By Madeline Poage, Staff Writer, Emerson College
I have a confession: I’ve been a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
To clarify, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a trope commonly assigned the female characters in books and movies who are designed for one specific purpose: to help the brooding, male protagonist better appreciate life. In general, they’re eccentric, spontaneous, free-spirited young women, who usually wear vintage clothes or have dyed hair. They dance in the rain and stare at the stars, all with a pure, child-like sense of playfulness and wonder, drawing the sad, sheltered boys out of their shells and making them understand the magic of life. They also have very little in the way of personality, usually relying on these quirks to stand in as cheap substitutes; plus, they have zero motivation, backstory, or character arc. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl has no serious hopes and dreams for herself, no ambitions - she is happy and bubbly except for that fateful night when she breaks down and the not-so-brooding-now male protagonist kisses her and makes it all better instantly. Cue the credits rolling.
The term was coined by Nathan Rabin to describe Kirsten Dunst’s character in Elizabethtown, and he also cited Natalie Portman as Sam in Garden State as another example. He explains the MPDG as a girl 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.” Essentially, the MPDG is a concept, not a character. And a secondary character, at that. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is never the protagonist or the hero of any story, even her own. She is an accessory to the man’s journey of self-discovery.
Which is what makes being an MPDG in relationship so difficult.
This type of relationship - the soulful, brooding man and the quirky, carefree, girl of his dreams who makes his life one-hundred-and-ten percent better, is exposed in the much-loved cult flick (500) Days of Summer, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom Hansen and Zooey Deschanel as Summer Finn. The movie brings to life the dangers of a relationship defined by the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, and how they ultimately fail. Indeed, within the first five minutes of the opening credits, the narrator distinctly insists, “This is not a love story.”
In the movie, Summer enters Tom’s lackluster life of drudgery and forgotten passions like a breath of fresh air - as Tom says, “I love how she makes me feel, like anything's possible, or like life is worth it.” But the poison that slowly eats away at their relationship is soon seen to be how Tom treats Summer to preserve this feeling - he considers her perfect, until she starts to branch away from Tom and what he imagines and desires her to be. When she casually mentions wanting to get a tattoo in the future, Tom reacts with a visceral, “No!” When Summer alludes to possibly changing the way she dresses, Tom protests, claiming he loves her style.
This is the crux of a relationship involving a Manic Pixie Dream Girl - the girl is held up to an impossible standard, namely, that of the guy’s projected hopes and dreams. There’s a reason Tom spirals into a deep depression when Summer finally breaks up with him: to Tom, Summer is his muse, his source of newly found life, a concept he can believe in. Meanwhile, the girl, while of course naturally free-spirited, is tightly controlled by this idealized fantasy.
Speaking of which, my confession.
As I said before, I’ve been a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. I became trapped in a relationship where I was expected to behave and be a certain way, and I abided by this for the sake of maintaing the relationship, before I realized that this was unhealthy and I broke it off. It began when my ex and I became friends, exchanging music, movies, and books, sharing magical moments involving sugar-sweet snowball fights, and laughing over inside jokes that no one else understood. Eventually, when we started dating, it became clear that I had been, without my knowledge, placed on a pedestal of perfection. On this platform, I was idolized and fawned over, but never really understood. I became a china doll to be preserved and protected by a suddenly possessive boyfriend, without any acknowledgment of my inner thoughts and turmoil. Any mention of the deeply-rooted problems I was struggling with were brushed under the carpet, and any deviance from cheerful quirkiness was met with confusion and judgment. To my soulfully romantic boyfriend with overprotective parents and a limited experience with dating, I was a escape, rather than a real person to share life with.
The worst part of being an MPDG is breaking up. To my boyfriend, I was the guiding light, an inspiration. I introduced him to books that he latched onto as proof of my infallibility and of our love. I listened to bands he’d never heard before. I was quirky. The abject hurt in his face when I told him it wasn’t going to work out was painful to see, and led to the inevitable argument about why. I explained that I was going to college, where I needed space to learn about myself, sort through problems, figure out who I was and what I wanted. I couldn’t be in a serious, long-distance relationship in college, nor did I want to lead him on by not expressing this. But in his eyes, I was abandoning him. He spent the following weeks posting passive-aggressive Facebook statuses about how I broke his heart and how love is a lie.
He behaved and felt exactly as Tom did in (500) Days of Summer. He couldn’t understand that his muse had longterm plans that didn’t include him, as well as serious issues she needed to work through. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has since commented on his character, calling him “selfish,” and explaining how Tom “develops a mildly delusional obsession over a girl onto whom he projects all these fantasies” - basically, the definition of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl-driven relationship. Gordon-Levitt went on to say, “A lot of boys and girls think their lives will have meaning if they find a partner who wants nothing else in life but them. That’s not healthy. That’s falling in love with the idea of a person, not the actual person."
Relationships that include a Manic Pixie Dream Girl are doomed to fail due to the one-sided nature of them. They service the desires of the man, leaving the girl to be a cheerleader on the sidelines, permanently stuck without any room for development and movement. And as a woman who is on the bubbly side, who likes thrift shopping, and who is a total sucker for the occasional romantic moment, I’m primed to become another Manic Pixie Dream Girl to another artsy, romantic, lovesick boy. But I’m not going to change myself to avoid this. I like certain indie bands and I can sometimes act spontaneously or irrationally. Some guys might find that cute or endearing, but I don’t do it for them. I do not exist to provide a man with inspiration. I am the hero of my own story. All I can do is be self-aware and react by choosing partners who aren’t attracted to me because of my quirks, but because of my personality. As the wisest person in (500) Days of Summer, Tom’s teenaged sister, points out, “just because she likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn't mean she's your soul mate.” The likes and dislikes on a Facebook page don’t make a healthy relationship. Mutual respect does.
Madeline Poage is a WLP major from New Jersey. When she was little, she wanted to be a professional ghost hunter. She's a Virgo, enjoys long walks on the beach, and enjoys poking dead things with a stick. You can find Madeline on Twitter.
Image: venusbuzz.com