The Manic Pixie Dream Girl

     In this day and age, who isn’t at least somewhat familiar with the concept of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl? Usually tied to a male main character, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a goofy, eccentric individual who wows the main character with her hopeful air, zest for life, and sense of style that is only slightly out of norm, so that we as the audience understand she is an outcast, though she still remains conventionally attractive. As time goes on, we seem to blur the line between a Manic Pixie Dream Girl and a girl who simply feeds into whimsy, is giggly or adventurous, or has firm, optimistic views on life and love. Admittedly, they do have a lot of things in common, but there are several ways you can tell if a character is an MPDG, as well as plenty of straightforward ways to turn her into a well-respected and interesting addition to a story.

What is an MPDG, and What’s Wrong with Her?

“Manic Pixie Dream Girl” is a term coined in a review for the movie Elizabethtown, where Kirsten Dunst plays the vibrant flight attendant to Orlando Bloom’s suicidal and unemployed shoe designer. Kirsten Dunst’s character is said to “insist” on Orlando Bloom falling in love with her, taking their romance that isn’t even an actual romance yet by the horns and yanking it in the direction she wants it to go. Bloom’s character is somewhat against the whole thing at the start, but eventually falls in love with her in return. Thus Manic Pixie Dream Girl is born, the bright and gaudy girl to accentuate an often brooding and realistic male main character. 

Incredibly popular in film, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a staple to many early 2000's coming of age stories about a sad boy who cannot see the joys of life, and the girl who helps him find them. They're colorful, have quirky and endearing habits, tend to be more visibly interested in the man than the man ever is in her, and will inevitably give our main character some life changing advice or wisdom somewhere in between "I like to make weird sounds that no one's made before" and "sounds like a pretty good time for an adventure".

That’s the heart of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl; they exist to be either a counter for the male protagonist, or a stepping stone for them to build their confidence off of or find purpose from. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists to uplift the male character’s story, and are often single-minded (usually on love), one-dimensional, and display clear rejection of most hobbies and interests that could be considered inherently feminine. It’s not just that these characters can be largely uninteresting in books and films where they are prominent characters, it’s that they represent the nasty habit of female characters being used as props for male characters and continuing the idea that this kind of woman - a woman who oo’s and aa’s over every thing a man does, is relentlessly supportive even when the man is being a dick, and who has no real discernible flaws or personality outside of her relationship to the man is a realistic possibility. It’s a sexist and uncomfortable rhetoric that could very easily be solved, if only authors and film writers put a little bit of thought into it! 

Appearance

The MPDG has a style that is easily defined as the sort of outfits a pixie would wear, with lots of colors and different fabrics and glitter. It's youthful, playful, and feminine while steering clear of anything that could be considered hyper feminine. Manic Pixie Dream Girls don’t tend to wear bows or have long nails, and they practically never go for any look that could be considered “sexy”, unless of course we are given a scene where the male protagonist gets to show her just how beautiful she is. Allegedly, this kind of attire is common because when the male protagonist falls in love with her, it shows that he cares more about her interests and “the way she makes him feel” than her appearance, thus making him a kind, trustworthy, loveable man. Personally, I think it’s also because a lot of these styles can be very similar to the outfits eight-year-old girls wear, but that’s just me. Take that with a grain of salt. 

This is, out of all the things I’m going to talk about, one of the only aspects of the MPDG that is pretty okay on its own. There’s nothing wrong with a woman dressing up in fun and bright colors, wearing pigtail braids  - I myself am a pigtail lover until the day I die - or preferring not to dress super sexy. It’s more of an amplifier than anything, making the harsher and harder to ignore sexism of the character much more prominent if they are there at all, and doing little to nothing if they aren’t. Just something to keep in mind.

Depth

For a character who loves to give soulful, wise advice to the male protagonist, the MPDG lacks a whole lot of life experience or backstory to back up how a twenty-something-year-old figured it all out. She might have some past trauma like a parent dying or some past boyfriend abuse, but we are never going to see this negatively impact her personality, or her relationship with the male protagonist. 

