Death of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Let’s all take a moment to finally admit that the “manic pixie dream girl” is a played out trope that does no one any good. In case you have not heard of it, this trope focuses on a charmingly quirky young woman who draws out the brooding young man and teaches him how to fully embrace life. She unlocks his inner hero and helps him transform into someone vibrant and carefree.
This particular trope is incredibly popular in romantic television and film, and equally problematic. This is true for a couple of reasons. The first is that it portrays men as the heroes, who only need a woman to help them transform to reach their full potential. Secondly, it portrays women as nothing more than a means of character development. This does a disservice to everyone since men are taught to use women for personal development and women are taught that their purpose is to help men grow.
500 Days of Summer is one film that explores this particular trope quite extensively, and in a very interesting way. Tom Hansen, a greeting card writer, falls madly in love with the enigmatic Summer Finn, his manic pixie dream girl, after seeing her briefly in a company meeting. He pursues her, despite her disinterest in a romantic relationship with him, and eventually they begin a no-strings attached relationship. Their relationship is rife with conflict since Summer refuses to commit and Tom refuses to pursue anything in his life outside of her. Tom realizes that his dream girl cannot be tamed when she breaks up with him and breaks his heart.
After taking extensive time to recover from his heartbreak, Tom begins to pursue his passions, which is something Summer had always encouraged him to do. He essentially transforms his whole life to be the way he had always dreamed— sans Summer. While this is a slightly different take on the trope (since he lost the girl), it is still the same old story where a man finds the hero within himself. In fact, at the pivotal moment in the movie, when Tom finally realizes that he has lost Summer, the song “Hero” by Regina Spektor plays in the background. The line, “I’m the hero of the story, don’t need to be saved” plays over and over while Tom walks away to grieve the loss of his manic pixie dream girl.
While Tom got to be the hero of his story, Summer shifted from being one played out plot device to yet another. Rather than allow her to continue going around breaking hearts and inspiring men to change, the writers forced her into a relationship that went against everything she had said leading up to that point. Within a couple months she went from being a free spirited, outspoken woman to a quiet housewife. Her entire appearance shifts from the beginning to the movie, through her relationship with Tom, up until she gets married. Though she claims to have found the love of her life, everything about her seems to have dulled. The light in her eyes has long faded and her only consolation prize is a sense of peace.
While the relationship gave Tom a new life and a new perspective, it stripped Summer of everything that had made her so unique. In fact, one of the last things Summer says in the film is an affirmation that Tom was right about love and relationships all along. This is a harsh contrast to her spirited, argumentative dialogue at the beginning of the film, leaving no doubt that Summer had been tamed and transformed. However, there was undoubtedly a price for this transformation. Though a new, agreeable housewife was born, first, a manic pixie dream girl had to die.
