Falling in Love with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Transformations of Masculinity in the 21st Century

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Falling in Love with the Manic Pixie

Dream Girl: Transformations of

Masculinity in the 21

st

_Century

Gordon So

Research Master’s Thesis Department of Media Studies Universiteit van Amsterdam 2 July 2019

Supervisor: Toni Pape Second Reader: Abe Geil

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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 Fig. 1. Claire approaches Drew in Elizabethtown

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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

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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. If the figure is indeed a product of male fantasy, the masculine aspect of this phenomenon is certainly overlooked in the current discussion. Furthermore, little effort is devoted to investigating the flourishing of the manic pixie dream girl in millennial cinema and the gender relations it may unravel in contemporary society. This study then aims to further the discussion by proposing the following key questions: (1) What is the origin of the manic pixie dream girl and why does it become popular in millennial cinema? (2) If the character type is a product of male fantasy, what exactly is this male fantasy and what kind of masculinity is being constructed? (3) What is the nature of the gender relations in the trope? Besides the unfair treatment of women in representation, I will examine relevant subject matters including genre, audience, masculinity, and narrative structure. I believe situating the manic pixie dream girl within these domains will provide answers to the questions.

Corpus

The following analyses will frequently reference examples from the films (500) Days of Summer, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), and Ruby Sparks (2012). Since I am interested in the manic pixie dream girl as a generic figure and cultural artefact, my analyses will focus on

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similarities between the films and frequently discuss them together to bring out the overall characteristics of the figure. These films not only commonly contain the manic pixie dream girl, they are also indie productions. The self-conscious quality of indie cinema provides critical distance to the subject matter. As I will further elucidate in Chapter 1, the tension between the indie and the mainstream is contained within the film text itself, in particular, the indie often comments on the conventions of the mainstream. This allows the audience as well as the analyst to take a slightly removed position when engaging with the film and its characters (Newman 2011; King 2017). This vantage point opens up a clear view on the subtleties that constitute the manic pixie dream girl phenomenon.

(500) Days of Summer is one of the most iconic manic pixie dream films. The award-winning film debuted at the 25th_{Sundance Film Festival and was subsequently opened for} theatrical release in 2009. The story is presented as Tom Hansen’s recollection of his relationship with Summer Finn. The narrative thus features a non-linear structure highlighting the selective nature of memory when remembering love. The interweaving of Tom’s good and bad moments with Summer creates a dialectic of love which functions to foreground the fantasy aspect of romantic relationship to the audience. In this view, the representation of Summer is constructed through the eyes of Tom, which demonstrates the manic pixie dream girl is a concept of woman from the male point of view.

In comparison, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World features a relatively straight-forward manic pixie dream girl trope. The story is a heroic tale of Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) who falls in love with Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), yet in order to completely win her heart he has to battle and defeat her seven evil exes. The roles are clearly defined in this film – Scott plays the hero destined to rescue Ramona the damsel in distress. This character constellation is common in romantic fantasies that feature the manic pixie dream girl trope. Conventionality nonetheless reveals a pattern in the said trope – a transformation of the male hero. How do

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Ramona’s ever-changing hair colours factor into Scott’s masculine transformation? The following analyses will strive to make clear the relation between the male hero and the manic pixie dream girl.

Last but not least, Ruby Sparks is the most self-reflexive and critical film about the manic pixie dream girl trope. It is no surprise that the screenplay is written by a woman, Zoe Kazan, who also plays the female lead Ruby. In fact, when she was asked about the term the manic pixie dream girl which some audience conferred on her character, Kazan said that she thought the term was misogynistic and that the audience were misunderstanding the film if they saw her character that way (Greco 2012). Ruby Sparks tells the story of young novelist Calvin Weir-fields (Paul Dano) falling in love with a fictional character Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan) whom he has created. As the creator, Calvin has the capability to modify Ruby’s personality at will. The surreal tone of the film, the blending of fantasy and reality, accentuates the manic pixie dream girl as a product of male fantasy. As such, Calvin and Ruby, the imaginator and the fantasy, personify the manic pixie dream girl trope. The ways in which these characters behave and treat each other will provide clues for understanding the manic pixie dream girl phenomenon.

Method: Character Analysis

Since the manic pixie dream girl is a film character, character analysis will serve as a starting point in understanding the ways in which the character is constructed, received, and its potential meanings. I follow Jens Eder’s (2010) definition of film characters as “identifiable fictional beings with an inner life that exist as communicatively constructed artifacts” (18). This definition recognizes, on one hand, the audience’s tendency to talk about characters as if they are real living entities with perceptions, thoughts, motives, and emotions, and on the other hand, their status as fictional beings in media texts. Murray Smith (2010) also recognizes the

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“twofoldness” of characters by placing them under the frame of what he calls “mimetic hypothesis” (234-238). The hypothesis is based on the assumption that fictional characters are just like real people. Yet, it remains a hypothesis because fictional characters do not actually exist like ordinary people; they owe their existence to the text. The “twofoldness” of fictional characters is crucial for approaching the manic pixie dream girl in a comprehensive manner because this view recognizes that film character is a complex entity shaped by many factors outside of the screenplay.

As a starting point to capture the many facets of the manic pixie dream girl, I consult Eder’s (2010) heuristic model “the clock of character.” The model outlines four aspects of a fictional character: artefact, symbol, fictional being, and symptom. These pose key questions when approaching fictional characters. Analyzing characters as artifacts focuses on the means by which a character is represented. This concerns the aesthetic structures and textual features that are employed to construct a character. For instance, Deckard (Harrison Ford) in Blade Runner (1982) is shaped by film noir aesthetic. As a typical noir character, he is portrayed as an anti-hero who is anti-social, cynical, disillusioned, and morally ambiguous. As symbols, characters are vehicles to convey indirect, higher-level meanings. In this view, characters essentially function as signs that hint at something abstract to be grasped by the audience. The Wizard of Oz (1939) features the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion who respectively gain a brain, a heart, and courage throughout the narrative. After WWII started, these characters have become symbols for nationalist values – standing for the three qualities Americans needed to win the War. The fictional being aspect examines how characters act and behave. They possess certain features and relations as inhabitants in fictional worlds. In the Batman franchise, the superhero is a playboy billionaire by day and a crime-fighting vigilante by night; he drives the Batmobile down the streets of Gotham City to combat his nemeses – these specific features and settings constitute the Batman character. Finally, understanding characters as symptoms is

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to recognize the cultural mentalities that shape the characters as they are. In the Bourne series, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is a rogue spy trying to recover his former identity. The character’s mastery over high-tech surveillance technologies and his arc of redemption as a former CIA hitman prove he is a character that negotiates the capabilities and ethics of post-9/11 counterterrorism in America. Eder suggests that artefact, symbol, fictional being, and symptom are the most general domains of features that can be ascribed to characters. This study will consider all four aspects when approaching the manic pixie dream girl.

