An Argument For The Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Broken English (2007) stars Parker Posey as Nora, single and lovelorn, surrounded entirely by friends who are married and “happy”. Every guy she meets is a disaster. She’s a train wreck. She has no chance at happiness. Until… she meets Melvil Poupaud as The Frenchman In The Jaunty Hat. Seriously, he’s a Frenchman who is first glimpsed wearing a Jaunty Hat. He arrives just in the nick of time to cater to Nora’s every single cotton pickin’ whim. You might say Poupaud exists solely in the fevered imagination of a sensitive writer-director (Zoe Cassavetes) to teach a broodingly soulful young woman to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.
You might recognize that last sentence. It’s because I ripped it off from the AV Club film critic Nathan Rabin who coined a term which has now become infamous in cinematic circles – The Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Rabin originally wrote:
“The Manic Pixie Dream Girl 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.”
He was referring to Kirsten Dunst’s angelic flight attendant Claire Colburn in Elizabethtown who helps rescue the broodingly soulful Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom). In a recent interview with Moviefone.com, Ms. Dunst apparently learned for the first time that a character she portrayed was responsible for the coinage of this term. She did not seem pleased and I’ve got her back.
Jezebel deemed The Manic Pixie Dream Girl as “(t)he scourge of modern cinema.” But as The AV Club points out in its list of 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, the archetype has been around for ages, from Katherine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby to Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s to Natalie Portman in Garden State, a character which in the years upon the film’s release seems to have wrought if not quite enough anger to rival Jar Jar then at least enough anger to equal the Ewoks. And none of these articles take into account – or even so much as acknowledge – the prevalence of the male version of The Manic Pixie Dream Girl, whether it be Broken English’s Frenchman In The Jaunty Hat, Titanic’s Homeless Artist With The Lilting Whisp Of Hair, The Princess Bride’s Roguish Yet Sensitive Man In Black, or Clark Gable in, frankly, anything.
Contrary to popular belief, the whimsically insistent Claire Colburn was not the first Manic Pixie Dream Girl in recorded artistic history. No, that would, of course, be Helen Of Troy in The Iliad. If Homer had authored his epic poem today he would no doubt describe Helen as looking suspiciously like Swedish pop singer Lykke Li, adorned by fashionable scarves, killer boots and, to quote Garrison Keillor, “jeans so tight it looked as if she’d been poured into them and forgot to say when.” And seriously, what’s Paris but a broodingly soulful young man? Okay. 
That might all be a stretch. (And why does Orlando Bloom play so many broodingly soulful young men without ever appearing all that soulful?) But I think you see my point. Mythological female characters have been around forever and The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is essentially a radiant myth.
Myth. Fantasy. Wish Fulfillment. All these things have long held a place at the movies. Like everyone else I go to the movies to be challenged, to be awed, to be moved, etc., but I also go because sometimes I’m feeling a little low and I wouldn’t mind the fantasy of a blonde who likes Maker’s, indie rock and mental pictures drawing me out of my socially awkward cocoon to be brought to life. Honestly, is that so wrong? How is that any different from, say, Kristin Wiig writing herself scenes in Bridesmaids where she gets to be – cough, cough – in bed with Jon Hamm and be courted by a lovable cop who supports and encourages her baking dreams? She deserves that and sometimes dudes deserve their Manic Pixie Dream Girls, a’ight?
There is no doubt whatsoever we should be 100% right by our cinematic female characters. They deserve a rich tapestry of their own emotion, their own inner lives and their own pursuits of happiness, so on and so forth. Yet I state for the record that a character who concocts a colossal road trip for the main character had to, like, you know, visit those places herself. Claire has her own life, she’s on her own pursuit of happiness, it’s just that for two hours she decides to make like a damsel and save poor Orlando Bloom from distress. Really, when you get right down to it, she’s not all that unlike Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything. “What I really want to do with my life – what I want to do for a living – is I want to be with your daughter. I’m good at it.” Claire’s good at being with Drew. So what?