This is not to say that the MPDG is exempt from flaws, she just only exhibits what I call “sparkle flaws”, as in flaws that are technically flaws, but never have the fallout or negative repercussions that actual flaws tend to have. Sparkle flaws are handled in a way that makes them come off as endearing, and something that the male protagonist can fix for her. Take Penny Lane from Almost Famous, who is rescued from an overdose by our main man and is convinced by this act to tell him her real name and "see the light", so to speak. The damsel in distress quality in female love interests in relation to their male counterparts is strong as ever, folks. To my complete and utter displeasure. 

MPDG’s exhibit convenient, conditional independence in which they are smart, capable, and seemingly well-adjusted women who conveniently have a singular issue that their bum of a man can solve for them, to counteract all of the wise advice and life lessons the Dream Girl offers them. That’s the way I see it, anyway; it would be an insult to a man’s ability and importance if the woman were to help him grow over the course of two aggravating hours and the man NOT offer a singular comment about how she’s “so beautiful” to change her entire world view. Even with all of her wonderful, world-altering advice, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is only full of meaning because the male protagonist gives her meaning; or rather, she is only full of meaning because the male protagonist says she is. His decree, and his perception of her, is what makes her magical. Not who she is on her own. I really hope I don’t have to explain to you what’s problematic about this. Alas, our Dream Girl is just that, a wild, misogynistic dream. More on that in the next section!

The Male Fantasy

Fun fact: male protagonists rarely approach the MPDG, but she approaches them. The man is often begrudging in giving in to her charm, because he’s super cool and brooding and shit, and she persists anyways. She is rarely sad, rarely emotional, rarely afraid. She wants to hear only about the male protagonist’s worries and goals, she wants to enjoy his bands, she wants to help him by any means necessary. She is, let me say this once so I do not have to say it again, VERY NOT REAL. 

Have you ever been online and noticed that men adamantly want a woman with conservative beliefs - tends to the man, leaves important decisions to the man - without looking conservative? Misogynistic men want an accessory that repeats their own affirmations back to them like some demented fantastical furby in the hopes that, hearing it from somebody else, they might believe it. They also want those affirmations to come from a woman that makes them feel young, joyful, and free, rather than the archetypal conservative woman who dresses, well, conservative, and acts in other aspects of her life, you guessed it, conservative. In a way, that is what the MPDG is. It’s the fulfillment of a man’s fantasy to have a woman who is so bright and youthful be so utterly devoted to him, to mother him in a way that does not actually remind him of his mother, to tend to him without the frazzled hair and irritation a woman so out of his league and forced to do all the heavy lifting in a relationship WOULD have. 

The Distinction

In recent years the Manic Pixie Dream Girl label has been slapped onto every silly female character the general public can get their hands on, which is its own brand of misogyny, tagging characters that are not attached to a man to a man, and often disregarding many of their intricacies for the sake of the label. So what is the distinction between the two? Framing, my friends. 

Does our female character have bad habits that are framed in a negative light, and are those habits explained? Do they have an origin point? Does she exhibit hobbies and interests of her own, separate from the male protagonist? Does she ever disagree with the male protagonist, and if she does, does she stand her ground after the fact?

Lucy Gray Baird from Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a fantastic example of a whimsical lady, and not a MPDG. She is a lively, vibrant outcast with firm, seemingly outlandish beliefs, and she dresses noticeably different from most of the people around her. But Lucy Gray is not a MPDG because she exists beyond the scope of our male main character (I refuse to call him a protagonist)’s perception, she does not act particularly childish, and she has her own strong opinions, interests, and pastimes. She receives help from the male MC and gives him a "look into her world", as MPDG's tend to, but she is not helpless without him and does not need him in her world. Lucy Gray is incredibly kind, intelligent, courageous, and rebellious in her own right, though not without fault. She is enormously complex. 

How To Fix It!

If you’re beginning to worry about whether or not your female character is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, it’s an easy fix! It’s all about asking yourself as an author questions about the character, and making the answers relevant to the world, the story, and your lovely leading lady. Here’s a list of questions to consider;

1. What flaws does your lady have? Why does she have them? How do they impact the people around her? Include her history in her speech patterns, her body language, and the way she interacts with people other than the main character

2. DOES SHE INTERACT WITH PEOPLE OTHER THAN THE MAIN CHARACTER? If the answer is no, my love, you’ve gotta fix that. What kind of people is she drawn to? Are they similar to her, or vastly different? Are they similar or different to the main character? What do you think that says about her friendship / professional preferences, and her romantic ones?

