| Bitch can kiss my manic pixie wings. |
 Bitch can kiss my manic pixie wings.
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Mar. 25th, 2011 @ 12:12 pm 
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On Feminist Frequency (link goes to page with video + transcript), there's a video up on the theme of "Tropes vs Women #1: The Manic Pixie Dream Girl".
And ooh, I have issues with it.
Firstly, there's the personal, which will generally hit first before wider considerations of social justice come in to play, I can't deny it. The issue being that while I wouldn't describe myself as anyone's dream girl, the manic pixie thing? That would be me.
To the extent that my very close friend Chas will actually laughingly say, "Such a pixie!" when I am being silly sometimes.
So when the woman presenting the piece approvingly quotes some dude called Nathan Rabin as follows:
Rabin writes, “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.”
... that's kind of angering, because I'm sorry, but I exist in the real world, too, and what we're dealing with here is the much wider problem of female characters existing in works of fiction solely to catalyse the personal growth/journey/whatever of the usually-white male hero, which is in itself a subset of everyone who isn't a white male Hero existing in works of fiction solely to catalyse et cetera et cetera et cetera. There are a lot more Magic Negroes and characters of colour with no independent conceptual existence than Manic Pixie Dream Girls out there.
And given that this is also done to other female characters, suggesting that the only ones who are really terrible are "Manic Pixie Dream Girls" is somewhere in between really infuriatingly insulting to people like me, and offensively dismissive of everyone else who gets treated like they're only there to further the hero's personal journey.
(Bonus offensiveness: Spot the nasty ablism contained in one of the movie scenes played as an example of how hilarious Manic Pixie Dream Girls are.)
To Bitch and Feminist Frequency: Hollywood isn't the one telling me I don't exist here. You are.
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| From: | ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) trouble |
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| Date: |
March 25th, 2011 05:20 am (UTC) |
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I've been really disliking that series and I haven't been able to sort out why.
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| From: | sami |
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March 25th, 2011 05:45 am (UTC) |
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I haven't watched any of the others, and based on that one, I doubt I will. It seems to be working on a basis of being either trite or wrong. Or both.
To me, this is an extension of the "If you like high heels and lipstick, you're a servant of the patriarchy/betraying the sisterhood" thing. They seem to have completely missed the difference between being forced into a role (by a man, by society, by your family), and choosing a role, or happening to be a certain way.
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| From: | aquaeri |
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| Date: |
March 25th, 2011 10:02 am (UTC) |
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Yes, the problem really seemed to be that what they needed to attack was "characters other than the white male hero only do things to benefit him and have no independent motivations or interests" and instead, ended up attacking a particular personality type.
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