Why did we cancel the Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

I’ll be honest, this post has been sitting in my drafts for a long time because I’m not exactly sure what to write. So much has been said about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl by people who know so much more about books and film then me, what more could I possibly have to add to the conversation? But ultimately I write my blog for myself, as writing and talking about ideas often helps me to process and understand them, so here we are.

For those of you who don’t know, the phrase “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” was coined by film critic (?) Nathan Rabin in response to Kurstin Dunst’s character in the movie Elizabethtown. He said the MPDG “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.” She is adventurous, seductive, fun, probably hyperactive, and she has no story or purpose of her own, she exists solely to drive the hero’s character development.

In the years since Rabin’s article (geez, it’s been over a decade) the MPDG has started to be considered as a trope, often a negative one. Critics find her annoying, or sexist, or unrealistic. Well, of course she is sexist and unrealistic! That was Rubin’s point in writing the article, to draw attention to the superficial ways women are treated in film!

But I would like to take a moment to challenge the book community’s near unanimous rejection of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

First, because I think the trope is often misapplied. We’ve started to call any hyperactive, petite female character a MPDG. Take, for example, Alice in Twilight. She’s often referred to as a MPDG, but she has her own story and motivations (especially later in the series), and in no way teaches the female protagonist of the story to embrace living life to the fullest. Sure, she’s whimsical and definitely a bit, well, manic. But she has her own character arc, she exists more to move the plot forward than to serve some need of the protagonist, and she’s also a fierce friend.

Another well-known example is in John Green’s Paper Towns. Critics of the book complain that Margo serves no other function than to fulfill Q’s fantasies of a woman, but that’s a pretty shallow read of the book. The entire POINT of the book is to force Q (and the reader!) to see Margo as someone more than the MPDG. Green openly acknowledges the trope and uses it to show how wrong it can be. Margo’s purpose is to escape a life she hates, to live her own life. That Q is so obsessed with her as to make her journey about himself is a statement about the folly of seeing people one-dimensionally, of seeing someone as a MPDG.

As a continuation of John Green’s point, I would argue that the MPDG is a concept that can’t exist in literature. Because she exists solely to teach the broody main character to live and love, by definition she can’t have her own backstory or character arc. Those people … don’t exist. And any author worth their salt is going to strive to give central characters depth and nuance. When we label interesting characters like Daisy Jones (Daisy Jones and the Six) as a MPDG, we take away their autonomy and everything that makes them interesting. To argue Daisy Jones has no other purpose than to teach Billy Dunne to love ignores her tragic backstory, her growth, and eventually her triumph as she overcomes her addiction.

So I would argue that our disgust with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is not a feminist rejection of one-dimensional female characters. At least, not in the book community and not anymore. Instead, I think we are “tired of the trope” because of our sexist rejection of bubbly hyperactive women.

Somewhere along the way we decided that eccentric women are unrealistic, that flighty women are flaky, and that excitable women are annoying. We’ve put a value judgement on a certain kind of women and said “that’s not what a woman should be.” Instead we’ve decided we prefer love interests who are down-to-earth, serious, independent, and reserved. But heaven forbid they be too down-to-earth, serious, independent, or reserved, because then they would be the stereotypical bitch.

Instead of taking the MPDG as a feminist call to write women with depth into movies, we’ve turned it into a sexist call to stop writing a certain type of women that we just don’t like.

As a person who has had to reign in my enthusiasm to be taken seriously in my career, who has had to tone down my energy so my peers wouldn’t think I was annoying, I reject your rejection of the manic pixie. I miss seeing these excitable, unique women in the books I read. I love seeing free-spirited ladies on screen, and I think it’s a shame we’ve written them off .

And, for the record, Rubin also dislikes the way his phrase has come to be used. You can read his follow-up piece, written in 2014, here.