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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From housetop Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen. Kristen, You and I talked

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Speaker 1: on our TV episode not too long ago about some

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Speaker 1: of the female characters, female writers, the fact that there

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Speaker 1: were more women on TV. Yes, and this is a

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Speaker 1: good thing. Yeah. And one name that came up that

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Speaker 1: it's still in the the media a lot is Zoe Decanal. Yes.

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Speaker 1: And one reason that she's still circulating in the media

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Speaker 1: a lot, Well, it's because the New Girl did great. Sure, Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's doing very well. It was renewed for a second season.

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Speaker 1: And also because it reignited this conversation that started in

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Speaker 1: two thousands seven about a film and TV trope referred

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Speaker 1: to as Manic Pixie dream Girls. Yeah. I bet a

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Speaker 1: lot of you are rolling your eyes right now. If

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Speaker 1: you know what it is. You know what it is

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Speaker 1: if you search. It's kind of funny to do a

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Speaker 1: search for Mani Pixie dream Girl because you can tell

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Speaker 1: there's a an internet debate going on. People are either

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Speaker 1: very angry or defensive or hateful or whatever. And so

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Speaker 1: some of those titles that pop up, Why are manic

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Speaker 1: Pixie dream girls getting dumber? I'm afraid I'm a manic

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Speaker 1: Pixie dream girl. Manic Pixie dreamgirls are the scourge of

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Speaker 1: modern cinema just as a as a few examples. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's coming from the Gloss Exo, Jane and Jezebel, respectively.

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Speaker 1: So from those three we I'm sensing a little negativity.

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Speaker 1: There's there is a little, but I mean, what's to

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Speaker 1: hate this is? This is a character to get into it,

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Speaker 1: who is Basically she's bubbling. She's happy, Yeah, what could

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Speaker 1: be wrong with She has diverse interests that tends or

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Speaker 1: the artsy. She tends to listen to vinyl records and

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Speaker 1: indie rock music. Now I sound like my mom the

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Speaker 1: kids in their wraps. Yeah, she probably has some nice

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Speaker 1: vintage threads. Yeah. Well. The term was actually coined by

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Speaker 1: a V Clubs Nathan Rabin in two thousand and seven

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Speaker 1: to describe Kirsten Dunce's quirky female love interest character in Elizabethtown,

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Speaker 1: which that movie itself has also garnered a lot of

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Speaker 1: um anti praise on the internet. It's terrible. If you

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Speaker 1: haven't seen it, I don't recommend that you see it,

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Speaker 1: because I don't I would not want to be responsible

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Speaker 1: for that hundred minutes of your life gone exactly. And

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Speaker 1: so the whole thing is, you know, Kirsten Dunst is

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Speaker 1: this bubbly little flight attendant and she takes uh Orlando Bloom,

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Speaker 1: That's who it is. That the guy who's depressed and

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Speaker 1: things are going terribly for him, and all this terrible

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Speaker 1: stuff keeps happening, and she comes along and brightens his

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Speaker 1: day and changes his whole life and sends him on

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Speaker 1: uh well spoiler alert sends him on this road trip

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Speaker 1: that is perfectly timed with a mixtape that she created,

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Speaker 1: which to me is just creepy because at that point

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Speaker 1: in the movie, she's known the guy for like a

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Speaker 1: week or something, and yet she is She's orchestrated this

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Speaker 1: whole thing. And I gotta say, I mean, like Kristen Dunce,

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Speaker 1: it's nothing against her her acting abilities, like I I

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Speaker 1: enjoy her generally on film, and Kirsten Dunce in Elizabethtown

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Speaker 1: is different, I would say, than this whole thing that

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Speaker 1: is morphed into the uh manic Pixie dream Girl that

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Speaker 1: we hear about a lot with Zoe and similar characters,

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Speaker 1: and alongside the manic Pixie dream Girl is is that

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Speaker 1: down and out guy? You know? The The arrival of

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Speaker 1: the manic Pixie dream Girl is usually precede it by

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Speaker 1: some kind of close up of him in bed but

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Speaker 1: yet with bags under his eyes indicating sleeplessness or substance abuse,

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Speaker 1: or a montage of his life slowly falling apart and

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Speaker 1: his his clothing becoming more and more disheveled. Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: And then you know a little burst of pixie dust

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Speaker 1: arrives on the screen exactly, just like a muppet or something. Um. Yeah, Raven.