Thesis Outline

Accordingly, the following three chapters will each focus on specific aspects of the manic pixie dream girl. Of course, the four aspects sometimes overlap and have implications on each other. Nevertheless, each chapter mainly concerns one or two aspects in order to maintain focus while developing insights towards unravelling the gender relations surrounding the figure. In general, this study engages with the characters in the manic pixie dream girl trope to extract broader insights on gender and relationships. Chapter 1 will focus on the artefact aspect of the manic pixie dream girl, namely issues of genre and audience address. I situate the character type within generic contexts of romantic comedy and indie cinema. This chapter shows that the rom-com genre’s turn to male audiences creates the manic pixie dream girl as a sexy girlfriend. The aesthetic of indie cinema imbues her with quirky traits in order to appeal to its hipster audience. Hence, I argue that manic pixie dream girl films cater specifically to a hipster male audience. Chapter 2 concerns the fictional being and symptom aspects. Regarding issues of gender, I begin by showing that the manic pixie dream girl is representative of postfeminist ideology. The femininity she displays is physically attractive, sexually agentic, and individualistic. On the other hand, the masculinity of the male protagonist is identified as culturally adept, emotionally vulnerable, and juvenile. This chapter establishes the gender performances of the couple, setting

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up for the discussion of gender relations in the next chapter. Chapter 3 examines the symbolic aspect which relates to the narrative functions the girl and the boy performs in the films under discussion. I demonstrate the two narrative patterns of manic pixie dream girl films, both of which feature masculine transformations to maturity, albeit occurring in different ways. Joseph Campbell’s (1949) narrative framework The Hero’s Journey allows me to examine the manic pixie dream girl as a symbolic archetype. I suggest that she performs the role of the Herald who challenges the Hero on an adventure so that he can experience a transformation. Finally, I examine this fantasy of masculine transformation through the lens of Berlant’s (2011) cruel optimism. From this perspective, I argue that love and relationship place the self above romantic commitment in the neoliberal age.

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1. Rom-Com for Boys: Contextualizing the Manic Pixie Dream Girl

“You haven’t written a person, okay? You’ve written a girl.” – Harry, Ruby Sparks

This chapter concerns the artefact aspect of the central characters in manic pixie dream girl films. From this perspective, I consider the characters as artefacts in films who possess certain textual features and are influenced by specific aesthetic structures. As I will explain, this also involves issues of genre, audience address, and modes of production. The first step to begin the investigation is to situate the character type within film genres. The manic pixie dream girl began to appear in American cinema in the early 2000s in films like Garden State (2004) and Elizabethtown (2005), and continued to flourish until the mid-2010s. I argue that the figure arose in this specific period due to historical developments in two generic contexts. The first is a shift in the romantic comedy genre from female- to male-centred narratives starting from the mid-1990s. At this time, a new type of rom-coms tailored for male audiences appeared in the market. This means that the manic pixie dream girl emerged out of a need to satisfy male fantasy in the context of romance. The second context is situated in what Michael Newman (2011) calls the “Sundance-Miramax era” which designates a peak of interest in indie productions between the late-1980s and the end of the 2000s (1). As I will discuss in detail, indie cinema has a preoccupation with quirky, odd characters. This part of indie aesthetic stylizes the behaviours and fashion of the manic pixie dream girl.

Nevertheless, when talking about the manic pixie dream girl attention ought to be paid to her male counterpart as well. While she has a reputation in popular discourse, she is typically not the main character in these films. Instead, it is the male character who usually takes the

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centre stage and is supported by the manic pixie dream girl. If these films are produced to entertain male fantasy, there is a need to study the kind of masculinity that is constructed through the fantasy of the manic pixie dream girl. The female figure thus provides an entry point for this study to understand the construction of both male and female characters in these films.

1.1 Hommecom: Men’s Search for Love

Manic pixie dream girls are found in stories of boy meets girl in which the boy is at the centre of attention. The narrative of (500) Days of Summer is presented as Tom’s recollection of his relationship with Summer; Scott Pilgrim vs. the World chronicles Scott’s heroic journey of defeating Ramona’s seven evil exes; and Ruby Sparks tells a novelist falling in love with his own creation. The central element of love and relationship shared by these films make them fall under the romantic comedy genre. Jeffers McDonald (2007) defines the rom-com as such: “A romantic comedy is a ﬁlm which has as its central narrative motor a quest for love, which portrays this quest in a light-hearted way and almost always to a successful conclusion” (9). An oddity presents itself: manic pixie dream girls are found in romantic comedies which feature men taking the centre stage. This may sound counter-intuitive to media audiences since romantic comedy is often stereotypically assumed to be a female genre (Mortimer 2010; Jeffers McDonald 2007). What is being dealt with here is a special type of romantic comedies that caters to men.

Jeffers McDonald (2009) observes that within the rom-com genre there is a shift in emphasis in narrative from women to men starting from the mid-1990s, beginning with Swingers (1996). This conscious effort to oppose the hitherto dominant female-centred narrative is marked by a renewed focus on male protagonists and their quest for love. Jeffers McDonald designates this new type of male-centred rom-com the “hommecom.”

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Coincidentally, manic pixie dream girl films were released in the 2000s, this makes hommecoms an appropriate backdrop on which to read the manic pixie dream girl.

