For those not familiar with the term, “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” is a term coined by film reviewer Nathan Rabin in 2007 for a type of character we all know well.
She is generally petite, attractive, high on life, playful, prone to quirky antics and shenanigans, maybe minor crime that doesn’t hurt no-one, and will inevitably be obsessed with teaching a more straight-laced, brooding male character to “loosen up a little”, “be free”, “be happy” or similar. They probably “meet cute” early in the work, too.
MPDG characters tend to be… divisive. To quote Rabin, “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is an all-or-nothing-proposition. Audiences either want to marry her instantly (despite The Manic Pixie Dream Girl being, you know, a fictional character) or they want to commit grievous bodily harm against them and their immediate family.”<
For everyone like me who saw Garden State and went home with a massive crush on Natalie Portman, there is someone who had to be restrained from throwing their ice-cream at the screen. No less a source than Jezebel (ahem) called the MPDG the scourge of modern cinema, although as we will see the MPDG is hardly a modern invention. And that is why this list is both the best AND worst Manic Pixie Dream Girls, at the same time.
Feel free to either rant or drool or both in the comments.
10. Maria (Julie Andrews), The Sound of Music
Yes way, Ted. Petite? Attractive? High on life? Quirky and playful and there to teach a straight-laced brooding male character to loosen up and be happy? Check, check, check, check, check, check and check.
This is the real secret of why so many people have happy memories of The Sound of Music and so many froth at the mouth at the name. It’s not the songs. It’s the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
9. Jack (Leonardo Di Caprio), Titanic
OK, he’s a guy, but everything else fits. He’s the Manic Pixie Dream Guy that gives Kate Winslet the courage to break away from her arranged life and unloveable asshole fiancé and choose love over money. And many other MPDGs, he dies at the end after his love interest has learned all the lessons he can teach.
8. Amelie (Audrey Tautou),Amelie
Not a very good example, unfortunately. Because who didn’t love Amelie?
7. Leslie, Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
I never saw the movie version, but the book version is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl: for the Young Adult set. Free-spirited girl moves to town and becomes only friend of small-town boy, broadening his horizons. The character of teacher Ms Edmunds also appears this way to small-town boy Jesse (and was played in the movie by noted MPDG actress Zooey Deschanel…).
6. Dharma (Jenna Elfman),Dharma and Greg
Dharma and Greg is what happens when you make an entire TV show about a Manic Pixie Dream Girl and her straight-man. Somehow ran for 5 seasons, so someone loved it.
5. Mork (Robin Williams),Mork and Mindy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9K0Nh_F5L9M
Robin Williams has his picture in the dictionary under “manic”, and his manic cloudcuckoolander performances as the loveable oddball alien Mork in this series (which was, somehow, a spin-off from Happy Days) made him not only a Manic Pixie Dream Guy that broadened Mindy’s horizons but also those of her father, most other characters he encountered, and the audience.
4. Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
A very early version. While Jane has been made quieter and more introverted by her upbringing as an orphan, and isn’t manic by modern standards, her free spirit drives brooding tragic Mr Rochester to find love in his heart once again and he even refers to her as a pixie, so she counts. Anyone got an older example?
3. Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn),Breakfast at Tiffany’s
If only we had the internet earlier, we could have been talking about Manic Pixie Dream Girls for the past 50(!) years. Audrey Hepburn played this character type all the time, and no Hepburn role is more famous than Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
2. Claire (Kirsten Dunst), Elizabethtown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BSZWSsQIh_U
She has to be this high on the list, she was the original that inspired the term. An airline stewardess who helps the brooding lead (Orlando Bloom) out of a suicidal depression, Rabin described her as “psychotically chipper”, while some might describe her instead as acting manically cute. It was Kirsten Dunst before the slide and rehab! Wearing a cute red hat! In a terrible movie! (Come on, no-one liked it, we all only saw it as in-flight entertainment, right?)
1. Sam (Natalie Portman), Garden State
While Rabin coined the term for Kiki Dunst in Elizabethtown,he immediately cited Garden State as another example, and it’s probably the best definition of the archetype bar none. Not only does Ms Portman’s character hit every single facet of the stereotype, the target market of slightly discontented teens and 20-somethings were the perfect age to crush hard on her, male and female alike. Therefore, she’s the best MPDG ever. And also the worst, because if you were in your 20s or 30s and did not like Garden State and rush out and grab the soundtrack, then the only reason besides being soulless is that you just cannot stand Manic Pixie Dream Girls. You Jezebellian, you.
(Header photo via)
