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Falling in Love with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Transformations of Masculinity in the 21st Century Gordon So Research Master’s Thesis Department of Media Studies Universiteit van Amsterdam 2 July 2019 Supervisor: Toni Pape Second Reader: Abe Geil SO 2 Abstract The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a stock character type in American millennial cinema labelled as a young, lively, whimsical girlfriend who takes the hand of her male partner to show him the delightfully adventurous side of life. She can be found in numerous popular and critically acclaimed films such as (500) Days of Summer (2009) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), which demonstrates the character’s prevalence in popular culture. Existing discussions regarding the manic pixie dream girl are mostly led by feminists who criticize the character trope for rewriting women in service of male fantasy. Little attention, however, is paid to investigating the origin of this figure, the masculinity alongside it, and the gender relations it reveals in contemporary society. This study addresses these issues by proposing character analyses of several manic pixie dream girl films in connection with critical literature in film and cultural analysis. Results show that these films indicate a masculine desire to transform oneself as a means to escape a state of arrested development from indulgencing in pre-adolescent fantasy to shouldering adult responsibility. A closer look on the manic pixie dream girl reveals that the character is moulded by postfeminist ideology which emphasizes individual freedom and choice; and she is found in male-centred films wherein the pursuit of her love always issues lessons of masculine self- improvement. These embedded notions of femininity and masculinity closely adhere to the construction of the self-enterprising neoliberal subjectivity. In the conclusion of these films, men tend to end up better adjusted to the neoliberal social order through partnership with manic pixie dream girls or overcoming their juvenile desire for them. Keywords: Manic Pixie Dream Girl, masculinity, postfeminism, romantic comedy, (500) Days of Summer SO 3 Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Toni Pape. This project would not have come to be without the time, effort, and patience he has generously dedicated to guide me through the process in the past year. I also want to thank Abe Geil for kindly agreeing to be the second reader of this thesis. In addition, I am forever in debt to the staff and fellow classmates of the Media Studies Research Master’s program at the University of Amsterdam. They create a professional and affectionate environment for me to learn as a student and grow as a young adult. The passion and wisdom they pour into the program make this project and me possible. SO 4 Contents Introduction: Approaching the Manic Pixie Dream Girl ….….….… ……………………. 5 Extending Feminist Discourse: Towards Masculinity …………………………………….. 5 Corpus …………………………………………………………………………………….. 8 Method: Character Analysis ……………………………………………………………… 10 Thesis Outline ……………………………………………………………………………. 12 1. Rom-Com for Boys: Contextualizing the Manic Pixie Dream Girl ………………….. 14 1.1 Hommecom: Men’s Search for Love ………………………………………………… 15 1.2 Indie Cinema: Off the Beaten Path ………………………………………………….. 23 2. A Story of Boy Meets Girl: Femininity & Masculinity in the Postfeminist Age …….. 35 2.1 The Postfeminist Girl ………………………………………………………………… 36 2.2 The Postfeminist Boy ………………………………………………………………… 42 3. Making an Imaginary Friend: Relationship in the Age of Cruel Optimism ………… 56 3.1 Diverging Narratives: Male Fantasy & Disillusionment …………………………….. 57 3.2 The Hero’s Journey: The Boy Hero & The Herald ………………………………….. 61 3.3 A Cruelly Optimistic Relationship: Desire for Self-Improvement ………………….. 65 Conclusion: Farewelling the Manic Pixie Dream Girl ………………………………….. 75 Origin: Hommecom, Indie Cinema & Postfeminism ……………………………………. 75 Grow up!: Postfeminist Masculinity & Male Transformation …………………………… 77 A Cruelly Optimistic Relationship ……………………………………………………….. 78 To Be Continued …………………………………………………………………………. 79 Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………………….. 81 SO 5 Introduction: Approaching the Manic Pixie Dream Girl The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is 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. – Nathan Rabin (2007) Extending Feminist Discourse: Towards Masculinity There is a scene in (500) Days of Summer (2009) where the featured young couple, Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt), play house in IKEA. “The sink’s broken,” Summer puts her hands on her hips, showing a mischievous smile. “Well, it’s okay,” Tom walks over to the next kitchen installation, “because that’s why we bought a home with two kitchens.” Summer rushes to his side and grabs his arms, “You’re so smart. I’ll race you to the bedroom.” She runs down the IKEA corridor in her vintage dress startling fellow shoppers to hop to the side. Tom chuckles to himself then follows her lead. Summer arrives at