Jeffers McDonald (2009) suggests that the rise of hommecoms is a deliberate effort to attract male audiences into the genre. Rom-com has been commonly assumed to be a women’s genre for its emphasis on female concerns, female stars, and female audiences within the narrative and marketing. The typical romantic comedy’s hallmarks are “female-centred narratives charting the rockiness of the road to true love, and including such well-used tropes as the initial mutual antipathy, the subsequent accord, the misunderstanding that break up the couple, the sacrifice or quest or embarrassing public gesture that stands as an apology and re-establishes the pair” (Jeffers McDonald 2009, 147). Hommecoms emerged in reaction to the female-centred conventions at a specific time. This time was what Jeffers McDonald calls the Ephronesque turn, designating a period in the late 1980s and 1990s when writer-director Nora Ephron was immensely influential on the genre. Famous works such as When Harry Met Sally (1989), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and You’ve Got Mail (1998) consolidated Ephron’s reign as well as her signature treatment of romance: the avoidance of sex in rom-com. Hommecoms rose to counter the sexless convention of rom-com by conversely emphasizing sex in the narrative. Films like There’s Something About Marry (1998) and American Pie (1999) enjoy revealing the bodily, sexual elements of romance, and are widely known for their explicit content. Hommecoms, then, operate on the stereotypical cultural assumption that men want sex in relationships (while women withhold it from them) and so would go for films that satisfy that desire (Jeffers McDonald 2009).

I align myself with writers such as Diane Negra (2006), Kathleen Rowe (1995), and Claire Mortimer (2010) in proposing that in addition to the sex appeal to male audiences, the rise of male-centred narratives indicates a cultural desire to reflect a certain masculine anxiety at the turn of the millennium. The spotlight on masculine troubles in romance, detailing men’s

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rocky road to true love, is also a response to changing gender relations in society apart from a response to the (female-dominated) market. This point will be discussed in detail shortly.

Hommecoms bring into focus the male perspective of romantic relationships which is associated with male fantasy and the idealization of women, which in this case is embodied by the manic pixie dream girl. Jeffer McDonalds (2009) states that hommecoms “set out to explore and test the contours of the genre by repositioning the centre, rehearsing all the generic basics – dating rituals, feigned indifference, heartfelt passion – but making them new by considering them from a male point of view” (147). From the male perspective, the manic pixie dream girl is constructed as an ideal image of women. In this regard, Ruby Sparks is self-conscious of the artificiality of women’s representation in works of art. In the film, having come up with the character Ruby for his upcoming novel, Calvin shows his brother Harry (Chris Messina) the first draft. Harry responds by telling Calvin that he is a writer who knows nothing about real women: “You haven’t written a person, okay? You’ve written a girl.” This self-reflexive moment elucidates that the manic pixie dream girl is a product of male fantasy. As a cycle of films that appeals to male audiences, hommecoms are specialized at delivering male fantasy within the context of romance. Accordingly, the manic pixie dream girl is constructed as the ideal girlfriend for men.

Furthermore, with the emphasis on sex, hommecoms idealize the manic pixie dream girl as the girlfriend who is always up for sex. Hommecoms prioritize sex and the body which is based on the conservative cultural assumption that only men are interested in sex in romantic relationships (Jeffers McDonald 2009). The manic pixie dream girl trope, having emerged out of the hommecom cycle, then seems to challenge this stereotype by portraying women desiring sex. In (500) Days of Summer, for instance, Summer seduces Tom by lying naked in bed. The sexual initiative, however, should not be interpreted as progressive just because it breaks the

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traditional stereotype. The sexually agentic girl is still within the domain of male fantasy, only this time men do not have to do the hard work of convincing women to have sex with them.

As demonstrated above, hommecoms are founded on problematic representations of women. The manic pixie dream girl is a product of the fevered imagination of male writers. Therefore, this representation of women is manipulated in order to satisfy male fantasy. In Ruby Sparks, Harry makes another self-reflexive comment to Calvin: “Quirky, messy women whose problems only make them endearing are not real.” This points to how male writers throw reality out the window when they create feminine characters that are attractive for problematic reasons. Another example is Ramona in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World where she plays the role of damsel in distress so that Scott can pull off the heroic act of rescuing her.

The manic pixie dream girl is found in the rom-com genre at a time when the genre turns its attention to male audiences. Hommecoms, as designated by Jeffers McDonald, tell stories of men’s search for love. These films, however, consider romance in a manner that entertains male fantasy. In this context, the manic pixie dream girl is a manifestation of the ideal girlfriend who enjoys sex (to the satisfaction of the male character, filmmaker, and audience). This runs the risk of creating representations of women that are unrealistic and even Fig. 2. Summer seducing Tom in (500) Days of Summer

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disparaging, which explains in part the feminist criticism directed towards the manic pixie dream girl trope.

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Hommecoms open up a space to explore masculine troubles by portraying men suffering emotionally. Jeffers McDonald (2009) points out that hommecoms “enjoy revealing that its central male characters worry about relationships, dating rules, makeout conventions, what to say and wear, just as women have been doing in rom-coms for so long” (154). There are plenty instances in which male protagonists worrying about their chances with the manic pixie dream girl. For example, Tom in (500) Days of Summer consistently consults his teenage sister for dating advices throughout the film. The reverse consultation relationship between the young adult and teenager is meant to be comedic, but it also reveals the former’s insecurity. Similarly, the male characters of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Ruby Spark worry about losing their romantic partners (fig. 3). It seems that representations of men in romantic relationships have lost their “cool” in comparison with more classical romantics like James Stewart and Richard Gere. These new young men are emotionally vulnerable, perhaps even described as “feminized” for it is typically women who are portrayed to be worrying over relationships. As such, hommecoms allow men to appear emotionally vulnerable and presents male suffering as a recurring theme.