The brilliant film historian David Thomson writes: “In American films, the camera tells a certain truth — it records appearance — but then it adjusts the appearance so that it becomes a lovelier version of itself, an ideal often, but a nightmare, too. Anything except the real thing.” To some (most) Claire Colburn probably represents a nightmare. And that’s totally fine. If you don’t like her, you don’t like her, your prerogative. No worries. But can I please still be allowed to like her?
There seems to be a noticeable absence of girls like Claire Colburn in my life specifically because girls like her don’t actually exist in the real world. So I can’t quite figure out why so many people are so adamant she shouldn’t be allowed to exist in a make believe world either.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? SHOULD THE MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL BE OUTLAWED? CUT SOME SERIOUS SLACK? SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN? TELL US BELOW!
41 Comments
Okay I call them the Fairy Princess girls. And yeah, I hate them. I coined the term for another Diane Kruger character, the one in Wicker Park. She was so perfect and I always knew I was destined to be Rose Byrne’s character.
I think such characters will always be around, but I would love for the focus to shift on characters like Kristen Wigg’s in Bridesmaids or Emma Stone’s in Easy A.
Also in the list, I wouldn’t include Annie Hall, but that’s just me.
I would agree. In some ways “Annie Hall” works as a sort of rejection of the MPDG. I wouldn’t include Penny Lane either. Maybe that’s what she is TO him, but that’s not what she IS.
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of wish fulfilment now and then, it’s just that there are really not enough decent female film characters to make up the balance. THAT is what sucks.
Oh, and although I appreciate the classical reference, Helen is really not a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Just being a women who is primarily defined by being pretty does not a MPDG make.
You’re right in that there aren’t enough to make up the balance. In retrospect, I should have linked to your article the other day about female characters for reference. But I also think you have to judge Claire (who, I want to re-make clear is specifically the one MPDG I’m defending) within her own context.
And yeah, Helen is definitely not an MPDG. But I do think you can trace the roots of the archetype to her, or other characters like her.
Going by the definition, it seems to me that a very high proportion of female characters are “Manic Pixie Dream Girls”. They are the idealized girlfriends every guy wants to marry and exist solely to revolve in all kind of adorable manners around the main character.
Yeah, that’s what’s kind of crazy about the whole term. You could easily make that case. Which does speak to how pitiful a place it can be at the movies for female characters. But that’s also why I wanted to point out that, hey, there are male versions of this character too which never seem to get addressed. Men, women, we all want our wishes fulfilled.
Congrats on being featured on the IMDb hitlist!
Thank you, sir! I knew one day my ridiculous eternal devotion to this film would pay off.
Well said! I don’t have a problem, per se, with the MPDG, although they do start to get a bit stereotypical after a while.
I would suggest to you, though, that they do sometimes exist. It’s just that if all goes well, they start to grow up eventually. When you get right down to it, an actual Manic Pixie Dream Girl is not really who you want to settle down with; if she grows up, gains a little gravitas, and stops being rather self-centered, she might turn out ok. *ahem* Not that I would know anything about any of that …
Thank you for your comment! I like this explanation. I like it a lot. In fact, it makes me want to see the 2nd act of Drew & Claire (though I’m probably the only one who wants to see it).
Great article.
I have to say that,as you pointed out, there are very few interesting female characters that serve for more than wish fulfilment in cinema (although that applies to male characters too the ratio is clearly in favour of men).
As a film lover I’ve found very few female characters that truly feel authentic to me but I’ve thought of a few I’d like to share:
1 Clementine – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2 Alisa Jones – Chasing Amy
3 Laura – High Fidelity
On a different note for me the ultimate Manix Pixie Dream Girl would be Zooey
Deschanel in 500 Days of Summer.
Once again fantastic post.
Laura in “High Fidelity.” Good call. You could write a whole article about her, too. It’s like…..she likes Rob, she likes him for who he is, the best parts of who he is, anyway, and she wants to help bring out the best in him but the movie and the actress make clear she has her own life and she’s not going to wait around if he’s not going to work at it and grow up.
Or something.
