In 2005, this film came out. Two years later,
a film critic pointed out how poorly the female lead was written. People talked about it. A lot.
They pointed out other characters like this, though they got some of them wrong. And then in
2013, The Cut decided that the trope was dead. But that’s not where the story of
the Manic Pixie Dream Girl ends. First of all, the trope arguably still does
exist, if not on screen then certainly in the subconscious of real-life people. But, as you
can probably guess from the title of this video, not all women were equally affected by this trope.
That’s because the Manic Pixie Dream Girl’s traits are almost entirely based
off of neurodivergent traits. Okay. Let’s back up. Film critic Nathan Rabin,
who coined the term, defined a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, or MPDG, as a female character who
“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 layman’s terms, it was a criticism of “quirky” female love interests with no goals or
purpose other than teaching the male protagonist some important life lesson. (“I have a gift.
A special ability to help men with problems.”) And that criticism was good, and accurate, but
also caused some problems. Nathan Rabin himself has apologized for coining the term, due to how
it often leads to people completely writing off female characters with remotely quirky interests
and labelling them as MPDGs—even when they might actually be quite complex. (“Too many guys think
I’m a concept, or, I’m going to complete them, or I’m going to make them alive. I’m just a f***ed
up girl looking for my own piece of mind. Don’t assign me yours.”) A view on this trope that I personally like is the
idea that the woman here isn’t the problem; it’s the guy. I think that’s perhaps the least nuanced
thing I’ve ever said, so... let me elaborate. Having a female character who does quirky things
and is extraverted and bubbly and all those things is not inherently a problem. The bigger
issue is the male main character, who simply soaks up what the MPDG has to offer and kind of
brings nothing to the table (“she has men dying at her feet”). When we criticize this trope,
it should be a criticism of the male character, or of the lack of complexity in the
writing of the MPDG, not the MPDG herself. People sometimes mistakenly hate the female
character for the way she acts—instead of hating the people who wrote the character
to be one-dimensional and without nuance, or hating the male character for viewing
her as a one-dimensional person who exists simply for the man’s character development.
Essentially: it’s not a problem that these girls are unique; it’s a problem that their character
is defined by a man’s story, instead of their own. I could go into further detail on this character,
because it’s a concept that has certainly impacted my life… But it’s also a concept that has been
discussed to death, so let’s cut to the chase. Now that we’ve established what defines
the MPDG, let’s talk about how that relates to neurodivergence. (by the way: I’m using
‘neurodivergence’ here as a really broad term throughout this video, seeing as the
MPDG often intersects with autism, BPD, ADHD, and more, not just
a singular mental illness) In short: most if not all of the traits associated
with the Manic Pixie Dream Girls are also neurodivergent traits. They have big imaginations,
they’re impulsive and energetic, have difficulty focusing, they disregard social norms… (“you
know what I do when I feel completely unoriginal? I make a noise or I do something
that no one has ever done before, and then I can feel unique again”). Though these
characters are never labelled as neurodivergent, they almost always have traits that imply it.
And of course, the most significant evidence of the correlation between
the MPDG and neurodivergence is how many neurodivergent women can often
identify with the traits of the MPDG. Though a common criticism of this character is
that she ‘couldn’t possibly exist in real life’, which is true in that no women
so one-dimensional exist, there are actually quite a few neurodivergent
women who identify with many of their traits. (“When I say that the traits of a Manic Pixie
Dream Girl are described as too otherworldly to actually be real—that’s how a lot of autistic
women grow up to feel, too. Like aliens”) So… maybe that’s not so bad, right? Could this in
fact be a trope that finally offers neurodivergent women the representation they lack? In short,
no. Absolutely not. Let’s talk about why. The general idea of fetishizing
mental illness, especially in film, is nothing new. It’s not uncommon for men both
in real life and film to want the eccentricity, bubbliness, and often hyper-sexual nature that
they assume neurodivergent women all exhibit. But the MPDG in particular was long
thought of as a trope that was simply harmful to women - not specifically
neurodivergent women. But with the understanding that MPDGs almost
always exhibit neurodivergent traits comes the understanding that MPDGs are… really
bad representation for neurodivergent women. It’s not just women who are shown as people
who only exist to facilitate a man’s growth; it’s neurodivergent women, which is even
more harmful due to the already-existent stereotypes about them. The MPDG reduces
neurodivergent women to a concept, to guardian angels that will fix
broken men and teach them life lessons (“This is your comfort zone. All the things
you want in the world are way out there.”) This can mean that women with certain
mental illnesses can be viewed by men as “real life MPDGs”, as countless social media
threads by neurodivergent women recount. This on screen fetishization, along with its
impact on neurodivergent women’s dating lives, also manifests itself in the form of sexual
violence, especially through its portrayal of neurodivergent women as hyper-sexual (“I’ll
race you to the bedroom”). This unfortunately plays out in very real contexts; I won’t get
into specifics, but overall, sexual assault and violence rates tend to be disproportionately
high against neurodivergent women. Ultimately, one of the key traits of the MPDG
is that the relationship between her and the main character does not last. She’s fun for a
while, but in the long run she’s just too much (“what seemed like adorable quirks when
we were dating, now looked like… like, I don’t want to say my wife is handicapped,
but she is way more than a special snowflake”). This very likely is a reflection of how
neurodivergent women are often viewed. A 2012 study showed that men find women who
appear “psychologically vulnerable” more attractive—however, they’re less likely to want
to pursue long-term relationships with them. In film, neurodivergent traits
are, as Naoise Dolan puts it, diluted to appeal to the desires of neurotypical
men. These characters are aloof, but they don’t have mood swings; they are impulsive, but they
don’t exhibit aggressive behaviours… in short, they’re not real women. They instead mainly exist
to tap into the male desire for quote un-quote “crazy girls” (“how come the deeply troubled
women, you know deeply, deeply troubled women, are always the best in bed? You don’t want to be
with them for the long term, but for the short term there’s nothing like it.”)
These characters are fantasies, not realistic characters nor good
representation for neurodivergent people. So let’s start writing Manic Pixie Dream
Girls who are far more fleshed out, and call them what they are:
neurodivergent characters. And well we’re at it, let’s try making them not
all white, cis, straight, able-bodied, and skinny. That said, it’s unrealistic to expect filmmakers
to change everything about a trope, so… they can keep the colourful hair.
The colourful hair is pretty cool. (“Quirky, messy, women whose
problems only make them endearing, are not real.”) Thanks for watching! Let me know
your thoughts on this trope in the comments, and as always any requests for future videos.