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In hommecoms, the audience witness a wider expression of masculine emotions. As the narrative shifts to the male point of view, the audience gain access to the anxiety men experience in situations of romance. Critical literature indicates that there are precedents of films displaying male emotional suffering even before hommecoms. Kathleen Rowe (1995) traces rom-coms from the classical age of Hollywood cinema and observes a major shift in masculine representation compared to post-classical rom-coms. Whereas in classical Hollywood period “male authority is something to be mocked, and masculinity the subject of laughter,” in post-classical rom-coms the audience is asked to sympathize with the suffering the male hero endures (185). In general, there had been an increased use of melodrama to tell the story of men’s lives and male suffering, and thus Rowe coins the term the “melodramatised man.” The infusion of masculine melodrama into rom-com, she argues, began in the late-70s in a body of rom-com films called “nervous comedies,” exemplified by Woody Allen films like Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979). Rowe describes the men in these films as “feminised” and “victimised,” and links this emergence of melodramatised men to socio-cultural changes at the time:

Fig. 3. Scott confides in his roommate about his fear of losing Ramona in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

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The origins of this shift lie, I believe, in the widespread assault to structures of masculine authority that occurred in the 1960s – the Civil Rights movement, the revival of feminism, the Vietnam War, the Pill, Stonewall and the demand for gay rights, Watergate, inflation – all of which rattled institutions built on racial and sexual privilege to such an extent that masculinity could no longer serve as a safe subject for comedy (185).

Nervous comedies in the late-70s “reflected the angst and world-weariness of the period, where there is no longer any certainty about relationships and [gender] identity (…)” (Mortimer 2010, 17). These films came out of commonly held fears about how changes in the status of women would impact on men.

In the 2000s, the manic pixie dream girl represents a relatively new type of empowered femininity that began in mid-1990s. Vazquez Rodrigeuz (2017) was the first to identify the manic pixie dream girl as an embodiment of postfeminist ideology. The character’s spontaneous, thrill-seeking behaviours align with the ideology’s emphasis on individual choice and sexual freedom. According to Rosalind Gill (2007; 2008; 2009), postfeminist women are empowered by advertisers who borrow narratives of empowerment from feminist movements. For example, an empowering advertisement tells women: “New hair, new look, new bra. And if he doesn’t like it, new boyfriend” (Gill 2009, 100). The empowerment of women in the form of prioritizing the self over men upsets the latter’s sense of security in romantic relationships. The male protagonists’ worry over the fickleness of their romantic partners in manic pixie dream girl films are therefore founded in this context.

The “empowered” femininity does not alone explain the increased masculine vulnerability in hommecoms. It should be recalled that hommecom operates as male fantasies which takes women as objects of desire. This premise makes dubious any notion of female empowerment; still, to a certain degree this contributes to the masculine anxiety in question.

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Another contributing factor is a main theme that runs through hommecoms that is identified separately by Mortimer (2010) and Negra (2006). When discussing the male hero in hommecoms, Mortimer (2010) references Jude Apatow’s rom-coms, such as Knocked Up (2007) featuring Seth Rogen, which explore the common theme of “seeing the underdog, the male underachiever managing to achieve credibility through partnership with beauty (…) Apatow’s movies are directed more at a male audience, giving them the opportunity to identify with the flawed hero” (66). Consider also Negra’s (2006) formulation of the “deficient/dysfunctional single masculinity” in these films. She argues that these films feature single men who have failed to take up their proper roles in the social order, and that representational culture is here to “rehabilitate” them. Mortimer and Negra both demonstrate hommecoms’ tendency to cater to men who do not live up to successful standards of masculinity. Not all men are James Stewart or Richard Gere, but they can be Seth Rogen and Michael Cera who happen to partner up with beautiful women within the cinematic fantasy. This means that in order to capture the widest male audience, hommecoms appeal to all men regardless of how successful they perform their masculinity.

The resurgence of melodramatic male characters in hommecoms placed in opposition of manic pixie dream girls reveals that there are changes in the status of women in contemporary society such that men feel threatened. In the 1990s and 2000s, postfeminism articulated a young and powerful femininity that prioritized women’s own empowerment over notions of commitment. The empowered femininity causes men to feel insecure in romantic relationships, explaining the representation of emotionally vulnerable men. In addition, hommecoms intend to capture the widest male audience possible by offering a fantasy that permits character identification for “deficient men.” In the context of hommecoms, these two factors explain the masculine uneasiness in manic pixie dream girl films.

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1.2 Indie Cinema: Off the Beaten Path

Besides hommecoms, manic pixie dream girl films are also indie films. In academic literature, “indie” is first and foremost negatively defined by existing outside the major Hollywood studio system and the megaplexes where they screen (Newman 2011, 1; King et al. 2013, 1). Although there had been little trouble within the academic community to come to a consensus that this is an inadequate definition, the negation serves as a starting point for understanding indie. “Indie” is often used in layman terms as a contraction of “independent,” academic debate, however, draws distinctions between the terms “independent,” “indie,” and “Indiewood” (Staiger 2013; Tzioumakis 2013; King 2009). According to these scholars, “independent” is used to generally include the forms of American cinema that operated outside of the Hollywood mainstream. “Indie,” rather than being a contraction, is taken here as a distinct mode of film practice that evolved out of the history of independent filmmaking with heavier commercial elements. As the 1990s saw an increasing popularization of independent cinema, that sector of filmmaking had been increasingly commodified by Hollywood through the establishment of subsidiary studios specializing in exploiting the indie sensibility and the corresponding niche markets. Indie thus became a branding strategy for quality filmmaking which promoted “a conception of quality different than the one held by the practitioners in mainstream Hollywood” (Staiger 2013, 22; Newman 2017; King 2009). This time period also marked the start of what Michael Newman (2011) names the “Sundance-Miramax era” which designates a distinctly indie era of film production and film culture. Following Geoff King (2009), “Indiewood” stands for the institutionalized form of this film culture: “an area in which Hollywood and the independent sector merge or overlap” (1). It is in this zone where manic pixie dream girls express themselves.