There’s an element missing from this, although you do hint at it, and it’s fundamental: namely, Kirsten Dunst vs. Audrey Hepburn. The latter is a good enough actress to imbue even her MPDG character with the implications of personality, background and depth. It comes with the territory of hiring Audrey Hepburn. Same thing with the other Hepburn in “Bringing Up Baby.” Dunst, Portman, Theron et. al. simply don’t convey this. They may *have* it, they may be smarter and deeper than Audrey Hepburn ever was, but it doesn’t form an innate part of their screen personas.
I really like Dunst as an actress and I think in other roles she most definitely does convey all those things you mention on her own but here…..I really wish I could disagree with you and provide sufficient evidence. Damn it.
I don’t think that the wish fulfillment part is what makes the character type annoying. MPDG isn’t just a glorified object of affection, like Helen of Troy. The defining charasteristics of the archetype are that she’s the quirky yet ideal potential girlfriend who seems to have no inner world, nor motivations beyond making the guy she’s suddenly met incredibly happy in many elaborate ways, thus rendering him passive. That also rules out Holly Golightly, who is quite self-centred, who very clearly leads a life of her own, and who doesn’t abandon everything else in her life to make some random guy overcome his inner demons.
Manic Pixie Dream Girl is, as quoted here, the dream girl of the broodingly soulful young man who is too scared or lazy to actively work on his own problems himself, and not enough a cynic to realize that very few real people have the time and the will to act as rescuing angels to people they hardly even know. It’s not believable – real people in the real world do not suddenly become undemanding saviours to people they have just met unless they have other reasons to do so. The ones who do are usually regarded as Clingy Masochists People Who Get Overexcited In a Relationship Way Too Soon.
Kirsten Dunst’s character in Elizabethtown is exactly like that. She, for no particular reason, suddenly just decides to make a ridiculously huge effort to turn Orlando Bloom’s whiny character’s frown upside down just because she kinda likes him. Really, she didn’t have anything else to do with her time than to help a guy she’s just met with his waaa-aaaa-angst by designing an incredibly detailed road trip for him? Sorry, I don’t buy that, even if it supposedly indicates what a rich and vibrant inner world she must have. There’s caring, and there’s being helpful, and then there’s just being an unrealistic character.
I’m sure this character type manifests in male movie characters, too. Romantic comedies have always been full of dreamy, hunky male characters who just happen to be walking wallets, excellent cooks, in touch with their emotions, and instantly and adoringly in love with the leading ladies. However, I don’t think any of the characters listed in the article fit the definition of a male MPDG.
Titanic’s Jack Dawson, for instance, isn’t a male version of this character because he has a story, motivations beyond romancing Kate Winslet’s character, and an inner world. He does help her overcome her problems, but I don’t think that he goes into particularly ridiculous lenghts in order to do that. Really, he doesn’t do anything that any average guy wouldn’t do to get into a girl’s pants.
Also, they’re on a boat, so it’s not like he has anything better to do to kill his time in a closed space than to hang around with her. And the boat is sinking. Nothing brings two people closer together than rapidly approaching death.
Princess Bride’s Westley has a history with Buttercup, so he isn’t just randomly charging after a woman he doesn’t even know. And even if he did, it probably wouldn’t matter, because the context is different. MPDG is a character type that exist in realistic dramas or comedies. Princess Bride is a children’s fantasy film.
I do think that people have gotten so excited with the discovery of this cinematic archetype that it’s become overused, and often applied to characters who only share some of the charasteristics of MPDG. All vibrant and bubbly love interests of soulful young men in movies aren’t Manic Pixie Dream Girls. If the definition is so broad that it practically covers all dreamy love interests, the character type cannot exist.
I wouldn’t buy her character either in the context of the real world…..but in this movie I’m willing to suspend disbelief. I mean, I can’t necessarily refute what you say but I don’t know that I’ve ever looked at “Elizabethtown” as a realistic drama as much as a fantasy film.
I totally agree that the term is way overused now and that’s kind of what I was trying to hint at (perhaps not as skillfully as I hoped) by naming all those characters in the piece, that you can, if you really want to, argue anyone of any sex in anything fits the stereotype.