3. Similarly, why does she like the main character? What do they offer her, and what does she offer them? A big part of the MPDG is that the male protagonist is often somewhat unwilling in the romance, falling in love with a loud sigh, but that’s old and tired. Why does your main character love her? SHOW THEM being in love with her, not just them being impacted by the advice she gives. Your character isn’t just in love with the world view, they’re in love with her. Remember that. 

        There’s no shame in not noticing things. I wrote seven drafts of my book before I realized one of my main characters was actually a douchebag. It happens. Check yourself, ask yourself questions, and never be afraid to delete. Happy Writing! 

A Review / Rant for Into The Mist

 

Trigger Warning: Rape, Death, Sexual Assault

Last week I read Into The Mist by P.C. Cast, and couldn’t put my finger on what felt off. The premise is incredibly interesting - a group of female teachers during the apocalypse, where a green mist covers the US killing men and giving women strange powers - but the stakes never felt high, and I was struggling to connect with the characters. 

The issue, I realized about halfway through the story, was that the characters didn’t struggle. There are obstacles, sure, a broken bridge here and an angry drunk there, but every single problem these women face, the solution is discovered or offered either in the same chapter the problem is introduced, or the next chapter over. A little girl falls in a river and begins to be swept away where no one can reach, and suddenly a man comes out of the woods and saves her. If the characters get shot, no worries, starting right now one of the ladies is able to heal people. The mist starts getting too close and a strong wind blows it away. The entire book is would-be problem after would-be problem, none of which lead anywhere. 

The powers these women gain after coming in contact with the mist were a big part of the issue, because why would the characters struggle, if they each conveniently gain abilities that combat every issue they could be having? The youngest member of our party, Gemma, can heal people. Mercury, our leading lady, has super strength and speed. Right at the end of the book one of the other teachers, Imani, suddenly gains the ability to prophesy? This seems almost entirely so she can refer to “The Destroyer” in the last chapter, which was not a thing so much as hinted at AT ALL throughout the entire book, and was clearly a power Imani was given just to tease the sequel. Most infuriating of all the gifts is Stella’s, the gift of insane intuition that completely destroys any sense of tension, because she tells you at the beginning of the scene if you should be scared or not. She says when things are safe, when there’s danger, where they need to go. She can even gather to a certain extent if someone is lying, or if their intentions are bad. Her ability works in a way that they are able to avoid almost any danger, or at least be well prepared when it finds them, and eradicates any sense of apprehension a reader might potentially feel.

More than that, the characters don’t struggle emotionally. So imagine you’re on a work trip and watch a bomb get dropped on Oregon. Imagine immediately after that, your close friend / mentee brutally dies in child birth and two of your coworkers disintegrate into a pile of messy goo, you realize that your spouse / parents / siblings / children are probably dead, and you have to try and find a way off the mountain you’re stuck on while still covered in your friends blood. Would you be having a wine sleepover with all your girlfriends that night? I think not! There is a singular scene where the women - three of them, mind you, which is about half the party - cry for the families they've lost, but they cry for maybe ten minutes, and it happens in between chapters, in a place we can’t see. After the aforementioned wine sleepover, where they all dressed in matching flannel pajamas, Gemma’s mother abandons her. It’s a silent admission that she’s always cared for her husband more than her daughter as she leaves without bothering to say goodbye, and Gemma, a sixteen-year-old, is said to be teary-eyed maybe twice. It does not affect her story any more after that. 

It is nearly impossible to genuinely connect with a character if you are never allowed to see them struggle. You can’t sympathize with them or care about their sorrows when the characters themselves don’t seem to care about them. Stories require hesitation, stutters, moments of reiteration and repetition. An author, to a certain extent, has to tell you why you should care for these characters. There are tons of ways to do this, but even if it's not the main approach they take, about 97% of authors include the angle of "because they're in danger". You care about the character because they're in a stressful, emotional scenario, and you sympathize. If you don't include this angle, and the emotional / physical stress of a situation is ignored or written out, a book becomes little more than a bullet point list of where they went and why, an ongoing “and then they did this and then they did this and then they did this and then…” It offers no consideration or collaboration from the reader, and that makes a book dull.

