Manic Pixie Dream Girls

An Open Letter to Alaska Young:
If you were a real person, I doubt you would have settled for the representation John Green dumped you with. I mean, you were always described as strong and self assured. You were an active feminist, albeit a slightly problematic one. So I seriously doubt you could have been satisfied knowing that your personality existed only to provoke the sleazy-male-main-character to reflect on his masculinity. I never really got to know you, because you weren't meant to be understood; you were meant to appear as an unattainable hypersexual enigma. I think you could have been a great girl and a cool friend, but you never had time for me - you were only written to entertain the male fantasy.

Sincerely,
Hannah

In the growing Young Adult fiction genre, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) trope has become a very frequent representation of women, especially teenage girls, in literature, cinema and pop culture. The term Manic Pixie Dream Girl was coined by film critic Nathan Rabin who describes her as "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that 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." Basically we see a growing representation and romanticisation of girls whose purpose is only to further the life of their *much more real, important and developed* male counterparts. On top of this blatant devaluation of women, MPDGs are often hypersexualised, and presented as a beautiful, mysterious prize that the male protagonist aims to own. For example, in Looking for Alaska, Miles' ultimate victory comes in finally "getting through" to Alaska, resulting in her hooking up with him. In the 2009 film 500 Days of Summer, the audience celebrates with Tom as he eventually overcomes Summer's enigmatic defences and can now be sexually intimate with her.




Q- How is this harmful?
A- So many ways...

Firstly, the MPDG trope very obviously characterises women as subservient to men - having no personal agenda that doesn't directly benefit the male protagonist. It's like 21st century "women belong in the kitchen" except this time it's "women belong in men's beds, giving inspirational speeches so men can lead better lives while she remains empty and depressed, but simultaneously sexy and beautiful."

Secondly, it exacerbates the issue of men being conditioned to believe they deserve sex. MPDG's are often romantic interests, and specifically the type who are completely unattainable except to our goofy, deep-and-meaningful male protagonist. Usually from the get-go, the male protagonist aims to get with his Dream Girl, and we as an audience are made to wish their relationship eventuates. However, since the MPDG by definition is not humanised with meaningful personality traits and a meaningful backstory, the inevitable hook up is simply a sexual victory for the male, with the MPDG characterised as "finally agreeing to give him what he deserves". Hello Sam from Garden State.

The other thing we see is that the MPDG trope dictates female beauty standards in a pretty toxic way. These girls are always described as undeniably physically beautiful, but with a mysterious insecurity that makes them all the more soulfully attractive. This causes a romanticisation of mental illness, which adversely effects people living with mental health issues since their very serious medical condition is not properly recognised. When mental illness in MPDGs is a beautifully tragic, attractive aspect of their otherwise non-existent personality, people who actually struggle with real cases of depression, anxiety or eating disorders are invalidated because they're viewed as "putting it on for attention". 

Problem #1765: Manic Pixie Dream Girls are always white.
Problem #1766: Manic Pixie Dream Girls are objectified.
Problem #1767: Manic Pixie Dream Girls are almost always written by a man under the male gaze.
Problem #1768: Manic Pixie Dream Girls are a projection of what the patriarchy deems to be a "cool girl", which not only cements the idea that an ideal girl is subservient, sexually available to men and conventionally beautiful, but socialises girls to want to be like this.

The list continues, and will grow even more as the YA fiction that utilises this trope keeps on gaining popularity, publishing contracts and movie opportunities. Hooray for positive female representation. So to all my budding writers, directors, film critics and YA fiction consumers out there: be critical when you come across this characterisation; it's pretty damaging to our society.

Comment below!
Hannah

Lady Macbeth is Not a Feminist Icon

Flipping over the year 10 English yearly exam paper to see a question dissecting the “unconventional power of Lady Macbeth” is a pretty standard high school experience. We’ve all been there – analysing the scandal and impact of her deadly prowess and unfeminine manipulation.

It is a popular reading of the play to see Lady Macbeth as a main instigator of the action and bloodshed; a unique example of a female as such a plot device. Resultantly, it is common to hear proclamations of the play's progressiveness and Shakespeare’s admirable feminist qualities. However this kind of interpretation is pretty far flung and misrepresentative of what female empowerment in literature really looks like.

Not going to lie, Lady M’s “Unsex me here” speech is one of the most kickass female soliloquies in all of Shakespeare’s works. Her blatant disdain of typical female gender roles like childbearing and motherhood is pretty damn powerful, and the wicked, sanguineous language of her speeches are brutally un-feminine. And at face value it would seem that Lady M is indeed a sort of 0.5^th wave feminist icon, and Shakespeare was an Elizabethan “good guy”. It is a nice sentiment, and unfortunately pretty unfounded.

It is not enough to substantiate Lady Macbeth’s feminist status just by her initial characterisation. Although she seems like a strong and unusually virile, bloodthirsty leading lady, the continuation and resolution of her plot-line undermines this opening image. By the time Duncan is dead, the plot is clearly in Macbeths hands, with Lady M’s influence growing smaller and smaller. She suffers the haunting guilt just as strongly as her husband, and in fact seems more susceptible to the ensuing madness. By the beginning of act 5, our “strong independent Scottish woman” is a drooling wreck of hallucinations and madness (see also: Shakespeare is saneist). What we can infer from her emotional collapse is that she is in fact being punished for daring to oppose her assigned gender roles. The fact that a character who challenges social norms exists isn’t significant. What matters is how they’re presented.

Why is this? A fictional character such as the shocking Lady Em does not have their own autonomy. They're made up, duh. What this means is that they are empowered/objectified/glorified/condemned as per according to the lenses of their creator. They cannot command their own power, because they are completely at the mercy of whoever allocated their characterisations. So Lady M cannot be a powerful and positive representation of women "just because.” She needs that to be part of the intention behind her character, and evident in the outcome of her storyline. Which it isn’t.

Back to the play. It is clear that Lady Macbeth is condemned; she goes mad and dies. Pretty obvious damnation right there. It is then an easy conclusion to say that this is at least partially because she defies her natural path and hence commits great sin. That is, she betrays her womanhood and steps inappropriately out of her position and must be punished.

This trope is seen throughout literature, where supposedly empowered and strong women are condemned for defying the natural order of things. For example, Mina in Bram Stoker’s Dracula is corrupted into a vampire once she displays “masculine” standards of bravery, leadership and sexuality. Even Alaska in John Green’s Looking for Alaska is killed off for being enigmatically independent and extremely sexually active. Of course, John Green and perhaps even Stoker and Shakespeare didn’t intend to perpetuate inherently patriarchal views of women in their literature. But the strong-woman-who-must-inevitably-fall-from-grace trope is a “seller”; it fits many tried and tested formulae for good stories, and is commonly used out of sheer cliché.  

So fill me from the crown to the toe topful o’ direst feminist education/Make thick my blood/Stop up the access and passage to problematicness.

Exeunt

Hannah