The manic pixie dream girl is an indie phenomenon because films that feature the character type tend to adhere to indie modes of production and textual qualities. In terms of production, these films are produced or distributed by “specialty” divisions of major

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Hollywood studios in the Sundance-Miramax era, which Newman (2011) argues to have existed between the late-1980s and the end of the 2000s. In fact, (500) Days of Summer premiered at the 25th_{Sundance Film Festival in 2009; and with Ruby Sparks (2012) and Garden} State (2004), these three films were released in this period by Fox Searchlight Pictures which is a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studio. Other specialty studios that distributed manic pixie dream girl films include Focus Features (subsidiary of Universal Pictures) for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Fox Home Entertainment (Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment) for My Sassy Girl (2008). Of course, there were films distributed by major studios such as Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) and Paper Towns (2015). Even so, these films were produced by talents who possessed expert knowledge of the specialty market: indie director Edgar Wright directed the former, and the screenwriter duo of (500) Days of Summer wrote the screenplay for the latter. The finance/production conditions of indie films contribute to the emergence of the manic pixie dream girl due to the subsidiary studio’s arm’s-length relationship with major studios. This unique position targeting specialty markets provides filmmakers a space in which to cultivate a distinct indie culture, which in turn influences the textual qualities of indie films. According to Newman (2017), indie culture is fundamentally an identity culture that acquires its identity from a cluster of ideas about creative production and experience. Its central appeals are autonomy, authenticity, and opposition. Indie prides itself on being outside of Hollywood, which is an emblem of mainstream popular culture or mass media. It is therefore a culture positioned in relation to mainstream, mass media: “alternatives appealing more narrowly that reject the conventions of popular forms, or at least depart from or engage critically with them” (25). This makes indie the opposition of mainstream Hollywood in terms of audience address and reception (28). The autonomy cherished by indie culture refers to the way in which autonomy and its alternatives are imagined within the film industry, rather than the realities of production in Hollywood (ibid.). The notion of artistic expressivity

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unconstrained by commercial or institutional pressures and demands is more an ideal than a reality even in the specialty division studios. Nonetheless, the appeal is based on the notion that artists within the indie sector enjoy relatively more creative freedom than those working in major studios. Finally, indie authenticity is a matter of artistic judgement (30). Indie’s claim to authenticity is founded on the opposition to mass or mainstream culture, which is often considered to have financial gains as its main goal and thus relies on formulaic expressions that are proven to efficiently achieve that goal. From this perspective, Newman argues that indie films are “more honest and personal and less formulaic, focused more on creative expression and less on making a successful commercial product, more realistic and less contrived” (ibid.). Newman’s formulation on the three central appeals that constitute indie culture is key to understanding how indie film’s textual qualities take shape. Consequentially, the manic pixie dream girl is moulded by these qualities.

With regard to the textual qualities of indie films, the following sections will respectively discuss three topics of interest that influence character construction in manic pixie dream girl films: (1) Quirky sensibility, (2) an emphasis on creating realism, and (3) an intended hipster audience.

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“Quirky” is a buzzword that is frequently used to describe the manic pixie dream girl as well as the films that feature the character type. For instance, some articles call (500) Days of Summer the “next quirky cult classic” (Miraudo 2009) or laud the film for “killing with quirkiness” (West 2009). The Wikipedia entry for “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” defines the character type as “static characters who have eccentric personality quirks and unabashedly girlish” (Wikipedia 2019). In lay usage, quirky is a term associated with something being unusual or offbeat, that is in essence, different from the norm. This draws an immediate

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connection to indie culture since it is defined by being different from the Hollywood mainstream. Therefore, indie films and characters’ quality of being quirky is a manifestation of indie opposition that Newman (2017) proposed. Quirkiness also attests to the notion of indie authenticity because it entertains the idea that what deviates from the norm yet remains interesting is new and original. Arguably, this idea of the quirky provides vitality for indie cinema. In American Independent Cinema: An Introduction, Tzioumakis (2006) writes that from the mid-90s, “[s]upported by an increasingly expansive institutional apparatus (…) low budget, edgier, offbeat and quirky pictures were (…) in a position to find a large enough audience to return substantial profits” (282). This also hints at how quirky indie films seek a specific audience, which I will discuss shortly.

There is no lack of examples in illustrating the quirkiness of the manic pixie dream girl. Ramona in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World changes her hair colour every week-and-a-half, and goes from pink to blue to green over the course of the film (fig. 4). In (500) Days of Summer, Summer plays a game with Tom to see who can say the word “penis” the loudest in a public park in broad daylight. And in Ruby Sparks, Ruby screams “Jump!” and leaps into the pool amid a conversation. I have discussed briefly how the spontaneous and thrill-seeking behaviours of the manic pixie dream girl is a manifestation of postfeminist ideology. The postfeminist girl is playful and individualistic, and she enjoys pushing the boundary of socially acceptable behaviour for her own entertainment. Her frolic desire to step out of line makes the active, fun-loving, sexually agentic young women appear quirky and a fitting subject matter for indie films.

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While the quirkiness of the manic pixie dream girl is self-evident, the male protagonists in these films are also in a way quirky. Consider the casting of Michael Cera in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The star of Superbad (2007) and Juno (2007) is stereotyped by the film industry and audiences as always portraying an awkward, out of place white boy which is the personality he consistently performs in these films. The portrayal of young men and women with marginal status in manic pixie dream girl films seems to show an effort of indie films to capture a young audience which enjoys being at the margins. Newman (2013) calls them “movies for hipsters” (see a dedicated section below).

In (500) Days of Summer, Tom is a young man in his 20s who is attached to his childhood belief of true love and thinks that he will never truly be happy until he meets “the one.” When he encounters Summer, he is so sure that she is the one he has been looking for. Summer does not share this belief, leading to the subsequent heartbreak experienced by Tom and, by extension, the audience who shares his perspective of the romantic relationship. The film asks the audience to identify with Tom along his journey to true love.

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To clarify what I mean by “identification,” I refer to Murray Smith’s (1995) Engaging Characters. Smith proposes three ways to engage with film characters: First, the audience must recognize the character as a distinct being, then they may align with the character’s perception as a means to enter the story world, and finally, they may share allegiance with that character by the extent to which they agree with its morality.