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Speaker 1: His definition for this character is basically that she exists

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Speaker 1: solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer directors to

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Speaker 1: teach brooding, lee soulful young men to embrace life and

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Speaker 1: its infinite mysteries and adventures. Or, as Anita sarkasan at

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Speaker 1: feminist frequency puts it, she is a shining beacon of

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Speaker 1: childlike joy that will rejuvenate our fallen hero. And that

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Speaker 1: sounds great, Yeah, but what about her? Yeah, well, she'll

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Speaker 1: just she'll flit her away on some wings that she's

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Speaker 1: crafted out of tool and glitter. Nice. Yeah, that's the thing.

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Speaker 1: She she just falls by the wayside because she doesn't

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Speaker 1: really matter at the end. It's really the transformation of

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Speaker 1: the male hero who was almost always straight, almost always white.

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Speaker 1: Same thing. And we'll talk about race in a minute.

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Speaker 1: Uh man a pixie dream girl, a very cookie cutter

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Speaker 1: kind of white character too. Um. And in addition to

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Speaker 1: elizabethtown uh and Zey d in The New Girl, a

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Speaker 1: five days of something Yeah, really five hundred days of summer.

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Speaker 1: I don't I don't know, I've I gotta say I

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Speaker 1: have seen every episode of The New Girl. I am

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Speaker 1: a closet. Now out of the closet, I just came

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Speaker 1: out fan as a fan of this is quite that's

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Speaker 1: quite a change for me or attitude when we talked

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Speaker 1: about the TV show back on our TV episode. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean partially it is my lust over her glasses,

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Speaker 1: which is great. Um, but no, I find it enjoyable.

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Speaker 1: And there's actually one episode where she's confronted by Lizzie Capelan,

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Speaker 1: who plays more serious female character, about being so girly

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Speaker 1: and She's just like, what this is who I am.

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Speaker 1: I've always liked being crafty and cute. See, and it

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean that I'm stupid. And that's part of the argument.

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Speaker 1: That's a lot of the debate going on online. I

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Speaker 1: feel like, is you have these people who are saying,

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Speaker 1: you're grown up woman, You're talking about kiddies and cupcakes.

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to listen to you. But then there's

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Speaker 1: this other group of women saying, like, so what if

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Speaker 1: I'm girly, that doesn't take away my power. But then

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Speaker 1: there's that third little middle argument that says, Okay, you

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Speaker 1: like cupcakes, but did you like cupcakes before this whole

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Speaker 1: trend came along in pop culture? So yeah? Um, and

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Speaker 1: just quickly to name, I guess a couple more movies

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Speaker 1: just pops up in Garden State Natalie Portman's character and that, uh,

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Speaker 1: you have going back. The A V Club also did

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Speaker 1: a post on I think it's fifteen or sixteen movies

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Speaker 1: featuring this trope, and they even cite Annie Hall as

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Speaker 1: a manic pixie dream girl bringing up baby with Katherine

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Speaker 1: hepper Up saying that it goes way way back. But um,

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Speaker 1: in that Gloss article that you mentioned, why are MP

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Speaker 1: d g s and getting dumber? Um? They say that

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Speaker 1: from Katherine Hepburn down to Zoe. She's become she's lost

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Speaker 1: her agency. Yeah, she's kind of become a caricature of

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Speaker 1: a of a carefree, fun loving, independent, strong female down

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Speaker 1: to somebody who stinks when she's nervous and bakes cupcakes,

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Speaker 1: which not that there's anything wrong with that. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: like cupcakes. I do too, shoot man, just because I

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Speaker 1: don't bake them. But if I if I had more time. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: As New York Magazine pointed out in September, um there's

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Speaker 1: also grumbling about all here heroines of the past, people

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Speaker 1: like went On a writer and Parker Posey, who were

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Speaker 1: had the same quirk um, but they had more of

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Speaker 1: an edge to them. They might have left by the

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Speaker 1: end of the movie because they just wanted to, not

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Speaker 1: because they they poofed into a glitter bomb. Left that

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Speaker 1: sulfs like such a mess. Once you get glitter on,

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Speaker 1: you can never get it off everywhere. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's possible that, um, Zoe Additional's character and other Manic

