Are you a soulful and brooding young man
looking to spice up your life? Has the weight of the world and protecting all
those pesky women-folk from danger and distress got you needing a little
pick-me-up? Well look no further! We’ve
got the fix for you! The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is the just the solution for all your worldly problems! Fully
equipped with a dreamy doe-eyed gaze and trendy vintage clothes, the Manic
Pixie Dream Girl is just the muse you’re looking for! Your drab life will be
revitalized with her “joie de vivre” and don’t forget that certain “je ne sais
quois.” MPDG’s charms and quirks are simply “impossible to forget, but hard to
remember.” But wait! There’s more! MPDG will give you lofty standards and
unrealistic expectations about women, cursing all of your future relationships!
Over the past couple of decades we’ve seen
this static, whimsical, and often childlike “evil” emerge through popular films,
and this devil has a name: The Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Movies such as “Garden State”, “Elizabethtown,”
and “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World,” paint this male-gaze influenced and highly
romanticized version of a supporting lady whose sole purpose is rejuvenate our
sulky man-child, teaching him to grab his life by the horns, and live life to
the fullest of his God-given abilities.
We usually know absolutely nothing about these “enchanting” ladies, which
usually adds to her “mystique,” and she typically leaves just as fast as she
arrives (again, usually for reasons unknown.)
These types of women are influential on many
today’s young women in the worst possible ways. Romantic films featuring these
ladies are where young girls find some of the first ideas of love and how to
behave in their first romantic relationships, and model much of their own
behavior and ideas. MPDG, has become an eccentric role model for these young
women, and is preventing girls from finding their own voice in the world, as
well as creating a fear of revealing one’s self and emotions in a relationship
The MPDG is one of the most dangerous clichés
known women in today’s film industry. The most notable and (often overlooked)
aspect of the MPDG is that she is a dream
girl and in no way will you find her out in the real world. The
problem is that MPDG trope has the uncanny ability to lure in young twenty-somethings
(men and women alike) to either a) look for her or b) become her (let’s not
forget that she’s called a dream girl for a reason.)
Marc Webb’s “(500) Days of Summer” is the
story of boy meets girl. But we should know up front, this is not a love story. Summer Finn, played
Zooey Deschanel, is just your “average” girl. Her height: average, weight:
average, shoe size: slightly above average. For all intents and purposes,
Summer Finn is just another girl, except she wasn’t (she can quote The Boy With
the Arab Strap, she’s deep.)
Summer Finn is from Michigan and loves “unique”
music such as Carla Bruni, Belle & Sebastian, and Ringo Starr. Summer’s
life is decorated with periwinkle blue, Magritte and spontaneous trips to IKEA.
Summer also conveniently does not believe in love, and that’s pretty much all
we ever get to know about her.
Tom Hansen is from New Jersey, loves sad
British Pop music, and honest to God believes that he will never achieve true
happiness until he finds “the one.” His limp life needs a handy-dandy injection
of quirky whimsy and free-spirited youth, and like two ships passing in the
night (or rather the elevator) his prayers are miraculously answered. Tom
unfortunately falls head over heels for the bubbly big-blue-eyed girl-creature
that is Summer Finn.
We should also know up front that Ms. Deschanel
is the unofficial poster-child for the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and that “(500)
Days of Summer” is Deschanel’s fifth offense. Marc Webb, however, argues in defense of
Deschanel and the film stating that “Summer is often identified as a MPDG, the movie
can be seen as a deconstruction of the trope because it shows the dangers of
idealizing women as things, rather than respecting them as real people with
their own complex outlooks.” This statement would be believable for films such
as “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” where the trope is directly
addressed in case of Clementine Krucznski, and very clearly shows destructive
aftermath of idealizing the MPDG.
Webb
follows the cliché so closely, that it feels like he is having his cake and
eating it too. From a soundtrack featuring indie sweethearts such as Regina
Spektor and Feist to casting the complete and total embodiment of the MPDG,
Zooey Deschanel herself (Deschanel even has a website called “HelloGiggles how
is that not supposed to be quirky?), Webb feels like he’s just making up
excuses for his perpetual bad behavior. “(500) Days of Summer” looks like Webb
is saying, “I made a mess to show you the dangers of making you a mess, now
haven’t you learned a valuable lesson?” Webb even includes an infamous MPDG
scene where Deschanel inspires Gordon-Levitt to be free and shout “penis” at
the top of his lungs in a crowded park. Seriously, Webb is being a huge
hypocrite.