In the case of Tom in (500) Days of Summer, the audience is asked to share allegiance with him since his quest for love develops out of pure moral intention. In terms of character alignment, although the audience access Tom’s perception most of the time in the film, there are moments when the audience is asked to look at him as well as events unfold at a slightly removed distance. These moments involve an unnamed narrator who tells the story to the audience as if he is narrating a fairy tale: “Tom walked to her apartment, intoxicated by the promise of the evening. He believed that this time his expectations would align with reality.” In this scene where Tom attends Summer’s house party after they break up, the screen splits into two frames, the left labelled with “expectations” and the right “reality”. The frames depict the same events unfolding in real-time, but they play out differently. In Tom’s expectations, he expects to reignite passion with Summer that evening; but in reality, Summer is engaged to another man. In this scene, the audience is asked to feel bad for Tom, but also critically evaluate his naivete from a distance (fig. 5).

Fig. 5. The audience gains critical distance away from Tom in this scene in (500) Days of Summer

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This simultaneous moral allegiance and judgement upon central characters, James MacDowell (2010; 2013) argues, is part of what he calls “quirky sensibility” commonly found in indie films. Quirky sensibility is harnessed in a tonal balance of “sincerity” and “irony”: the audience “view characters’ schemes and achievements as comically absurd or potentially bound for failure – and thus open to a certain amount of ridicule – at the same time as they are treated with degrees of sympathy” (2013, 49). This means that quirky indie films ask the audience to sympathize with a quirky character for its pure moral intention, but the quirk, which deviates the character from the norm, subjects it to critical evaluation. The male protagonists in manic pixie dream girl films share a common quirk that is associated with childhood, which constitutes another element of the quirky (MacDowell 2010). Like Tom, these male characters maintain lingering ties with their puerile selves. They may be obsessed with childhood playthings or behave like children. The childish behaviours exhibited by these men, such as Tom’s naïve devotion to the notion of true love, are portrayed in an ironic light such that the behaviours make these men appear “deficient” in Negra’s words.

The male “heroes” of the manic pixie dream girl films are treated in what Northrop Frye (1957) defined as the “ironic mode,” meaning that the protagonists are portrayed to be in some way “inferior in power or intelligence to ourselves” (33-34). Their dedication and commitment to the quest of love, however, are simultaneously presented as laudable and worthy of the audience’s sympathy. The dual address of sincerity and irony shapes the way the male protagonists are represented in these films. They are sincere enough for the audience to tag along on their quest of love, yet the ironic judgement the audience place upon them is a testament to the rockiness of the road to true love. In other words, the audience are supposed to like these central characters because they are young and innocent, but also for this reason the characters make eyebrow-raising mistakes. In Chapter 3, I will discuss how the mistakes serve

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as opportunities for these young men to grow in their character arcs and the manic pixie dream girl’s role in their growth.

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According to Newman (2011), the representation of naturalistic setting and human behaviour is conventional for indie cinema’s character-centred narrative: “Characters have no magical powers, no exaggerated bravery or intellect or sexual attractiveness, and the world they live in follows the same rules as the world the audience know from real human experience. A significant objective of the narrative representation seems to be capturing recognizable, typical lived experience” (87-88). This mode of realism in storytelling not only once again affirms indie authenticity at work, it is also a matter of artistic autonomy (Newman 2017). One expression of indie autonomy is the degree to which the film’s narrative is personal, such as capturing the filmmaker’s recent coming-of-age. For instance, the screenwriter for (500) Days of Summer, Scott Neustadter, wrote himself into Tom and his ex-girlfriend into Summer (Neustadter 2009). As well, when Zoe Kazan wrote Ruby Sparks, she created Calvin with her real-life boyfriend Paul Dano (who plays Calvin) in mind (Brady 2012). As such, the lead characters in these films are largely based on real, ordinary men.

Let’s consider the backstories of the male protagonists. In (500) Days of Summer, Tom Hansen is a greeting card writer in downtown Los Angeles who finds his job mundane and unfulfilling. He initially studied to be an architect but he needed a job so he ended up writing cards for years. In Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Scott Pilgrim graduated from high school and is now a bassist in a floundering garage band in Toronto. Ruby Spark’s Calvin Weir-Fields is an L.A.-based novelist who is struggling to recreate the early success of his first novel.

What is immediately discernible is that these young men are fairly ordinary people facing common problems (except Calvin is a “genius” novelist who enjoys early success; but

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I will discuss in the next chapter his “genius” is a self-reflexive plot device which says something about the audience). They are by no means larger-than-life personalities pulling off epic stunts. Instead, they are everyman characters dealing with everyday problems in recognizable locations which allows the audience to easily identify with them. Filmmakers writing themselves into the story in order to create relatable characters and settings is indie’s distinct method of creating an air of realism. This method, however, mainly concerns the character construction of male protagonists. The manic pixie dream girl, on the other hand, does not much adhere to reality. Although the character type may be inspired by postfeminist sensibility, it is still largely subject to manipulation in order to portray the ideal sexy girlfriend.

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The intended audience for indie films has implications on character construction. Characters have to appear to share similar concerns with the audience so that they are relatable. People’s concerns may differ across categories such as age, race, class, gender, and culture. I have already discussed in the context of hommecom that manic pixie dream girl films cater to male audiences for its spotlight on male concerns. Now in the context of indie films, I further narrow down the intended audience to young, white, middle-class, urban males. This conclusion is not only based on the represented demographics in the films, it also has to do with the specific niche audience sought after by indie films.

In his article titled “Movies for Hipsters,” Newman (2013) argues that indie films appeal to a hipster audience, because “to be indie is to aspire to hipness, and to be a hipster is to invest one’s identity in the aesthetic legitimacy of indie” (71) for “the cinema of hip is a cinema of aesthetic distinction, of outsider identities and cultish admiration” (72). The hipster is a category of audience that seeks to culturally define itself by means of rejecting anything that is too popular or overexposed. The hipster identity is thus formed by consumption of

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cultural commodities that are not commonplace, such as fashionable items that are retro or foreign. This means that the hipster has to possess a certain level of purchasing power and mobility to cultivate the hipster identity. Newman suggests that the hipster is found in the Millennial generation who come of age in “a hypersaturated consumer capitalism and also a world of fluid identities and hyperconsciousness of cultural difference, meritocracy, and egalitarianism, especially within the privileged communities of white, elite cosmopolitan culture wherein educational institutions promote such ideals as received wisdom” (75). In the films the characters are also white cultural elites living in cosmopolitan areas (the central characters engage in cultural work such as music and literature). Presuming that the protagonist is a source of audience identification, this matching of demographics confirms the intended audience are hipsters, typically young millennials from white, elite, cosmopolitan backgrounds.

