In a completely unrelated note to what I’m about to discuss: Happy 25th birthday to my darling Teddy Bear! White-Harp wishes him a happy berfday too. *\(^.^)/*
Summer: Your typical Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Lately I’ve come across something in all my work reading that has become common enough to warrant a blog post. Her name Quirky McSprite and she is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
You are all familiar with Manic Pixie Dream Girls–they exist everywhere, both in real life and in various forms of media. Take a walk down any street in Greenpoint or Williamsburg and you’ll meet 8 million hipster girls who fit the criteria. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl seems to be the most prevalent onscreen these days, starting with Annie Hall and tracing her path from Penny Lane to Sam from Garden State and most recently ending with Summer from 500 Days of Summer.
This, my friends, is a big problem.
Back when I had short hair. I still want to be Audrey Hepburn when I grow up.
Look, I get her appeal. I really do. I cultivated that “aura” myself once. I wrote an entire novel about me her that will never, ever see the light of day. Yet I still really love that waif-ish, pixie, perpetual childlike innocence associated with them and I want to be Audrey Hepburn when I grow up. Many of my female friends are real life Manic Pixie Dream Girls and I don’t find them annoying (otherwise we wouldn’t be friends, no?).
Unfortunately, in fiction the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is evolving into another type of Mary Sue. There are many sorts of Mary Sues and many definitions of them, but I define a Mary Sue as a female character whose traits must be contained within qualifying quotes. You know the type: she’s “Spirited!” and “Spunky!” and “Just A Normal Girl!”. In other words, she’s not actually a person.
The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is starting to become a Qualifying Quotes character. She’s “Quirky!” and “Free-spirited!” and “Saved By The Love Of A Good Man!” However, The Manic Pixie Dream Girl has a slightly different set of problems that need addressing than the Prototypical Mary Sue. Your typical Mary Sue is generally a vehicle for the reader to enter the story, but the Manic Pixie Dream Girl functions as an object of desire.
In fact, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl has a lot in common with the Tortured Brooding Hero. Both are usually irreparably broken in some way and are often “healed” by the story’s end by the Power of Love. However, while the hero almost always gets to be “fixed”, this particular girl has about a 50/50 chance of finding happiness. Holly Golightly from (the novella) BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, Alaska Young from LOOKING FOR ALASKA, and Summer from 500 Days of Summer are three that didn’t have a Happily Ever After, while Sam from Garden State and Claire from Elizabethtown are two who do. (Interestingly, the original ending of Garden State left Sam as one of the Unhappy ones.)
Done properly, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a great device. She has existed as a muse for poets, songwriters, and artists throughout the ages. She is the girl behind The Velvet Underground’s “Stephanie Says” and Weezer’s “El Scorcho”. She is Bob Dylan’s “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”, a “Scorpio sphinx in a calico dress”. I love Capote’s BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S and all of John Green’s novels and they both have Manic Pixie Dream Girls. She often comes into Everyman’s life and changes how he sees the world, opening his eyes to spontaneity and laughter before flitting out again.
Where the Mary Sue is Ordinary Perfection, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is Mysterious Vulnerability. Her quirky, strange ways are often the fractured results of a kaleidoscope worldview she uses to hide her wounds. Male protagonists generally find the hints of vulnerability appealing while being baffled by her seemingly unpredictable behavior. Except said “unpredictable behavior” should be transparent to the reader, even if it isn’t apparent to the Everyman narrator.
When the raison d’être for the Manic Pixie Dream Girl’s free-spirited ways is missing, she transforms into Quirky McSprite, an odious creature I’d like to slap across the forehead for her stupidity. And unfortunately, Quirky McSprite is more stupid than anything else. She makes Grand Gestures and does Slightly Illegal Things to prove that she is “Spontaneous!” and “Mysterious!” It’s when a character needs to prove her Manic Pixie Dream Girl status is when the trope begins to grate on my nerves. It’s not cute to break into a high-security bank vault “for kicks”, okay?
I have similar problems with the Tortured Brooding Hero, but that is a function of being an Idealized Romantic Partner. (And a post I ought to save for another day.)
What are your thoughts? Manic Pixie Dream Girls: love ‘em or hate ‘em? Any examples where she was done well?
