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The Death Of The “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” Trope

Ana Isabel

929,832 views

The ever-stunning, youthful, otherworldly being from the dimension of tired clichés. Whatever happened to the manic pixie dream girl? 🌸

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🕝TIME STAMPS: 🕝
0:00 - Intro
2:45 - The Problem With Manic Pixies
12:01 - "Manic Pixie" Misuse
19:18 - From Film Critique to Tired Term
21:20 - Death of the Trope

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Elizabethtown trailer (all rights belong to Paramount Pictures):
Elizabethtown - Trailer

500 Days of Summer trailer (all rights belong to Fox Searchlight Pictures):
500 DAYS OF SUMMER | Official Trailer | FO...

Garden State trailer (all rights belong to Fox Searchlight Pictures and Miramax Films):
Garden State (2004) Trailer #1 | Movieclip...

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind trailer (all rights belong to Focus Features):
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Offi...

Ruby Sparks trailer (all rights belong to Fox Searchlight Pictures):
RUBY SPARKS: Official Trailer

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Music Credits (in order of appearance) 🎶:

Happy Upbeat Background Music (MorningLightMusic) - Happy Upbeat Background Music

Happy Ukulele Music | 'Happy Ukulele' by Sweetwave (Alumo Royalty Free Music) –
Happy Ukulele Music | 'Happy Ukulele' by S...

Nicolai Heidlas Music – Sunny Afternoon - Upbeat Ukulele Background Music (Music For Content Creators) –
[no copyright music] Nicolai Heidlas Music...

Promise by Mack Powers - Indie - No Copyright Music (PLUG N PLAY MUSIC) –
Promise by Mack Powers - Indie - No Copyri...

[Indie Folk] Ohly -Home (heroboard – Music for Creators) –
[Indie Folk] Ohly - Home

Lights – Sappheiros (Audio Library – Music for content creators) –
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#manicpixiedreamgirl #mpdg #movieessay #manicpixie

20 Comments

@MsPitenali 5 years ago

I need a movie where manic pixie dream girl meets manic pixie dream boy. Let's see what would happen

@mmmax45 5 years ago

yeah so Donkey is basically Shrek's manic pixie dream boy change my mind

@Hannah-dc4rt 5 years ago

Wait so jack from titanic-

@reikun86 5 years ago

Summer had very clear goals. We the audience couldn’t hear what it was because Tom wasn’t listening.

@DesolationAngel101 5 years ago

The trope is as old as art itself. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is simply the modern label for the muse, mystical and untouchable female goddesses who inspire the creative energies of artists stuck in listless doldrums.

@Sythonate 5 years ago

I knew a manic pixie girl once but it turned out she was just really into coke

@LostLifetimes 5 years ago

Manic pixie dream girl aka “the cutesy characteristics of ADHD but like, ignore all the hard bits uwu”

@shammerHammer 5 years ago

JGL was so generous in the interview "if you really pay attention, Tom was not listening"
I mean. She said it. Clearly. Multiple times. Over and over again.

@Artechiza 6 years ago

I love you for pointing out the missuse of the term with characters that literally subvert the whole trope

@whatdoyousuppose 5 years ago

Enchanted is one of my favorite films and I love how they take this trope, and many others, on its head. Giselle is literally a 2 dimensional character in a 3 dimensional world, and she starts to realize her previous dreams might not be all that they’re cracked up to be. Yeah she comes into the life of a mildly depressed business man, but they both change a lot throughout the film as they both learn from each other and they get a fairytale ending together BUT without actually being in the fairytale world as royals.

@cr4ck3r58 5 years ago (edited)

Idea: Manic pixie dream girl, but she forces herself to be all “quirky cool uwu” because she’s deeply insecure and terrified of people losing interest in her.

@msgnomi9727 5 years ago

I’m sorry but the phrase “sad lad to sensitive chad” is just amazing.

@prettycoolguy3206 5 years ago

Manic-pixie dream girl but she's actually a Changeling feeding off the wonder they inspire to get glamour.

@Kakakakakakak123 5 years ago

When I was younger I hated Summer and it took me years to realize she was just living her own life and doing what she could to make herself happy

@iampomegranates 6 years ago

Amelie is one of the worst examples of misusing the term. It’s literally a movie about her and her struggle as a young woman with a massive heart but who is too shy to reach out for what she wants. So she awkwardly tries to get the attention of the man she is interested in without actually talking to him. If anything, he is a MPDB.

@matthewkonerth5913 5 years ago

"Peter Pan is the original manic pixie dream boy." True, except in the original book, where he is a literal psychopath.

@danedream 5 years ago

“you let a stranger in the house? are you a SIMPLETON?!" has me rolling

@MsDefectiveToaster 5 years ago

Also, most of the time the MPDG wears little to no makeup cuz she's like...real, y'know? Bonus points if she's dying of a tragic yet invisible illness

@PeanutButterZombie00 5 years ago

I was friends with a guy once who was always looking for his real-life MPDG. He was obsessed with movies and novels and wanted a relationship straight out of a film. The problem was, whenever those women would start, you know, acting like real people, he'd move on, often before actually ending the previous relationship. He'd been married several times and even had several children with these women by the time I met him. He started to romanticize my personality and trying to tell me he had feelings for me in "quirky" ways. Thankfully, all the red flags were obvious enough that I never reciprocated. I don't think he understood just how self-centered and destructive he was being, and how many people he'd hurt in his wake.

@andysee6996 5 years ago

My idea for a deconstruction of a manic pixie dream girl would start off by playing the cliches straight, but as the film goes on, the boy would ask the girl basic questions that she can't answer and he becomes more and more suspicious. Eventually, he finds out that she is nothing more than a figment of his imagination and he's just been hallucinating. It would be like Fight Club, but for romance stories.