In Defence of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl

most are likely familiar with the term manic pixie dream girl as it is a term and Trope that has infiltrated media and Minds since the term's conception in the early 2000s the term manic pixie dream girl was coined by Nathan Raven in 2007 when he published his review for the 2005 film Elizabeth Town the term was coined to address the flaws with the lead love interest of the film played by Kiren Dunst Raven wrote Dunst embodies a character type I like to call the manic pixie dream girl this character 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 though I believe throughout the years the term has strayed from Raven's original definition often misused in the context of criticism towards a film or character it has often been asked what are the defining characteristics that make up a manic pixie dream girl and whilst yes there are traits associated with the manic pixie dream girl I believe that by focusing our attention on the manic pixie dream girl character we are losing the essence of what makes her flawed to begin with the problem is not with the manic pixie dream girl herself but rather the lens in which she is viewed through as Nathan Raven highlights in his original coining of the term and the way in which this narrow lens the manic pixie dream girl is viewed from is reflective of a greater issue within our culture that impacts the way we view not just fictional women we see on screen or within the pages of a book but real life women as well as a girl growing up when I would watch films that featured a manic pixie dream girl I was always drawn to her and that was what was so frustrating about her I often related to these female characters and I wanted to know more about them I wanted her to have more scen time though the focus of the film was always irritatingly on a different character who lacked depth nuance and Intrigue a character at the root of the problem with the manic pixie dream girl the true defining nature that allows the manic pixie dream girl to exist is not really much that she does but rather the very specific lens that she is viewed through which takes form as an unnamed stock character that I am dubbing the stale white Wonderbread boy before we further into the video I would like to take the time to thank the sponsor of today's video care of care of provides highquality personalized vitamins and digital Health tools at your fingertips choosing the right vitamins to fit your needs can be really confusing and frustrating but care of makes the process of choosing vitamins easy and accessible by starting you off with a really quick quiz where it will address your needs and recommend you the appropriate vitamins for example I I've been struggling with energy issues recently and so one of the vitamins that it recommended me was a b complex vitamin for energy support the recommended vitamins come in these little daily compostable packages that way you'll never forget a vitamin or be overwhelmed trying to remember what you're meant to be taking you can use my code final girl fall for 50% off your first order with care of by clicking the link in my description or using my QR code thank you again to care of and now back to the video the stale white Wonderbread boy is characterized by his lack these characters are often boring unimpressive average boys played by white male actors who are typically normal looking enough so as to retain a level of non-threatening relatability to the men watching the stale white Wonderbread boy is intended to be a blank canvas for the average guy to project himself onto they are inherently unremarkable anyone can be a stale white Wonderbread boy boy that's the point they don't need to be remarkable their purpose is too gaze not to be perceived we typically meet these characters as they are enduring some sort of issue whether it be a job loss or an existential crisis whatever the issue may be it causes the manic pixie dream girl to magically spawn to heal his worries in his 2014 follow-up article titled I'm sorry for quinting the phrase manic pixie dream girl Nathan Raven States that day in 2007 I remember watching Elizabeth Town and being distracted by the preposterousness of its heroine Claire dun's psychotically bubbly stewardess seemed to belong in some magical otherworldly realm hence the pixie offering up her phone number to strangers and drawing Whimsical maps to help her man find his way and as dun cavorted across the screen I thought also of Natalie Portman in Garden State a similarly Carefree n fet who is the accessory to Zack bra's character development it's an archetype I realized that Taps into a particular male fantasy of being saved from depression and Ani by a fantasy woman who sweeps in like a glittery Breeze to save you from yourself and then disappears once her work is done often times the manic pixie dream girl is a Band-Aid for greater issues the protagonist's face though in the story she is treated as the be all end all solution the stale white Wonderbread boy is often dissatisfied with life though through the love and attention of the manic pixie dream girl all of his problems will be solved the stale white Wonderbread boy is the Catalyst for the manic pixie dream girl while the stale white Wonderbread boy can exist without a manic pixie dream girl and often does within film her existence as a stock character is reliant on being perceived by him unlike other female tropes the manic pixie dream girl cannot exist without the stale white Wonderbread boy as she only exists in his imagination she isn't real although the male gaze and the lens in which women are viewed through is always present within any female Trope The Gaze is typically more generalized though with the manic pixie dream girl we rely on an additional stock character within the film to