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Speaker 1: Pixie dream girls could just irritate the heck out of

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Speaker 1: somebody with all their like sweetness and everything. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I think that maybe the argument that they're very flat,

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Speaker 1: two dimensional characters is not always warranted. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: and I think that Zoe de Chanelle herself would agree

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Speaker 1: with you Caroline on that point. She said at one

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Speaker 1: point quote that people equate being girly with being non threatening.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I can't think of a more blatant example

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Speaker 1: of playing into exactly the thing that we're trying to

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Speaker 1: fight against. I can't be girly. I think the fact

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Speaker 1: that people are associating being girly with weakness that needs

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Speaker 1: to be examined. I don't think that it undermines my

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Speaker 1: power at all. Right, But then part of the argument

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Speaker 1: goes back to, Okay, well what are we doing with

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Speaker 1: this power? And what are we doing with this girlishness

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Speaker 1: and cuteness? Um over at the gloss. Jamie Peck back

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Speaker 1: in January said that she she actually hates the manic

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Speaker 1: Pixie dream girl because while this character, this woman has

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Speaker 1: some pretty amazing intentions behind her, some pretty amazing characteristics.

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Speaker 1: She those characteristics, like living life to the fullest, are

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Speaker 1: often made to seem trite and easily mocked. So uh,

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Speaker 1: Peck was saying, basically like, I share some of the

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Speaker 1: characteristics of this stereotype this trope, Like I have some

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Speaker 1: of the same freewheeling, care free, independent attitudes, but characters

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Speaker 1: like this, the media portrayal of women like this is

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Speaker 1: sort of ruining it for some of us, basically. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And there's the whole concern too of like, well, are

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Speaker 1: we creating this message that men what men need are

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Speaker 1: our girls really, rather than more level headed women who

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Speaker 1: might not have the time or the desire to frolic

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Speaker 1: in a meadow, you know, exactly who might enjoy their

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Speaker 1: BlackBerry and cubicles more. Right, And the women versus girls

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Speaker 1: debate and what men want was brought up by Willipashkin

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Speaker 1: and The Vulture back in February, and she she said

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Speaker 1: that this whole thing does kind of shed light on

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Speaker 1: how women are choosing to portray themselves to men and

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Speaker 1: what they think men want. And so if there's this

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Speaker 1: whole cutesie, like, ah manic pixie, yeah, let's run in

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Speaker 1: the rain kind of thing, and they go for it

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Speaker 1: and they end up just looking like little girls. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it's also a very heteronormative, a white heteronormative trope

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Speaker 1: that I think gets to a lot of these feminist bloggers. Um,

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Speaker 1: and especially when it comes to that issue of race.

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Speaker 1: It's something that the blog Racial Isious has talked about.

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Speaker 1: For instance, blogger Timmy Winfrey Harris uh rote a post

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Speaker 1: called who is the Black Zoe de Chanal and Um.

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Speaker 1: She says that the persona of manic Pixie dream girl

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Speaker 1: is bound by class and race, and that it's just

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Speaker 1: this perpetual childhood and whiteness. She says, whereas Black women

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Speaker 1: might be portrayed like a boho Lisa Bonet or more

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Speaker 1: of the earth mother Erica bad Do, they're never carefree

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Speaker 1: and childish. Yeah. Harris points out that often in the media,

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Speaker 1: African American women can be strong women, aggressive women, promiscuous women, um,

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Speaker 1: but they're never They're never that saying like ha kittens

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Speaker 1: kind of portrayal. And she says even black girls are

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Speaker 1: too often viewed as worldly women and not innocent. Well,

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Speaker 1: and that's because a lot of times, Uh, African American

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Speaker 1: characters have tropes of their own that you're they're they're

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Speaker 1: used within movies to teach other people a lesson, they're

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Speaker 1: their own, you know, manic Pixie dream girls in their

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Speaker 1: own ways where you know you'll have a magical Morgan

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Speaker 1: Freeman come in and teach the stuck up white lady

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Speaker 1: a lesson about how she needs to loosen up a

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Speaker 1: little bit, and then he'll go and you'll appreciate her

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Speaker 1: transformation in did so. Since we talked about race, um,

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Speaker 1: you know how we don't see this trope reflected in

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Speaker 1: the same way, um from people of different colors and ethnicities.

