Manic Pixie Dream Girls And The Need To Cut Them Lose In Cinema
Some time back, I came across this pop-culture word called Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG), and finally, I found the right term for the cliché female character I’ve seen much time on screen. She’s lovely. She’s profound. Furthermore, she needs to offer obscure comments about the importance of life on a housetop at 3 am. “Contrary to other girls” she’s a unique snowflake who comprehends life better than every other person. She’s brilliant yellow while the male hero exists in a universe of dim grey. She sings indie music and says it’s the ideal opportunity for our saint hero to consider living life as she does. Sounds recognizable? Well, then you have arrived at the very meaning of what an MPDG is: a stock lady character who exists in a universe of prosaisms.
The term ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’ was given by movie pundit Nathan Rabin to report a female character who “exists exclusively in the fevered minds of emotional writer-directors”. As indicated by Rabin, these characters instruct the broodingly deep youngster heroes to grasp life alongside the entirety of its secrets and undertakings. Some well-known instances of MPDGs in Bollywood would be Anushka Sharma’s role in Jab Tak Hai Jaan, Kareena Kapoor Khan’s role in Jab We Met, Asin’s role in Ghajini, Deepika Padukone’s role in Tamasha, and Nargis Fakhri’s role in Rockstar. Their partners in Hollywood would be Kate Hudson’s role in Almost Famous, Jennifer Aniston’s role in Along Came Polly, Winona Ryder’s role in Autumn in New York, Natalie Portman’s role in Garden State, Audrey Tatou’s role in Amélie, etc.
Yet, for what reason is the MPDG characters are hazardous, you may inquire? How about I explain it to you beginning with the greatest issue that exists in the first word. Manic is characterized as lunacy and mental or actual hyperactivity. This is firmly connected with hyper sadness, a genuine psychological instability frequently glamorized by the personality of the MPDG. The male hero will romanticize the MPDG’s inward agony since this sort of angsty weakness adds to her appeal. A mainstream illustration of this is Alaska in John Green’s epic Looking for Alaska. She’s perfect however touchy because of youth injury, something which is treated as a quality that adds to her appeal. Next reason is this character’s appearance that ensures that the female character obliges the body-admiration that is romanticized by the male hero.
Another issue is that these female characters are frequently depicted as one-dimensional. They exist exclusively to build up the male hero’s character curve or move the plot along. MPDGs are risky because they strengthen the current man-centric thoughts in the public arena that ladies exist exclusively to help their men. That they don’t have wants of their own. The saying at that point isn’t only an irritating banality. It’s a delegate of what the male-ruled entertainment world thinks about ladies, for example, simple ‘supporting characters’. Furthermore, after a stream down cycle, it’s likewise how common men wind up contemplating them. Then again, when little girls grow up burning-through books and motion pictures loaded up with the MPDG, all they learn is that they’ll never be the hero of their own story. That they will be the main woman, best case scenario.
What we need at that point are ladies who are lead characters. They can be unconventional and particular, however not reductively so. Yet, once more, this sort of characterisation is just a single piece of the condition. We additionally have the right to see men who love these ladies for the confounded, chaotic, positively non-ethereal individuals they are. In craftsmanship just like life, the MPDG ideal exists because such a large number of men stay scared by ladies who will not base their lives on another person’s necessities and development. The opportunity has already come and gone that we to relinquish those heavenly women in our brains and mainstream society and begin giving more consideration to the genuine and relatable ladies surrounding us.