view her through a very specific gaze for a contrasted reference the existence of the Fatal archetype is not reliant on a specific male stock character to be perceiving her though there are common male stock characters that likely appear such as the detective these male stock characters are not Reliant to make the Fatal a fatal nor do these detectives need to be the center of the story in order to perceive her through a very specific gaze the Fatal is characterized by her beauty seduction intelligence cunning and morally ambiguous nature and though she still may be perceived through the male gaze and ESS attributes that appeal to the male gays it is not a specific type of man perceiving her in order to exist movies such as Jennifer's Body Gone Girl and promising young woman star F fatel archetypes as the protagonist whilst subverting the story to be viewed through a feminist lens and yet the archetypal Integrity of the fem fatal remains in this way the manic pixie dream girl is more similar to the Lolita archetype in which she relies on a specific male archetype to be perceiving her in order to exist even in a fictional sense the Lolita cannot exist without the Gaze of Humber within the story even in the context of the fictional World in which the story is set Lolita is only real to Humbert to quote the author of Lolita Vladimir novakov in reality Lolita is a little girl of 12 whereas Humbert Humbert is a mature man and it's the abyss between his age and that of the little girl that produces the vacuum the vertigo the seduction of mortal danger it's the imagination of the sad seder that makes a magic creature of this little American school girl as benale and normal in her way as the poet mon hbert is in his outside the maniacal gaze of Humbert there is no nyet if you remove Humbert if you remove his specific gaze and Imagination you remove Lolita in a similar sense although less perverse the manic pixie dream girl exists solely in the imagination of the stale white Wonderbread boy it's in the imagination of this sad sadar that makes a magical creature of this eccentric quirky girl if you remove him you no longer have a manic pixie dream girl if you remove the motive for her to solve the steel white wonderbrad boy problems you no longer have a manic pixie dream girl if you make the manic pixie dream girl the main character you suddenly have too much depth and Nuance in order for her to qualify as a manic pixie dream girl anymore for this reason the manic pixie dream girl is very seldom the main character if ever and if she is the stale white wonderbrad boy is still present as a supporting character in the writer of the story and or the projected gaze of the audience this is congruent with the findings of Nathan Raven the man who created the term the manic pixie dream girl is emblematic of the Hess in which she is perceived her existence as seen on screen is filtered through the lens of the stale white Wonderbread boy her depth is filtered out leaving her to be a shell of the human she is she acts strange has obscure interests and often has interesting quirks though it is never explored as to where her obscure behavior stems from her interests don't matter they're merely Charming assets to make her appealing to the stale white window under bread boy both the one in the story and the ones in the audience I found myself often frustrated watching films that feature this Duo because whilst I found the manic pixie dream girl to be far more enticing she was always the supporting character to the stale white Wonderbread boy and an accessory to his journey though the stale white Wonderbread boy is infatuated with the manic pixie dream girl this infatuation is always superficial I additionally felt frustrated by this dynamic because I found myself rolling my eyes anytime the pair would get together because it just felt unrealistic to me I found myself wishing for more stories where the two lead love interests were equally as unique and interesting it felt like so often teenage love stories centered around a boy who was boring and plain featuring a girl who was eccentric and interesting yet underwritten throughout my teen years I found myself jokingly stating why can't the manic pixie dream girl find a manic pixie dream boy instead or another manic pixie dream girl and this phenomenon is not just in film but in books too I mean no disrespect to John Green but I remember reading Paper Towns and feeling so drawn to Margo but so bored with the book's protagonist Quinton which is ironic as John Green set out to write the book as a criticism of the manic pixie dream girl and stale wonderbrad boy Dynamic stating on Tumblr around the time of the novel's release Paper Towns is devoted in its entirety to destroying the LIE of the manic pixie dream girl I do not know how I could have been less ambiguous about this without calling Paper Towns the patriarchal lie of the manic pixie Dr girl must be stabbed in the heart and killed though in my opinion I'm not sure if his intentions were fully achieved or if he was merely replicating what he sought to destroy likewise in Looking for Alaska Alaska felt so interesting while miles felt incredibly boring and desperate I would drag myself through these books and films as a teen frustrated with the protagonist and eagerly awaiting every crumb of the manic pixie dream girl I could get because she was often the only female characters in popular media that was eccentric Whimsical and alternative an example of a director who is in my opinion great at creating captivating protagonists who are all interesting and often have a Whimsy reminiscent of the manic pixie dream girl despite their genders is Greg araqi films like the doomed generation and Mysterious Skin feature characters that could have fallen into the dynamic of the manic pixie dream girl and stale white Wonderbread