightened audiences. For years, the stereotype has been analyzed to the point that its very definition has transformed into something as intangible as the inspiration for the trope itself. Any remotely eccentric or offbeat character is at risk of being shoved into the MPDG category. Ruby Sparks, for instance, is a film that seeks to deconstruct the MPDG trope. Written by Zoe Kazan, this film illustrates the danger of the male protagonist’s inability to wholly imagine Ruby’s complexity as a character, thereby unraveling the patriarchal undertones of the Manic Pixie persona. Despite its intentional dissection of the infamous trope, Kazan’s portrayal of Ruby is frequently lumped together with other MPDGs rather than acknowledged as a parody of the cliché. When questioned about her character’s MPDG status in an interview, Kazan asserted, “I think it’s basically misogynist… I don’t like that term… I think it’s turned into this unstoppable monster where people use it to describe things that don’t really fall under that rubric.” Even Rabin himself has started to renounce his own creation. Seven years after coining the term, he apologized for having named the inescapable pop-culture cliché: “I feel deeply weird, if not downright ashamed, at having created a cliché that has been trotted out again and again in an infinite Internet feedback loop.” Despite recurring analysis and criticism of the sexist stereotype , this superficial and underdeveloped female character trope continues to materialize in various facets of pop culture. Laurie Penny calls attention to the pitfalls of the trope in her essay, “I was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl,” where she demonstrates the tendency of female archetypes to appear in real life. “Fiction creates real life,” she explains, “particularly for those of us who grew up immersed in it.” She criticizes the trope for encouraging women to resign themselves to a secondary role in their own lives. While men are raised expecting to be the hero of their own story, women grow up “expecting to be the supporting actress in somebody else’s.” Her statements ring true with young girls who are led to believe, for approximately 90 minutes at
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