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Speaker 1: What about gender? Where is the manic pixie dream guy?

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Speaker 1: Would the manic pixie dream guy be the same? Would

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Speaker 1: he come flitting in with his own color of glitter

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Speaker 1: and throw it at you and then kind of flit

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Speaker 1: her off and disappear after your transformation? Does it work

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Speaker 1: the same? It will? It's funny that U s there's

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Speaker 1: a post on nerve about this. They argue that an

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Speaker 1: audience would not want to see a woman left on

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Speaker 1: her own, that that would be more of a tragedy.

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Speaker 1: That even if a manic pixie dream guy like the

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Speaker 1: character in Under the Tuscan Sun who comes and revives

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Speaker 1: Diane Lane from her from her woes and breathed life

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Speaker 1: back into her body and soul, even though her alert

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Speaker 1: ends up, you know, not being with her in the movie,

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Speaker 1: we are still less satisfied. Because someone else comes along

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Speaker 1: to take that place, right, just when you think, right,

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Speaker 1: beautiful Italian Lane and her Tuscan villa. What a shame.

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Speaker 1: She has the magic guy who comes in and you know,

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Speaker 1: and takes care of her and gets her on her

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Speaker 1: way to taking care of herself. And then once she is,

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Speaker 1: you know, her own person, and she has someone else

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Speaker 1: to to enjoy being with for the rest of her life,

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Speaker 1: exactly for the rest of her life. But yeah, they

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Speaker 1: a nerve. They say that male free spiritedness is often

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Speaker 1: portrayed in a negative light and they say, I'm looking

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Speaker 1: at you, Don Draper, Yeah, because it's just not the same. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's the whole It goes to the whole dating logic

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Speaker 1: of you know, women not wanting to come across as

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Speaker 1: too needy. You know, the fastest way I mean, and

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Speaker 1: I'm and I'm quoting uh stereotype now, the fastest way

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Speaker 1: to to get a man to be attracted to you

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Speaker 1: is to be unavailable, you know, whereas UH men who

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Speaker 1: are free spirited, they're just gonna be bad boys and

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Speaker 1: they're gonna leave you and they're just gonna probably collect

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Speaker 1: lots of STDs and hurting you at the end of

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Speaker 1: the day. So, yeah, MANI Pixie dream guy would be

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Speaker 1: someone that you know, all of your friends would tell

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Speaker 1: you to stay away from. Probably, Yeah, who are the

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Speaker 1: Mani Pixie dream guys out there? Did you? Yes? I did?

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Speaker 1: How did it? Did he have glitter? Uh? No? Um,

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Speaker 1: although I remember one night and he ran into him

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Speaker 1: and his nails were painted. Uh. He was whimsical, you know,

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Speaker 1: and he he left as quickly as he came. So,

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Speaker 1: but it was the thing, is it? A months down

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Speaker 1: the line after the relationship, I realized that it did

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Speaker 1: sort of forced me to a point to where, um,

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Speaker 1: it did kind of make me and do some positive

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Speaker 1: things with myself beyond my normal scope. I'm not saying

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Speaker 1: he's necessarily the reason why, but uh, it was a

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Speaker 1: step along the way. Yeah. So there's been so much

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Speaker 1: made of this manic Pixie dream girl trope. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: we want to talk about it because the listener had

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Speaker 1: written in about it. But it's also been something that

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Speaker 1: I had wanted to explore. And I didn't realize that

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Speaker 1: the term has only been around since two thousand seven.

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Speaker 1: But my goodness, how much attention she has gotten. And

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Speaker 1: I wonder why she's gotten so much attention, and so

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Speaker 1: it's a cluster of contemporary films. Um, and yet she

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Speaker 1: arouses so much debate she does well. I mean, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you have to wonder what's going on in the writer's

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Speaker 1: minds that this is happening so much all of a sudden.

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Speaker 1: But I like the distinction that a lot of these

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Speaker 1: writers have drawn between characters like Zoey Deschanel and Natalie

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Speaker 1: Portman and um, Kate Winslet's character in uh Eternal Sension

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Speaker 1: of Spotless Mine, Yes, ma'am, because she is that dream girl.

