The Manic Pixie Dream Girl
The official Wikipedia definition for a Manic Pixie Dream Girl goes like this-Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a stock character type in films. Film critic Nathan Rabin, who coined the term after observing Kirsten Dunst’s character in Elizabethtown (2005), describes the MPDG as “that bubbly, shallow enigmatic 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.” MPDGs are said to help their men without pursuing their own happiness, and such characters never grow up; thus, their men never grow up.
The erratic and capricious girl, Summer from 500 days of Summer? The way she was full of weird quirks and the cute bangs? That’s a classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl. The muse to the rock-stars, Penny Lane in Almost Famous? The way she inspired struggling artists create their masterpieces? That’s a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. The awkward young girl Sam in Garden State who draws a catatonically numb guy out of his shell and shows him how to actually live life? That’s a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
Let me tell you something. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists. It’s not just a figment of a sensitive writer’s imagination. It’s real. You’ve only got to be uncharacteristically lucky to ever have the good fortune of actually meeting her in real life. Even so, more often than not, you’ll end up cursing the day you met her- She will invariably leave you with a broken heart.
She is everything the movies portray and more. Much more. She’ll make you question your life. She will make you embrace uncertainty. She will teach you to live life in the moment, letting go of all your inhibitions and worries.
You were a drone before you met her. Living, but not living. You may have had dreams, but you put those on a back burner a long time ago. Life had drained you of your imaginative flair and left you a dry, pragmatic, cynical soul. Meeting her will change all that.
She will come into your life like a hurricane, upsetting the careful balance you had built over the years. Her radiant joy at just being alive will be like an infectious and addictive drug. It’s exciting being around her and her unpredictability. On some days, she’ll dress up and go to the most expensive hotel in town for dinner while on other days she’ll want to drag you along for a date in a cemetery. Her erratic temperament will gradually start growing on you. It’s refreshingly alive compared to monotony that life usually is.
You’ll find yourself grudgingly smiling at her many quirks and eccentricities. You’ll start admiring her spirited dismissal of convention. She doesn’t need fancy titles or material possessions to be happy. She can pack up everything she owns in just a couple of suitcases, yet she manages to be unflinchingly happy. She’s not given up on her life.
She passionately pursues her childhood dreams with carefree abandon. She’s an obscure painter, scrounging whatever she can selling what she calls abstract art. She doesn’t have it all figured out, but she confidently and optimistically believes that everything will fall into place when the time comes. She’ll change what she wants to do with her life with a whimsical frequency. One day she’ll decide to be a poet and the very next day she will be convinced that she hates poetry and instead loves carving blocks of wood in the likeness of characters from the Lord of The Rings.
She loves like a fire left untended in dry forests, consuming everything in its path, a fiery passion that warms the cockles of your heart. You’ll never feel as alive as when you’re wrapped up in her arms.
Her kindness will melt the cynicism in your heart. She struggles to give a bad rating on Yelp to a restaurant that gave her food-poisoning, because it might affect their business. That’ll be too mean, she’ll say. You’ve never met anyone as compassionate and loving as her. She’ll drop her bags on the sidewalk to help an old lady cross the street. She’ll stop in the middle of the road to pet a stray dog, ignoring the impatient looks directed at her by the people stuck in the small traffic jam she caused behind her.
She talks like a river lapping against rocks- unceasing and rhythmic. Nothing can break her flow. She’ll recount every minuscule detail of her day without pausing to let you answer back. You don’t mind. You could listen to her go on forever. Her voice had a lyrical quality entrapping all who were within earshot.
She’s an enigma, a mystery, and that’s part of her charm. You’ll fall for her hard and you’ll be happy for a while. Just when things start to fall into a comfortable pattern, she’ll get bored and leave in search of something and someone excitingly new.
Maybe she wont affect you. Maybe as Rabin observed, only sensitive writers are taken in by her charms. But isn’t that the dream? Isn’t that what every guy wants? A Yin to his Yang? A cheerfulness to his broodiness? A recklessness to his seriousness? A manic girl to take you on the soulful journey that is love?
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