Thursday, April 26, 2018
Manic Pixie Dream Girls
David Tian
TL;DW, or rather what interested me about Tian's take:
"You have got this shy guy who actually, deep, down inside...thinks he is actually awesome, he's great...and when he's with that girl..she brings it out in him. And this is the flip side of codependency and narcissism.They're very closely related, two sides of the same coin...the shy, introverted, withdrawn guy...hidden in his shell [which harbors covert narcissism]...in fact he's not falling in love with her, he's falling in love with his own fucking reflection, which he sees reflected from her [Cluster B; bipolar, borderline, histrionic, etc., personality].
Nathan Rubin, coiner of "Manic Pixie Dream Girl," reflects on the popularity of the phrase.
A/V Club's proposed list of MPDG movies:
1. Elizabethtown (Kirsten Dunst)
2. I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (Leigh Taylor-Young)
3. Garden State (Natalie Portman)
4. Butterflies Are Free (Goldie Hawn)
5. Almost Famous (Kate Hudson)
6. Joe Versus The Volcano (Meg Ryan)
7. The Apartment (Shirley MacLaine)
8. Bringing Up Baby (Katharine Hepburn)
9. What's Up, Doc? (Barbra Streisand)
10. Annie Hall (Diane Keaton)
11. Breakfast At Tiffany's (Audrey Hepburn)
12. Something Wild (Melanie Griffith)
13. Sweet November (Charlize Theron)
14. Autumn In New York (Winona Ryder)
15. The Last Kiss (Rachel Bilson)
16. My Sassy Girl (Elisha Cuthbert)
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22 comments:
That sounds like some very astute commentary.
Haven't seen a lot of movies on the list, but to include the older ones doesn't work for me. Seems more of a recent phenomenon...The Babysitter with Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin springs to mind.
Sorry, that's The Housesitter.
The magic pixie girl is a very recognizable cliché in the movies.
Most beta males get off on that.
Some of us prefer real woman like Sheree North and Julie London and Pam Grier. Broads who give as good as they get.
Audrey Hepburn? Meg Ryan? Nah.
Give me Jennifer Tilly or Jennifer Coolidge every time.
Ha ha, I was thinking Sheree North would never be a magic pixie girl as I read this. But I have to disagree on Audrey Hepburn. Listen to her rendition of Moon River (on Youtube). She had substance.
THere's a movie called "My Sassy Girl?" And it's recent?
More evidence that feminism in Hollywood is all bullshit.
The main problem is the designation "manic." Quirky, like Hepburn in Breakfast or MacLaine in Apartment don't count. Yes, an alpha would tell a manic to beat it, but he could be drawn in by a quirky damsel in distress.
On that list I've seen "Almost Famous" and "Annie Hall" and this is an accurate description of the female lead characters. They're like muses for the male leads but they're too distracting. Once they dump the men, life goes back to normal and though the men are sad and wistful they are better able to do their jobs (finish the assignment to write an honest story about rock stars, get back to New York comedy). I can't see Kate Hepburn being a manic pixie girl. Audrey Hepburn but not Katherine. Frances McDormand and Philip Seymour HOffman have wonderful roles and great lines in "Almost Famous."
This has a lot of truth in it...
Troop's words of wisdom: "Some of us prefer real woman like Sheree North and Julie London and Pam Grier. Broads who give as good as they get."
What about Angie Dickinson?
Man Up with what's her name is good. Lake Bell.
In the Simon Pegg genre, also Mr. Right, but it's Sam Rockwell and Anna Kendrick.
I don't care about alpha or beta. It's got to be interesting.
Guys with drinking problems are a boring turn-off. Just stop drinking, idiot. Script writer failure of imagination.
There are better ways to lose the girl.
I've heard the phrase several times, but didn't know the context. That's probably because I've only seen one of those movies, and it was Joe vs the Volcano. I would compare Joe vs the Volcano to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. So is Kristen Wiig a MPDG?
Amartel, I've heard several times over the last couple years Almost Famous is great...I know it's been out quite a while.
RH, interesting like this?
Leland, haven't seen it. Is it any good? I like Hanks, but not a super-huge fan.
Hanks is good in Bridge of Spies and You've Got Mail.
He has an annoying curling of lip mannerism that's supposed to indicate loving affection though. A bit of acting that does't work, like Pierce Brosnan doing anger. A weird point of failure.
I'll take a look at Bridge. A Hanks movie I like a lot is Nothing in Common, with Jackie Gleason. He has to start looking after his aging dad.
Did you know You've got mail is remake of Shop Around the Corner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xk56EBHicE
Not only did the "Boom" at the start of Tian's video make me smile, as a fun and seemingly synchronistic match to a recent Althouse take on "Boom", what stood out as most meaningful was his insistance on the value of integrity.
Alas the acting conventions in old movies spoil them for me. I see delivering lines as delivering lines. (Shop around the Corner)
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