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Speaker 1: She's kind of cooky and crazy and fun, but she's

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Speaker 1: portrayed as having real, actual problems, and so that's what

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Speaker 1: At Slate they pointed out that the difference between a

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Speaker 1: manic pixie dream girl and a just you know, independent

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Speaker 1: cookie female characters or kind of like kristin Wigan Bridesmaids, Right,

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Speaker 1: it's the sense that something's actually wrong with the manic

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Speaker 1: pixie dream girl. Yeah. Uh, I'll be interested to hear

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Speaker 1: from our listeners what what everyone thinks about it, whether

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Speaker 1: it's being you know, is it too big of a deal.

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Speaker 1: I mean, uh, Anita Sarkisian over feminist frequency links all

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Speaker 1: of this to the problem of the female muse. You know,

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Speaker 1: you think of Warhol, Dylan, Picasso, what are you all

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Speaker 1: and all of them of cited. You know, these female

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Speaker 1: muses in their life who are the inspiration for their

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Speaker 1: great art. And she says, you know, a manic pixie

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Speaker 1: dream Girls serves a similar thing with fictional characters too.

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Speaker 1: You know, there are way too um they're a cipher

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Speaker 1: to allow them to do great things with their lives.

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Speaker 1: And she takes issue with that because she says, well,

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Speaker 1: these women should be standing on their own. But at

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Speaker 1: the same time, I don't know, I think sometimes we

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Speaker 1: might be making too much of the um high waisted

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Speaker 1: dresses and cupcakes. Yeah, and also I think people need

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Speaker 1: to need to tone it down as far as hating

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Speaker 1: on other women. I mean, yes, would I choose to

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Speaker 1: associate with some of these women in real life. Maybe not,

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Speaker 1: like seriously, take your kiddies and go elsewhere, lady. But

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Speaker 1: I mean that doesn't mean that I think they're less

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Speaker 1: of a valid persona or personality. No, I think that's

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Speaker 1: a good point. I think in the in the argument

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Speaker 1: it's a slippery slow because in a lot of these

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Speaker 1: arguments that are calling these tropes out for um, you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe not portraying women as well. It does quickly crumble

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Speaker 1: into women hating on women. So let's build each other up,

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Speaker 1: let's eat our cupcakes together. And you know, Manic Pixie

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Speaker 1: Dream guys you can you can come to craft it

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Speaker 1: as well. Well. With that, little to Boot said, I

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Speaker 1: want to hear your stories mom stuff at Discovery dot com.

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Speaker 1: Let us know what you think about the mpdgs too much,

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Speaker 1: too little? Uh? I don't know. And and guys too,

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Speaker 1: do you find these women appealing? Do Manic Pixie Dream

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Speaker 1: guys exist lots to discuss? Send us your letters. We've

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Speaker 1: got an email here from Martha and this is a

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Speaker 1: response to our episode on giving the Sex Talk, and

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Speaker 1: she writes the other evening, I was listening to the

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Speaker 1: podcast on giving the Talk to your children, and at

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Speaker 1: first I thought, well, that sounds really hard, but at

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Speaker 1: least I have a few years to prepare for it.

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Speaker 1: My daughter is fifteen months old, so it really is

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Speaker 1: a bit early. Then I thought again, my daughter has

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Speaker 1: two moms and we don't know who the father is.

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Speaker 1: We know other same sex couples with children. One of

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Speaker 1: these children started asking why he didn't have a dad

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Speaker 1: before he was two years old, so, in fact, we

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Speaker 1: are already working on our daughter's sex education now. We

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Speaker 1: have several books about families with two moms and are

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Speaker 1: just starting on families with two dads. We also have

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Speaker 1: a book on how children can be conceived by artificial

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Speaker 1: extermination that we haven't started reading about reading it at

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Speaker 1: bedtime yet. I think this is a conversation about sex choices, gender,

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Speaker 1: etcetera that will be an ongoing process. Could this be

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Speaker 1: an advantage of growing up in a non standard family?

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Speaker 1: Think it could be. So Thanks Martha for that insight,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to everybody who's written in. Mom Stuff at

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Speaker 1: Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters,

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Speaker 1: and you can also find us on Facebook and follow

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff podcast, And if you

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Speaker 1: want to read what we're doing during the week, you

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Speaker 1: can head over to our website It's how Stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

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