Furthermore, the hipster’s rejection of mass culture and love for unusual commodities is a manifestation of indie authenticity and has direct impact on the construction of quirky characters. If the hipster is someone who seeks to culturally distinguish oneself from the despised mainstream, the hipster performs authenticity in cultural practices that are “showing doing” (Newman 2013, 63). They tend to wear on their bodies quirky clothing articles which mark their cultural sophistication. This affects the representation of women more than men in manic pixie dream girl films. Since the manic pixie dream girl is above all a bodily character due to the emphasis on her sex appeal, she wears her quirkiness on the body. The ever-changing hair colours of Ramona in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World exemplifies the character type’s appeal to a hipster (male) audience. In other words, the manic pixie dream girl is constructed to impress the male hipster.

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In this chapter I have examined the artefact aspect of the manic pixie dream girl, that is the means by which she is represented. The textual features and aesthetic structures that compose this character type can be found in the contexts of hommecom and indie cinema. Placing her into these two film categories provides insight in how not only the manic pixie dream girl but also her male counterpart come to be. Hommecom is a cycle of male-centred rom-coms that emerged in the mid-1990s. In order to attract male audiences into the rom-com genre, the manic pixie dream girl is shaped to be an ideal girlfriend who excites male fantasy. The male protagonists, too, service the fantasy by offering a point of identification. The relatability of the male hero depends on how well the character functions as a conduit to explore male concerns in romantic relationships. This narrative function translates to representations of emotional vulnerability which is hitherto a representational domain for women in rom-coms, thus making men appear anxious and “feminized.” The masculine anxiety also reflects changing gender relations at the time with the rise of postfeminism. The young, empowered woman embodied by the manic pixie dream girl is a source of anxiety for men looking to secure romantic relationships. These men’s rocky road to true love serve as the standard plot for manic pixie dream girl films.

Locating manic pixie dream girl films within the context of indie cinema narrows down the intended audience to male hipsters who are predominantly white, middle-class, and urban, seeking to culturally distinguish themselves. The indie aesthetic appeal to this audience with quirky characters. The manic pixie dream girl’s quirkiness is expressed by her behaviours and fashion style; for the male hero, it is typically expressed by his failure to relinquish juvenile desires. This aspect of his masculinity will be further discussed in the next chapter. Furthermore, the central characters are generally ascribed realism by indie filmmakers who write their own coming-of-age into films. While this method of producing realism creates male protagonists who have room to grow over the course of the narrative, the manic pixie dream girl remains a

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one-dimensional narrative crutch whose only function is to facilitate that growth. As demonstrated, the conditions of production for hommecoms and indies contribute to the problematic representation of women as seen in the figure of the manic pixie dream girl. The problem mainly rises out of the agenda to fulfil male fantasy coupled with an asymmetrical ascription of realism to male characters in indie rom-coms.

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2. A Story of Boy Meets Girl: Femininity & Masculinity in the Postfeminist Age

“This is a story of boy meets girl (…)” – Narrator, (500) Days of Summer

Tom walks into the elevator, Summer gallops in before the doors close. Tom is completely absorbed by The Smiths’ “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” blasting through his headphones – or he pretends to be so, as he caught word about Summer’s disinterest in a male colleague’s approach – and stares at the ceiling facing away from Summer. “Smiths?” She asks. Tom feigns a smile. Summer leans closer, “I love The Smiths.” Tom finally puts off his headphones, “Sorry?” “You have great taste in music,” she says, and cheerfully sings a line of the song (fig. 6). The elevator reaches the office. Summer walks out, leaving Tom stupefied.

I intend to set the tone for this chapter with the illustration of Tom and Summer’s first interaction in (500) Days of Summer. In this brief encounter, the boy is too anxious to make an advance at the girl. By contrast, it is the girl who breaks the ice. She not only recognizes but also compliments the boy’s taste in music. After having impressed the hipster in the boy, she casually leaves the scene with no intention to further commit to the interaction.

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This chapter takes the manic pixie dream girl as a starting point to analyze the specific kind of masculinity that (500) Days of Summer, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Ruby Sparks portray. Hence, what is being considered here are the characters’ features and relations in the fictional world (fictional being aspect) in association to the cultural mentalities that cause the characters as they are (symptom). I will first address the manic pixie dream girl as a representative of postfeminism with three distinct features, namely, her (1) physical attractiveness, (2) desiring sexual subjectivity, and (3) self-serving mentality. Subsequently, I will elaborate the male protagonist’s masculinity also in terms of features: (1) a priority of the mind over the body, (2) emotional vulnerability, and (3) psychological immaturity.

When discussing femininity and masculinity, I follow Judith Butler’s (1999 [1990]) formulation of gender. In her seminal work Gender Trouble, Butler puts forward the view that gender is performative: “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (33). In other words, “gender is always a doing” (ibid.). It is the expressive acts one does in relation to the gendered stylization of the body that sustain gender identity. Therefore, gender in the film text is a representation of the various practices through which women and men conduct gendered lives. As such, in the following sections, femininity and masculinity will be defined by the practices that are portrayed in order to express the characters’ gender identities.