boy but because Greg araqi creates characters that are all interesting eccentric and nuanced regardless of their gender he avoids falling into this trap I think because Greg araqi is queer he is free from the constraints of heteronormativity that many male writers fall into a popular teen film that I believe also manages to step away from the manic pixie dream girl and stale white Wonderbread boy trap is 10 Things I Hate About You specifically referring to Patrick and Cat their Dynamic is so unique and under represented within film this pairing is an example of a couple who both have alternative interests and are Charming though they are evenly matched and therefore are not perceived through a desperate superficial and romanticized lens and rather they are humanized by one another seeing each other for not only their charm but also their evident flaws and falling for each other regardless the focus on the manic pixie dream girl herself rather than the character that she is being perceived through has led to a misattribution of the manic pixie dream girl Trope often times female characters that merely exhibit traits of quirkiness or accent centricity are incorrectly labeled as manic pixie Dream Girls many characters that have been labeled manic pixie Dream Girls by the general public are actually not due to the hollow of their character being intrinsic to the Trope for example Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is often included amongst online lists quizzes and discussions about manic pixie Dream Girls merely because she has colored hair and displays symptoms of mental illness though I would argue Clementine is not a manic pixie dream girl in fact Clementine addresses the shallow lens that others perceive her through headon when she states too many guys think I'm a concept or I complete them or I'm going to make them alive I'm just a up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind don't assign me yours in this line Clementine simultaneously sums up and shatters the manic pixie dream girl illusion I would argue that Joel is likewise a reformed stale white wonderbrad boy even after Clementine disclosed to him that she is not a concept she will not complete him or fix him Joel admits that he still thought she would save his life I still thought you were going to save my life even after [Music] that I know though as the story progresses we see what happens after this initial phase we see as Joel grows was irritated by these quirks and aspects of Clementine's personality that he initially romanticized which is why Clementine gets to exist with more depth and Nuance because he perceives her for what she is human and they choose each other not in spite of but because of their Humanity one of my all-time favorite films is the 1986 erotic French psychological drama Betty blue one of the reasons why I adore this film is I feel as though it takes the characteristics of the manic pixie dream girl Trope and elaborates the film is set up in the beginning like that of a typical manic pixie dream girl and stale white wonderbrad boy story when I initially watched this film I was afraid at the beginning that Betty would just be another manic pixie dream girl only superficially there to serve the interest and passions of the protagonist though I was pleasantly surprised when the film banded on Betty's character in the beginning those traits that seemed so quirky and fun such as her spontaneity turned out to be symptoms of deeper mental illness and throughout the film her nature unfolds I have heard criticisms about Betty blue in which viewers suggest that the film does follow a manic pixie dream girl stale white Wonderbread boy Dynamic though I have to disagree there is an explanation for her quirks and eccentricity that makes him initially fall for her something that is not explored in a typical manic pixie dream girl Dynamic the beginning of the film so beautifully exemplifies the way in which we as humans often will Overlook or even romanticize red flags because we are blinded by adoration and the excitement of new Love and as the story progresses it reveals how relationships over time can become more challenging rather than fixing the protagonist issues Betty inevitably begins to create many obstacles Les for him as a result of her own personal struggles she additionally does not fix zorg as is typical of a manic pixie dream girl and stale white Wonderbread boy Dynamic she believes in him and loves him but she is also consumed by her own mental illness films like Betty blue and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind show what the manic pixie dream girl and the stale white Wonderbread boy look beyond the happily ever after the key difference between the man manic pixie dream girl and the stale white Wonderbread boy is that whilst the manic pixie dream girl is a character that cannot exist in real life as she is defined by her lack of humanity the stale white Wonderbread boy is characterized actually by his existence in reality more often than not the stale white Wonderbread boy is written by a stale white Wonderbread boy though whilst the manic pixie dream girl cannot exist in real life it is fascinating that this Trope manages to seep into the lives of real women and fem more so than perhaps any other Trope during adolescence I think many girls can relate to the phenomenon of trying to be a real life manic pixie dream girl this phenomenon is not synonymous though deeply related to the modern term pikme girls used to define girls who are quirky and not like other girls often in order to gain male validation and expressed as a form of internalized misogyny many of us as teen girls would pick our manic pixie dream girl of choice and emulate her perhaps choosing characteristics from multiple or create our own our lives became a vessel to display our collage of