It really
doesn’t matter what Webb says about Summer and her character being “different”
from all the other wild and free-spirited MPDGs out there, and saying that
she’s different from all the other MPDG is just making it worse. This type of
cinematic vehicle traps and forces plenty of young women into behaving
erratically and freaky, because it seems that that is the only way to be
romantically pursued by men. The problem is that behaving like Summer (or
anything Zooey Deschanel is in for that matter) creates cat-ear wearing,
ukulele-playing weirdos that can’t connect to other people, and have trouble
maintaining meaningful relationships.
“(500)
Days of Summer” takes us through the ups and downs between Summer and Tom, but
throughout the film we never really learn just why Summer shrinks away from
Tom. She never mentions that Tom puts her on a pedestal, or that maybe she is
feeling trapped by his affections. In fact, she never really says how she feels
ever. All Summer has to offer Tom is that she was never really looking for a
serious relationship (yet they remain monogamous), and that she was wasn’t
really sure with him. The only real reason that one could garner from her strange
behavior is that maybe Tom got too close to discovering who she really is: a
normal, imperfect human being who probably wakes up with messy hair and
morning-breath just like the rest of us. So she does what anyone with a secret
would do, and cuts him out of her life.
During
the scene where the narrator mentions the “wall of casual” and it breaking
down, the closer Tom and Summer become, is actually the tipping point in their
relationship. The more they seemingly grow together, the more Summer pulls away
from Tom. The fear of being close to someone and revealing deeper, truer
feelings is natural for any new couple. It can be scary pouring your heart out
into another person, but without that sense of trust and closeness, a
relationship can only grow apart.
As
someone who has been (on more than one occasion) stereotyped as a MPDG, I’ve
learned first-hand the negative effects of being treated like an object used
for someone else’s personal benefit. MPDG are supposed to be muses and care
givers to wretched young men. They’re meant to turn these gloomy boys’ lives
around and be fun all the time. The fact of the matter is that it is a load of
pressure to responsible for someone else’s well-being as well as your own, and
eventually someone’s sanity is going to give. Men who have seen me as their
MPDG end up hating you in the end for not providing enough dream results for
them, and eventually you learn to leave just as fast as you came for no
explainable reason.
Even
today, the MPDG still has an effect on how I behave towards people and how I
pursue my relationships. As someone who is naturally petite, has bangs, and is
generally socially restrained it is difficult to not be perceived as a MPDG.
What I have learned is that I don’t have to talk to or pursue relationships
with the people who treat me like a MPDG. I can’t help my small stature. I
decide to wear bangs because they hide my big, unkempt Italian eyebrows, and I
am purposefully quiet because I find that it is always more important to listen
to others first.
Deschanel
has even vaguely attempted to break the mold of the MPDG herself. The recent
Fox sitcom, “New Girl” is Deschanel’s and Elizabeth Merriweather’s poor attempt
at making the MPDG into a “new girl.” Although the show is a hit with viewers,
the show sadly fails at creating a new type of girl. Being coined as “simply
adorkable” Deschanel can now plead guilty of six counts of perpetuating the
MPDG stereotype. She now serves as a dream girl to four men at once. In
addition, her character is often is annoying, and is treated like a child.
There
are simple ideas about people, but there are no simple people. Today the MPDG
isn’t much of a character at all, which may be why women have so much trouble
seeing them as dimensional entities. Women are far more complex that any MPDG.
As women, we are novelists, musicians, painters, performers, and so much more.
Although it has been claimed by many a starving artist, that a woman was the serving
inspiration for his great piece of art, women are nobody’s muse and object of
lust. It’s also okay to have unique hobbies like loving to roller-skate, play
in a band, or paint. But our quirks only define a small part of who we all are
as people, man or woman. The MPDG is a device that is long overdue for retirement.
No girl on the planet can ever live up to the expectations of being a MPDG.
They’re dream girls for a very good reason.
The real
issue here is that men, writers and Hollywood alike need to start portraying
women in a more realistic light. Women come in all shapes and sizes, and the
MPDG makes women feel worse about their body image and self-esteem than any
model out there. We need to stop pressuring girls and women into behaving and
trying to pretend they are something that they’re not. We should celebrate that
we are all different and unique, and not in a Manic Pixie Dream Girl way.