And then of course, we have a list of uncomfortabilities. Ford, for example, the only Hispanic character, throws Spanish words into English sentences. Stella has some questionable relationships with significantly younger men (more concerning because this woman is a high school teacher, which is just icky), and then we have Karen Gay. Karen Gay, who is said to be incredibly religious and homophobic. Hilarious. 

Here’s the thing; there was such a lovely opportunity here to write a well thought-out redemption arc where Karen sees the error in her ways and grows from it, but that just… Didn’t happen. To start, although we’re told Karen is homophobic and hateful, we never actually see her be either of those things. She critiques one of the characters for cursing - who then promptly threatens to ditch her on the side of the road to die - and is mildly uncomfortable with Mercury and her pagan beliefs, but other than that, nothing. What we do see is Mercury saying that Karen is thirty pounds too heavy, and the rest of the women routinely pressuring Karen to drink, smoke, try drugs, and stop being so reserved. The few times the book actually discusses Karen’s intolerance for other belief systems, Mercury says “get it together or we’ll leave you in the woods”, and then Karen says she’ll get it together, and we move on. So I guess it’s not just about things being reiterated, as I mentioned earlier, it’s about things being reiterated and bringing something new each time, either about a character or about her relationship to another person. Why is it being reiterated? Why is she having trouble shaking this habit, and what does that say about her?

We don’t get that with Karen, arguably the most sidelined character, and arguably the most interesting. She, at least, has the chance to struggle, even if it’s struggling with being tolerant towards other denominations. But that’s struggle! Which we do not see. But it could be there! But it’s not. 

Moving on to book two, Out Of The Dawn, where the journey continues. In Book 2, Mercury grieves the loss of a man she’s known for three days after he dies. And I’m not going to say anything about her grieving him, it’s a high-stress scenario and she really liked him and he died really fucking horribly, so that makes sense. What I am going to say is that Mercury 1) grieving for this man more than we see Imani grieve for her dead husband and two dead children and 2) being told to get back to work after three days of grieving, with those three days of grief joking referred to as her “depression sleep” from then on, is insane. For such a dark, serious concept, it is almost never treated as dark or serious, and it completely kills your investment in the characters and their story. 

I will admit that I did not finish Out Of The Dawn, because about 150 pages in our youngest member, Gemma, is brutally raped in the woods, and it has zero impact on the rest of the story. She stumbles back into camp, describes the encounter intimately and in incredible detail to the entire group (including a man she's known for only a few days, not including maybe one time she met him a year or so prior), and after the man is dealt with, this horrible trauma has little to no impact on the story or Gemma as a character. I flipped through the chapters, I jumped back and forth, I read reviews, and they all gave me the same answer; Gemma’s rape was half-assed shock value, and not much more. 

There is a place in literature for stories of assault and rape. Of course there is. It’s incredibly important to bring attention to it, and it can be a healing and cathartic process for an author to write about it, if they’ve had experiences in their own life. And not every person who experiences a terrible assault reacts the same; of course, there is a reality where Gemma does not react loudly and openly, but in quieter, more subtle ways. But it is a life-altering experience, and if it is written in a book, it cannot under any circumstances be taken lightly. It requires care, research, and an incredible amount of thought, and it requires a certain level of weight and severity while handling that this author simply didn’t give it. It’s upsetting to read it used like it is in Out of the Dawn, as a tool in some grand attempt at fear-mongering. 

P.C. Cast makes dozens of jabs at men, the danger they pose and their inadequate leadership, across both books. Which I’m not against, on paper. But it reaches a point where it’s performative, actively works against the rest of the story, and in cases such as Gemma’s, completely demolishes any belief I had in the book and the author. I do not believe that this author has a genuine grasp on feminism, if she thought this was okay. As someone who has not once shied away from content, I found myself genuinely uncomfortable with her articulation of the content, and that’s what made me put the book down. 

All this is to say, I was severely disappointed with this series. As someone who was raised taking part in Pagan rituals and LOVES apocalyptic settings, there was so much potential for a really beautiful story of women growing as individuals and learning to lean on one another, building their own society which was entirely separate from the capitalistic and patriarchal one we currently reside within. Unfortunately, P.C. Cast completely missed the mark.