2.1 The Postfeminist Girl

In this section I demonstrate how the manic pixie dream girl is an embodiment of postfeminist ideology. In a number of books and articles, feminist scholar Rosalind Gill (2007; 2008; 2009) charts the rise of a new figure in advertising constructed to sell to women since the mid-1990s: “A young, attractive, heterosexual woman who knowingly and deliberately plays with her sexual power and is always ‘up for’ sex” (Gill 2008, 438). This figure as seen in the cover of

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Cosmopolitan, for example, depicts women’s body sexually and marks a shift in the media representation of women. Rather than passivity and victimization, women are shown to be having fun and empowered. Gill (2009) terms this figure the “midriff.” The midriff refers to the part of the body between the chest and the waist that women display in fashion to flaunt their sexuality. It is a fashion trend particularly prevalent between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s, signalling a generation of young women primarily in their 20s and 30s following this trend (ibid.). And it is no coincidence that it was in the 2000s when audiences witness the rise of the manic pixie dream girl in American cinema.

Gill (2009) suggests the shift in representation is the advertising industry’s response to the feminist critique of unhealthy, idealized beauty standards. To this effect, advertisers strive to incorporate the cultural power of feminism and develop a form of “commodity feminism” (Goldman 1992). The new advertisements thus promote “a discourse of playfulness, freedom and, above all, choice. Women are presented not as seeking men’s approval but as pleasing themselves; in doing so, they just happen to win men’s admiration” (Gill 2009, 101).

Gill (2007) identifies this type of commodity feminism as part of postfeminist media culture. She further posits that postfeminist sensibility is constituted by several themes, three of which are directly relevant to my discussion. (1) In postfeminist media culture, femininity is a bodily property: “the possession of a ‘sexy body’ is represented as women’s key (if not sole) source of identity” (149). (2) There is a shift from objectification to subjectification. Women are no longer represented as a passive sex object, but an actively desiring sexual subject. (3) Perhaps most importantly, is a focus on individualism, choice and empowerment. With examples from the films, the following sections will discuss respectively how these postfeminist themes inform the representation of the manic pixie dream girl.

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Firstly, the most apparent feature of the manic pixie dream girl is her physical attractiveness. As the desired object for the protagonist and for the audience, the female actresses casted for this role, such as Zooey Deschanel, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Zoe Kazan possess a certain degree of desirability. In particular, Deschanel was the Hollywood It girl when she was filming (500) Days of Summer. In the films, varying degrees of emphasis are placed on the characters’ physical attractiveness. This may be implied by comments or advances made by male characters, or done more explicitly such as in (500) Days of Summer. When the narrator introduces Summer to the audience, he speaks of “the Summer effect” which manifests in the two-fold sales she effects when working in an ice cream parlour, the below market value rent she always pays, and the double-takes she receives in her daily commute to work. In the fictional world, the manic pixie dream girl is an attractive, desirable young woman.

In addition, the character’s attractive appearance is often complemented by eye-catching fashion quirks that signify her uniqueness and spontaneous personality. A popular choice of quirky appearance comes in the form of flamboyant, ever-changing hair colours, as worn by Ramona in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. When Scott first encounters Ramona, her hair is in pink. Later in the film, she changes the colour to blue which surprises Scott, “I change my hair every week-and-a-half, dude. Get used to it.” In Ruby Sparks, Ruby is recognized by her white dress and purple tights, details Calvin writes into her character (fig. 7). As such, the manic pixie dream girl is first and foremost a bodily character. She features an attractive physical appearance and fashions herself in unusual, eye-catching clothing articles. These make her stand out as an object of desire that is unique and wilfully stylish.

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Echoing the discussion of hommecom and indie cinema in the last chapter, the two film genres have impacted on how the body of the manic pixie dream girl is stylized. The film’s emphasis on the female figure’s sex appeal is to make her a sex object for male audiences. On the surface of the body is also where her quirky personality is inscribed so as to cater to hipster audiences. Deschanel, the Hollywood It girl of the mid-2000s, is an epitome of the sexy quirky. She represents a new type of awkward, goofy femininity that is at the same time considered sexy. As part of a marketing campaign to market her show New Girl, Fox Broadcasting Company created a word to describe her – “adorkable”, a portmanteau of “adorable” and “dork” (Blickley 2015). The offbeat sexy Deschanel displays is a manifestation of indie sensibility being exploited by the entertainment industry. The exploration towards alternative markets forms a new type of femininity that has become the ideal girlfriend for male hipsters.

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The second feature is the way in which the manic pixie dream girl practises her desiring sexual subjectivity. In (500) Days of Summer, after Summer finds out that Tom is interested in her, the Fig. 7. Ruby in white dress and purple tights in Ruby Sparks

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next day she goes up to Tom in the copy room and kisses him. A month later, the two retreat to Tom’s apartment after a date. While Tom needs a moment in the bathroom, Summer lies naked in bed ready to have sex. And when the couple are shopping in a record store, Summer sees the “ADULTS ONLY” sign and eagerly drags Tom into the curtains. They purchase a porn film featuring shower sex and do it themselves in the following shot. The manic pixie dream girl actively participates in sexual activities and seems to enjoy them.

Gill (2007) understands the newfound sexual agency of postfeminism with Hilary Radner’s (1999) concept “technology of sexiness.” Radner purports that sexual knowledge and practice are central to the modernization of femininity. The technology of sexiness therefore represents a shift in gender power in postfeminism. Power turns from “an external, male judging gaze to a self-policing, narcissistic gaze” (Gill 2009, 151). For Gill, this is deeply troubling as it represents a higher form of exploitation than objectification: “one in which the objectifying male gaze is internalized to form a new disciplinary regime” (152). As a necessary means to perform femininity in postfeminism, it is an imperative for women to be sexy and actively seek sex. In this view, the manic pixie dream girl is part of a representational regime that affirms this new discipline. Hence, the sexual liberation she displays should not be hailed as progress but recognized as a guise for a new, deeper form of the exploitation of women.

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Towards the end of (500) Days of Summer, Tom chances upon Summer sometime after they break up and finds out that she is married. “You should’ve told me,” he says, referring to the time when they briefly reunited and danced at an old couple’s wedding. “Well he hadn’t asked me yet…” “But he was in your life.” “Yeah,” she nods. “So… Why did you dance with me?” Summer pauses for a second, and replies, “because I wanted to.”

Falling in Love with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Transformations of Masculinity in the 21st Century