How about Lloyd Dobbler as being the male version of MPDG?
Hi, Nick and company:
Congratulations on being linked to IMDb’s home page and for positing such a well detailed, intriguing topic!
My Magic Pixie Dream Girl(s)have been and continue to be (Reveling my age here) Myrna Loy and Katherine Hepburn. Who held their own and often excelled opposite some of Hollywood’s heaviest hitting leading men without breaking a sweat. Setting the bar high and creating a standard that few actresses today have been close to achieving.
Wait, “Magic” Pixie Dream Girl? Now, my friend, you have opened a whole other proverbial can of worms…
I have no idea why there has been such backlash against this concept. It’s a wonderful little idea, and as you mentioned, has been in literature since the Iliad, which was written a bloody LONG time ago.
It’s only the MPDG mixed with the “indie film tone” that I think people have a problem with.
Has anyone mentioned 500 Days of Summer? Because they shouldn’t. Or should they? Summer has her own life, it clashes with JGL’s character’s life and that’s what the movie is about.
I have had female friends who are pretty much the MPDG, there was just never any falling in love or anything like that – and like pretty much anything that ends up in a movie, it’s an exaggeration of reality and is there to serve the plot.
Whatever, I’m tired. Just, everyone who is against this shut up. Nobody cares. Let people enjoy the movies they want to enjoy and let us guys live in a fantasy world where the manic pixie dream girl comes into our lives, changes it, and probably leaves it, or doesn’t, within that two hour time frame. If chicks can vicariously experience a relationship with Edward Cullen, why can we guys not experience, vicariously, a relationship with the MPDG?
Fuckin-A. Of all the things to get upset about in the movies today. Yeesh. The MPDG is a device for exploring (exploiting?) the protagonist’s emotions and moving the plot forward. It’s no more contrived than the macguffin or the deus ex machina (less so than the DEM, actually). The device or object which the hero seeks to attain/destroy/understand is another one. I think this whole discussion has turned into a forum for people to be snarky/superior. There are more controversial movie-related topics to explore, like how much 3D sucks and is ruining film making. Let’s move on.
The two other devices you mention are not usually people. The problem with the MPDG is that she is the female lead in a film. Is that we have reduced a woman to a set of quirks that help the man-child in these movies become a man.
Yes, a protagonist in this type of story journeys from man-child to man, from incomplete to whole, and the antagonist in such a film would be the one to bump against to make that journey happen.
When the romantic lead of a film is not a character, but rather a set of quirks, a zany hair color, a road-trip waiting to happen, a lovably bizarre hobby, and a potentially potty mouth you have a very one-sided romance. There’s nothing really wrong with a stuffy or brooding guy coming out of his shell when a spontaneous, non-conformist woman comes into his life — but she has to be a character. That means somebody with their own goals, their own needs and wants. Their own problems. Their own REASON for getting involved with the guy other than just “I’m an airy dyed haired urban nymph, and I’ve just randomly decided to make this guy my next project because… who needs because?!” Indeed, once that character has her own reasons, she begins to subvert the trope, even if she maintains the quirkiness.
The danger of the continued reliance on this trope is several-fold.
1) Fewer roles of substance for women in cinema. Women are already represented disproportionately as supporting characters and devices for the development of male protagonists.
2) We all know that media representation helps to inform our societal expectations. The more women as muses we see in cinema, the more the next generation will view the role of women as just that — muses who must save men. This is not only obviously detrimental to young women, but also is detrimental to young men, who will be looking for the Chemical X that is a MPDG to be the catalyst in growing the frak up. This could lead to generations of brooding man-childs waiting for the magic muse to be their rite of passage to manhood. Of course, being the quirky catalyst to a man’s self-actualization is not so different from any other subjugated role women have historically been asked to play within a patriarchal context.
3) Zooey Deschanel will never be given a chance to show range, as long as as there are MPDG’s for her to play.
“500 Days of Summer” was, I think, in many ways an exploration of this topic.
