Female Character Tropes: Manic Pixie Dream Girl leads to new stereotype

Confession: I love Zooey Deschanel, Kirsten Dunst, Kate Winslet and Natalie Portman. What do these women have in common? They have all filled the role of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl...and I ate it up every step of the way. But what, exactly, is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

It is a character trope: a common theme or device which, in this case, is a set of common behaviors embodied by female characters.

As I entered my teens the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope was exploding in movies, mostly due to the growing popularity of indie films. Characters like Garden State's Sam (Portman) and Elizabethtown's Claire (Dunst) were fun, spontaneous and quirky. They were beautiful in a not-so-unobtainable way and boys were so enamored they would just drop everything for this girl. I, too, was in awe of them--I thought that maybe I could be spontaneous and think deep thoughts about random things and have it all mean something more in a very impressing way that would get nerdy, sensitive guys to like me.

I was wrong. The problem? Those characters are one-dimensional. What else do they have going on besides having all the free time in the world to participate in outlandish hobbies and make up quirky-cool things to say? Not that much, really. Sam (Portman, Garden State) basically lived at home taking care of small rodents and took on Zack Braff's character like some sort of psychology project and Claire (Dunst, Elizabethtown) may have been a flight attendant, but she hardly ever went to work and only served to help Orlando Bloom out of his depression by being a fantastic talker who pretends to take snapshots with her invisible camera. For a teenager, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is appealing because of the fact she is fun, funny, and weird in a way that is outside of the usual normative female gender role. However, she is still a trope used most often as a prop to advance a male character forward in developing his sense of identity and purpose--she, on the other hand, remains the same: child-like.

These days, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl has morphed. I feel like a new trope stemming from it is being born...The Manic Pixie Nerd Girl.

A Manic Pixie Nerd Girl is not only quirky and adorable, but even more childlike in thought and demeanor. She is a male nerd's wet dream--literally. Not only does she read graphic novels, comics and loves Lord of the Rings, but she also plays video games and swears like a sailor (while maintaining her childlike innocence, of course). What makes her even worse for women trying to emulate her is her wardrobe, which is a veritable cache of vintage gold: colorful cardigans, full skirts, vintage tees, pearls, thick-rimmed glasses and shoes as quirky as her personality.

The prime example of this newly-updated Manic Pixie is Zooey Deschanel's character, Jess, in the fall series "New Girl." Though I work most nights when the new hit shows are aired and do not own a DVR, I've finally gotten around to watching "New Girl" on my computer.



The character of Jess is everything I described a Manic Pixie Nerd Girl to be. In fact, her character's childishness extends so far as to warrant her three male roommates policing her behavior like she is a 5 year old. In the pilot episode we see Jess getting told to shave her legs, told what to wear and told how to act. While this is all done for the sake of the show as a comedy, it still reflects a general patriarchal attitude that women are clueless and need help functioning in their daily lives.

The main reason I separate the Manic Pixie Nerd Girl from the Dream Girl is that the Dream Girl is one who often aids a male character on an emotional or transformative journey, whereas the Nerd Girl appears to be the one being guided rather than the one doing the guiding.

Take two of Deschanel's characters: Summer, of "500 Days of Summer," and Jess, of "New Girl." Summer embodies the Manic Pixie Dream Girl because she is smart, quirky, fun and youthful which are characteristics that help the film's main character, Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), realize those same characteristics within himself and grow as person. Her character of Jess, however, has many of the same characterstics but is noticeably more empty-headed and "weird" and does not appear to be helping her male roommates change. Instead, it seems that it is the roommates who have the influence over her, and whether or not that leads to her character developing further as a person is yet unknown but I see it as doubtful.

Another example of the Manic Pixie Nerd Girl, I would argue, is Juno (Ellen Page). She is a female character very much into comics, cartoons, sarcasm, and general outside-the-box behavior. She too seems to have less transformative power over others than a Dream Girl would.

No matter what the female trope is, it is important to realize them for what they are: generally stereotypical representations of women that do not fully reflect the wide range of female personalities, ambitions and interests.