At first I thought you literally meant pixies — like fairies — which would not have been strange, given the trends in fiction lately. :P
Anyway, I think I would have liked Garden State a lot more had the original ending been used, because the one that they went with felt so false to me. Blah.
I actually liked 500 Days of Summer, but I think that had a lot to do with the strength of Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel as actors. (Also the quirky screenplay and music.)
Another MPDG that didn’t work at all (for me, anyway) was Charlize Theron’s character in Sweet November. Ugh, just ugh.
I have to admit, I can’t think of any MPDGs that work — although I’ve heard good things about the John Green books you mention. And maybe that’s because once the MPDGs are given a reason for their behavior, they transcend that label and become well rounded characters? (Or maybe it’s just because I have a bad memory, hahaha.)
I like Zooey Deschanel (and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) a lot but I am so over the MPDG and couldn’t stand that movie. I’ve only liked two movies with Manic Pixie Dream Girls: Annie Hall and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Clementine is an MPDG).
Summer was a total MPDG.
I think boy’s need that ‘out of our league’ kind of creature in their fiction too–and that is she.
Sadly, in real life, many MPDGs are mentally unstable. Boys=stay away!
Yeah, which is why I think the MPDG and the Tortured Brooding Hero have the same function in fiction.
Although I was an MPDG back in the day. And to think I landed myself a nice future doctor. ;)
HAHAHA. It’s so funny that you’d post this because I was just taking some story notes and wrote “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” next to the female protagonist.
Would Stargirl count? She’s pretty quirky and crazy. She technically doesn’t get a happily ever after either (not even in the sequel)
Yes, Clementine is an excellent example!! Can’t believe I forgot her. I feel like I owe Kate Winslet an apology…
Thank you! I would now go on this blog every day!
Nicolas
I love Clementine. One of my favorite characters ever!
Penelope from The Brothers Bloom is another example. I mean, she collected *hobbies* for gods sake! And Rachel Weiz really is a funny person, which made the tragedy of Penelope’s annoying-ness all the more heartwrenching.
I can’t stand the MPDG either – and that is WHY I loved 500 Days of Summer! The whole movie is pulling apart that ideal. It plays with his – and our – expectations of who this girl will be. And despite my distaste for most of these constructed dream girls, I did think this one would be different. I guess it’s because we are told of her detachment, that she has walls up and we visibly see her coldness. Most MPDGs are distant in this way that seems to never be noticed by the male protagonist, and seems to be an inherent part of her wisdom and greatness and her being on her own planet of supergreatness. I found 500 Days of Summer excellent because it said sometimes that person you project so much onto is not worth it.
I really like Almost Famous, but I find the character of Penny Lane very difficult. A big part of it is how Kate Hudson plays her – just seems too comfortable being the girl who lauds her amazingness over her admirer. I always wonder how it would have turned out if Sarah Polley had taken the role. I think she would have given her more soul and depth. Some actresses seem to make the MPDG even worse than they need be – Hudson, Natalie Portman. I suspect sometimes the actress relishes too much being that girl on the pedestal, and these can make for the most annoying MPDGs.
I liked Zooey’s portrayal and I think it worked to hint at a real inner life with Summer. The mystery to her character is partly the rose-coloured glasses Tom sees her with (which is explored within the film) and partly the distance she keeps him at. I find that really different to the MPDG roles where the girl is dehumanised and is only constructed in terms of the guy’s desires, and his need to be saved.
I think it’s great to have a movie that lets us see the MPDG may not be all she’s cracked up to be. That’s the point – a projection is fiction, and it’s not till you get to know someone you know their true character. I’d also like to see other perspectives in film deconstructing this archetype. Maybe one where a female who plays into being the MPDG starts to question her own motives. And maybe one where a guy sees a girl as this type when she really isn’t, and the film shows us what she is really like.
Thank you so much for writing this post! Somebody had to!
I think Penny Lane would have been much better as a character if there weren’t so many other characters like her. I do like how she leaves at the end – it was like an acknowledgment of how horrible her MPDG-ness really was. (I still was ready to kill her over breaking poor William Miller’s heart, though.)
I don’t know much about the other characters listed here other than Holly Golightly. I love Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but Holly drove me nuts!
I’d add Lila (in Holly Black’s WHITE CAT) and to some extent Jenny from Forrest Gump. Jenny not quite so pixie, but she still had the Manic Dream Girl thing going on. (Again, love Forrest Gump, but come on!)