And this: “let us guys live in a fantasy world where the manic pixie dream girl comes into our lives, changes it, and probably leaves it, or doesn’t, within that two hour time frame.” At my inevitable 10 Year “Elizabethtown” Retrospective I’m going to wear a button that says that.
Also, what’s this “3D” everyone’s talking about?
Personally, I like to call Lisbeth Salander (a character I do adore) a FUBAR Hacker Pixie Girl. The point being that most characters in entertainment – be it movies, TV Shows, novels, etc. – are archetypes or exaggerated. Salander is just as unlikely as Penny Lane or Claire Colburn, she’s just more likely to kick your ass and tenacious enough to steal all your vital personal info.
The MPDG archetype doesn’t bother me as much as the one that shows women aren’t complete without a husband and/or kids. Or that all we care about is shopping and chocolate.
Claire Colburn actually kind of goes against that whole women aren’t complete without a husband/kids thing when she says she likes being alone too much. Which I really liked (I must admit I’m sort of the same way when it comes to relationships) and thought was interesting and wish Crowe had explored more.
Here’s a girl who’s a blast from the past for you… Michelle Meyrink, who played Jordan in Real Genius. She was really smart, which is one thing guys look for in a MPDG. Parker Posey has had that impish charm for years, along with a few other actresses.
No, no, no, Parker Posey is The Alluringly Snarky Dream Girl.
Any story about an interesting, eccentric, original woman, told from the perspective of the man who falls in love with her will be a story about a Manic Pixie Dream Girl… told from her perspective she will appear a more fully drawn and independent woman. She is a dream girl only through the eyes of the man whose dream she is fulfilling… there is nothing wrong with telling a story from the mans perspective so there is nothing wrong with occassionally having a MPDG… if every movie is from the guys perspective that is a problem but it is a different problem. In the end the MPDGs are all strong independent women who live their lives by their own compass not following or wairing for the man and it is this strength which has such a positive effect on the men who come into their lives and while in the 2 hours of the movie and from the perspective of the man that might appear to be their purpose but that is only one small slice of their existence. in the end they make a much more appealing and positive depiction of women than do the neurotic, self-absorbed, shallow depictions of women that populate the rest of the film landscape. And I can assure you they exist in real-life too as every girl I have ever fallen in love with has been a MPDG and they have all had full complete lives which only made them more amazing but were a 2 hour movie to be made about our time together and were I the narative focus much of that depth might be lost to make the story fit the confined parameters of the screen….
Yes. Just yes. Great comment. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Totally agree with this comment. As a girl, I have received a lot of backlash from other women for expressing this same thought.
The MPDG – I never thought of the concept before. See, what attracted me to this article was that it was about Elizabethtown, one of my all-time favorite movies. I think the point many people have made on here, as well as the author of this article, is that the MPDG is fine within CONTEXT. Films weren’t created for the sole purpose of reflecting reality, and many average, everyday people have come to expect something of that nature from the film industry nowadays. That’s why films based on true stories, films based on historical occurrences, etc., are very popular today. And not only those, but people today hold the expectation that films should contain a sense of realism.
What people forget and often don’t realize is that a movie is made within a specific context. Horror movies always contain an evil villain, be it living or not. Romantic movies always contain a strong love story. Comedies are always about people, objects, or certain stories that are meant to breed laughter from an audience. The MPDG is just an object to fit within the context of certain said movies. One of the main purposes of a film is to take an audience away from the everyday life and into the story it’s trying to tell. The MPDG works just fine to convey certain story lines that in and of themselves may not be realistic, but more than likely include moral truths, lessons, and realistic undertones.
Clearly, any person can sit in a theater and complain that no one ever goes to the bathroom, every actor looks made up 24/7, and no high school kid will ride a motorcycle without a helmet, own 2 Mac computers, and have a ridiculous sexual tension with the girl next door all at the same time (Abduction – an OBVIOUS example).
All that to say, is that movies are all about context, and the MPDG is just one of the many objects that fits within a movie’s context.
Another “Elizabethtown” fan?! Yay!!! Thanks for commenting!
I recently watched (500) Days of Summer and, when I started reading this, the character of Summer does seem to fit the bill of Manic Pixie Dream Girl pretty well.