manic pixie dream qualities the remnants of this phase can still be found as a sort of manic pixie dream girl graveyard in our childhood bedrooms the unsted ukulele Gathering dust on the Shelf a pile of vintage records under your bed maybe you still have a fondness for the rock you started listening to during this era or you winse at the fact that your lingering nicotine addiction started here I used to contemplate the parts of my identity that would be written into my manic pixie dream girl Persona if I was a fictional girl so much of girlhood is performance art curating our existence to be perceived the way we desire to be because we have been taught that this is our ultimate purpose we are taught that to be loved is to be consumed to be conscious of our place as a commodity to men and for many of us this showed up in our adolescence as trying to become manic pixie Dream Girls because for many of us that is how we made our eccentricities and undiagnosed neurod Divergence palatable and ultimately consumable many of us gravitated towards the manic pixie dream girl as teen girls because it was one of the only representations at the time of eccentric interesting alternative neurod Divergent coded women and not only did they have these qualities they were adored for them they weren't the subject of ridicule or a joke they were sought after though once we grew a little older and realized that this adoration was merely superficial and that these characters were actually Half Baked it shattered an illusion because we realized that the representation of these traits was Hollow and like many aspects of femininity was only showcased to cater to a superficial male fantasy rather than accurately display the humanity of women there is additionally something to be said about the fact that the majority of women represented by the manic pixie dreamgirl Trope are white women it is important to note that even in these superficial depictions it sends the message that eccentric quirkiness and neurode Divergent traits are only considered cute and desirable when expressed by thin white women who maintain a close enough proximity to beauty standards to remain and so as if a pendulum swinging any girl who has had this phase of trying to be a manic pixie dream girl once they grow out of this they often viscerally hate being called a manic pixie dream girl I know so many women who can relate to being OB I ified due to men perceiving them as their quote unquote manic pixie dream girl due to the prevalence of this Trope within media just a few months ago a friend of mine chopped her hair into a bob and dyed it maroon when I saw her I half jokingly asked her how many guys have approached her with the opening line hey you look just like Ramona Flowers she rolled her eyes and said none yet but I've gotten that my entire life many women I know have ranted in a very similar vein to Clementine from Eternal Sunshine at the Spotless Mind as mentioned earlier when she states too many guys think I'm a concept or I complete them or I'm going to make them alive I'm just a f up girl who's looking for her own peace of mind so many girls I know have said this almost verbatim I think this is where the temper tantrums come in when men get so upset that girls won't sleep with them or date them and they cry out the dreaded friend zone and you led me on accusations because it's not following the fantasy pattern that they have been told so many times Growing Up by books and media men who fit the stale white Wonderbread boy mold have been fed the story that no matter who they are they will end up with the girl and they deserve to and once they do all of their problems will be solved and so when women are revealed to be actual people with nuance and depth and personalities rather than a hollow manic pixie dream girl ready to fall effortlessly in love with them and heal their sorrows in the process they feel as though they have been robbed and that it's women who are robbing them we are the ones who are not following the script and so we must be the problem and the reality is the manic pixie dream girl is often a projection of a time in which a still white wonderbrad boy was rejected in real life and later became a writer thus able to rewrite his Destiny in the fictional world with the girl with blue hair who liked the Smiths by placing the emphasis on the manic pixie dream girl giving her a name and a Trope we are misdiagnosing the issue due to this we have the issue of critics and audiences blanketing Every Girl in a film with colored hair a quirky interest or symptoms of mental illness as a manic pixie dream girl when they are not by alienating the women in the story we contribute to the problem in which we aim to criticize the problem was never the manic pixie dream girl but rather the person perceiving her as one-dimensional the manic pixie dream girl reveals more about the nature of the men who write her than it reveals anything about women and the prevalence of the manic pixie dream girl within movies books and media additionally highlights a greater issue within our culture by Ali I ating and isolating the female love interest the manic pixie dream girl we have diagnosed a symptom but not the problem at Hand by hyper fixating on the manic pixie dream girl rather than the stale white Wonderbread boy that perceives her we are telling on ourselves as a culture we have grown so used to these types of protagonists that they manage to effortlessly camouflage into fiction whilst it's important to criticize shallow depictions of women it's equally important to criticize and name what allows these shallow depictions to exist in the first place and in this case it's the stale white Wonderbread boy

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Length: 25min 41sec (1541 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 16 2023