a bedroom installation and leaps onto the bed. She turns to face Tom and whispers, “This is fun! You’re fun!” then pulls him in for a kiss. I cite this scene to sketch an image of a female character type that enjoyed considerable popularity in American cinema between the early 2000s and the mid-2010s. This cinematic figure is typically portrayed as an attractive young woman who with an overwhelming enthusiasm lives life the unusual way as she pleases. She is mostly featured in the role of the protagonist’s girlfriend, and with her sex appeal and dynamic personality, in the eyes of some audiences she is the ideal girlfriend. SO 6 Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown (2005) features Kirsten Dunst in such a role. In the film she is a sunny flight attendant who takes an interest in Orlando Bloom’s grieving character. With her charm, enthusiasm for life, and persistence, Dunst is finally able to affect Bloom to see the bright side of life by falling in love in the end. What stands out to film critic Nathan Rabin (2007) is the intensity of the life-loving passion that beams out of Dunst’s character who he describes as “psychotically chipper” (fig. 1). He calls this character “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl” and defines it as stated in the epigraph. Fig. 1. Claire approaches Drew in Elizabethtown Little did Rabin know at the time he invented more than just a name to describe a character, he gave shape to a prevalent idea in American culture and initiated a public debate. The manic pixie dream girl is not only a description of a free-spirited, life-loving female character, it tells a trope revealing a cultural fantasy that chronicles women lifting men out of their misery. Rabin’s invention coincided with the rise of Zooey Deschanel who had become a Hollywood It girl through her breakout performances in (500) Days of Summer and New Girl (2011–2018). The sticky term coupled with a recognizable face prompted the Internet to a game of spotting manic pixie dream girls in popular culture. Soon, media audiences discovered the SO 7 ready availability of the character type in cinema (Wikipedia 2019). Simultaneously, the term’s widespread cultural currency drew severe criticism with regard to its misogynistic undertone. Rabin’s invention has struck a nerve in American culture, it touches upon the long- standing issue of women representation in media. Feminist critics take issue with the manic pixie dream girl trope for rewriting women in service of male fantasy (Greco 2012; Penny 2013; Beaumont-Thomas 2014; Yuan 2015; Allison 2016). Their criticism can be summarized into four points: (1) The trope places women in secondary roles whose only reason to exist is to help men achieve their arcs; (2) since the female characters are supportive in nature, they lack independent goals and desires, and are therefore rarely imbued with real life; (3) the lack of interiority causes the characters to be primarily defined by their exterior, which is often manifest in eccentric appearances and behaviours, perpetuating the stereotype of women being irrational; (4) the trope reduces women’s individualities to a type in a disparaging manner, similar to the “dumb blonde” stereotype where a type is used to mock women who possess certain traits. Furthermore, these critiques are voiced in consideration of real-life consequences the cinematic figure may bring about. In the most referenced critical piece, Penny (2013) argues that the female character is a harmful model for contemporary women because: Manic Pixies, like other female archetypes, crop up in real life partly because fiction creates real life, particularly for those of us who grow up immersed in it. Women behave in ways that they find sanctioned in stories written by men who know better, and men and women seek out friends and partners who remind them of a girl they met in a book one day when they were young and longing. Penny’s criticism comes from the assumption that fictional stories can affect the real world because they inform the audience’s world view. In this view, Penny continues, “Men grow up expecting to be the hero of their own story. Women grow up expecting to be the supporting actress in somebody else’s.” In addition, some critics attribute the problem to sexism in the film SO 8 industry. For instance, Beaumont-Thomas (2014) contends that “[critics] are rightly uncomfortable in thinking about women in terms of stock subgroups, and yet this is exactly how a male-dominated film industry thinks about them – and after a trickle-down process, how ordinary men will end up thinking about them.” In other words, feminist critics raise the issue of gender inequality in the film industry which leads to sexism in storytelling that will ultimately skew the way the audience make sense of the world. As demonstrated above, existing discussion on the manic pixie dream girl is singularly framed by feminist discourse preoccupied with identifying, criticizing, and protesting against the figure and the wounding influences she effects to female audiences in real life.

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