I’m going to get my thinking cap on, see who else qualifies!
I definitely think Summer is an MPDG, but I also think she’s meant to be a commentary on MPDGs. Which is why I personally prefer Claire Colburn – she’s just a character who happens to double as an MPDG. If that makes sense.
I like my MPDG to be jaded and melancholy… Ramona Flowers is a perfect example. There’s the notion that, once upon a time, she was a full on MPDG but now… she’s beaten down by life… so much so she’s gone to live in Canada (America’s Wales).
So simply for the fact that I don’t think Ramona would exist in the way she does without their being MPDG in cinema… I’m all for them. If for every 100 Summer’s we can have the adverse Ramona… I say it’s worth it!
I don’t like the characterization of MPDG, can we call them flat characters? It seems particularly overused anymore.
Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp. She is MPDG to every uptight person in that household. Even Austrian nuns love her. The only person who hates her is the evil Baroness who is jealous of her quirky tree-climbing ways.
(Apparently the real Maria Von Trapp was about as un-MPDG as possible. An honest-to-goodness hardass ex-nun.)
What about Jennifer Aniston in Along Came Polly? WHY DOES NO ONE MENTION HER?
What no one ever mentions about the MPDG is that (at least to me) she’s also sort of a female fantasy. Who hasn’t, at some point in their lives, wanted to be childlike, or mysterious, or capture someone’s attention? The audiences of MPDG stories aren’t only men, and I think it’s because we recognize, especially when we’re having a rough go of it, that it would feel great to be crazy and impulsive and adored for it by some guy with unearned angst who we can “save”. Being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl OR Guy seems like self-medicating: you hide your own pain behind a cloak of quirkiness and inscrutability for the rush and distraction being another person’s enigmatic “savior” and hope it’s enough to hide your own demons. Which is still problematic, mental-health wise, but better than existing solely to help someone else turn their life around.
I just caught Elizabethtown on TV, and would argue there is more female fantasy to Elizabethtown than male fantasy.
Claire lands Drew despite Drew being out of her league, with more money and a more attractive girlfriend he could be trying to patch things up with. She clearly wouldn’t have a chance with him if his job was secure and Ellen was still with him. She lands him, not by being a sex kitten, but by stimulating him mentally, which is the same premise of a zillion “chick flicks” women cite as more positive than this film. Despite Drew not showing Claire much interest when they met face-to-face on the plane, even though she was very physically attracted to him, she wins him over during their phone conversations and charming him with her persistance.
Not that Claire isn’t very beautiful and Drew has no attraction to her, but it’s far from a stereotypical male fantasy. A stereotypical male fantasy would be “I’m ugly or geeky, but this really hot chick overlooks my flaws and falls in love with who I am inside.But I wouldn’t do that, since women are just eye candy and not real people to me.” But even if they went with different casting, with Claire being played by an actress viewed as more attractive than the actor portraying Drew (and this is no offense to the very beautiful Kirsten Dunst), Drew is portrayed to be the better looking of the two on a higher status socially. So is a woman winning a guy over with her intelligence, sense of humor and charm more than attractiveness really so horrible? Isn’t the stereotypical male fantasy “all women are good for is physical attractiveness, so who cares about personality, go with the hottest babe”? Isn’t that far more offensive than “I wish I could find an intelligent, witty woman to spend my life with”?
And what about Claire’s mind games? She is going out of her way to make Drew happy (although in my view, it does have reasons), but she’s also screwing with his mind the whole movie. She is making him compete against a fictional boyfriend for no real reason. Women playing mind games isn’t a male fantasy or charming quirk to many men. And Drew helping Claire out of whatever reason she has for being alone and lying to perspective boyfriends about having a boyfriend is helping her out as much as Claire helping Drew overcome his issues.
Plus, if you could find statistics who the audience is for “Manic Pixie” movies, I guarantee you the majority of their fans are women identifying with the MPDGs more than men going to see the film because they desire a MPDG. Most men wouldn’t go around telling their buddies they were touched by Elizabethtown and 500 Days of Summer.
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