I’m gonna get right to it. I simply adore the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG). The MPDG is a stock character used in film and literature who is usually this quirky, lively, girl with an amazing personality who “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries”. I strongly disagree with that statement. Yes, in most films where the MPDG is present she is the secondary character who some how helps the male lead. However, it’s the writer’s fault for making her the secondary character instead of the protagonist. Why should the MPDG be berated for following a script? If writers wrote her as the protagonist people would hate her less. I say less because there is always hate in the world. The reason I love the MPDG so much is because of her personality. She has a such an interesting outlook on life. Some MPDGs in the movie world we all might know are Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Holly Golightly played by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. As you can see all these characters are extremely different but were dubbed a bad representation of women simply because of the role they played in helping sad boring men find themselves. However, if the story was written in a way where the MPDG was the protagonist and we got to see life from her point of view she will most likely be loved by feminists who say her only purpose is to be the muse or second to a man. Her purpose isn’t the muse or to be second, her purpose is for her to be her.
- Schwyzer, H. (2013, July 9). The Real-World Consequences of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Cliché. Retrieved from //www.theatlantic.com