Personal =/= Opinion

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Feminist Frequency - Tropes vs. Women: #1 The Manic Pixie Dream Girl

I’m going to say some things that will bother probably 98% of the people who have reblogged this under the assumption that somehow this will further the feminist movement.  What a lot of people might see here is a stab at Hollywood writers to stop using these feminist “tropes” as plot devices and instead write female characters in as “real people”. What some may miss though, is that the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl”, as well as the “white, definitely straight male” are products of entire ideas (not just scripts, a common misconception (1)) that get greenlit by a studio company. 

First, let’s pick apart the, “white, definitely straight male” part of this trope. Looking at the example movies given above (The list is as follows: Elizabethtown (2005), 500 Days of Summer (2009), Garden State (2004), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)), we can clearly see that the characters acting this part are white. However, that is not to say that these types of roles are limited solely to white males. This comes down to casting, which is also handled by the studios. Any of these roles could have easily been cast for an African-American, Latino, or Asian (excuse my exclusion, for the sake of brevity) males.

If you want to specifically target the, “usually straight male” part of this trope, you  have to look at the generic love story formula used in countless romantic|comedy movies and books written over the years and blame that. As little credibility as this blog, and myself as a writer should have, it deserves to be said that there are romantic|comedy films that take place between LGBT couples and include them in realistic ways. Foregoing the traditional stereotypes brought about by mainstream modern cinema, the largest problem with this is the fact that they are categorized into their own genre instead of being integrated and rated with “straight” romantic|comedy movies.

It’s hard to place the exact blame for this without having a good idea how the movie greenlighting process works. I can confidently say that I do not have the greatest idea, nor do I think that researching the idea would enlighten me to a point in which I could say I would. But the point is that the blame is there, and the existence and exploitation of this trope is not to blame solely on the writer.

Secondly, I want to talk about the depth of the characters portrayed in the four movies displayed above. In “Elizabethtown”, this trope says that the character of “Claire” serves as the medium that Orlando Bloom’s character uses to get over his depression from a failed invention and his father’s death. Admittedly, this is about the depth of her character aside from “romantic interest” and serves as a reminder that while this trope is true in some cases, for all it is not.

“500 Days of Summer” strikes me with the most interest, as it clearly shows that “Summer” is ultimately written as the REASON “Tom” is depressed, while simultaneously enacting the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” trope. The dichotomy of “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” versus “Realistic Female Character” is blurred here more than probably in any of the examples I will and already have given, where you can see the development of both “Tom” and “Summer” both on- and off-screen. At the end, when it is revealed that “Summer” is getting married, we can see a clear contrast in the dark tone revolving around “Tom” without “Summer” versus the bright tone used when he is with “Summer” previously. Regardless, “Tom” learns that he should move on, where he meets “Autumn” in the following scene. You only have to wonder that, having watched the entire movie, if the trope exists in such finite terms. Of course it doesn’t, and the fact that this line is so blurred is probably why a generalization such as this definition exists in the first place.

There might be more analysis later, but right now I’m probably pissing off some people and wasting their time by making them read more of this crap. In that case, why the fuck did you bother either skipping down to here to see the end of this or bother reading in the first place? Go away. I can’t articulate my points that well past this. 

(via minniescarlet)