I have to say, I HATE Bringing Up Baby.  There’s something about the combination of the Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant characters in that film that just absolutely grates, and I generally love Howard Hawks’ movies and their depiction of women (like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or His Girl Friday).

I’m guessing it’s because she’s a supporting character, but I’m surprised that Isla Fisher’s character in Wedding Crashers didn’t make the list.  Maybe because she’s the kinky, R-rated dream girl who does things in bed that the guy didn’t even know he wanted?

Do we really need to coin so cumbersome and silly a term for these spin-head characters as “Manic Pixie Dream Girls?” Back in the day, I believe they were called airheads or star-fuckers.

This reminds me how much I love the song I Love You Alice B. Toklas (and so does Gertrude Stein). But never seen the movie… (unlike the brownies, it doesn’t look very good)

Oh, and I should say that my Hepburn/Grant problem is pretty much only with that film, because I love Holiday, where Hepburn is a much less annoying MPDG.

Can’t believe there was no mention of Sandra Bullock in..well pretty muchevery single movie Sandra Bullock has been in.  I mean she even played one in Demolition Man.

Like all movie formulas, there are really about a thousand of these movies out there. Space requirements probably limited the list to 16 (or maybe they were the “Top 16”). I was actually thinking of Amy Adams in “Ricky Bobby, Talladega Nights” (I know…It’s just the first one I thought of) as being this type of character too. She’s the one who convinces him to race again when they are at the bar “The Angry Possum”. Her speech in that scene is the perfect MPDG speech.

I think that Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf was at least a partial inspiration for Garden State, there are many similarities, and there is definitely a MPDG in that book.

No one talks about this movie, but Geena Davis is totally Manic Pixified in _The Accidental Tourist_, bringing a kinetic jolt to poor damaged William Hurt—with Kathleen Turner in the thankless Ice Queen role.

I don’t think Melanie Griffith in _Something Wild_ is exactly right, because there’s much more chaos and darkness in that movie.  She sparks Jeff Daniels, sure, but it’s not in a treacly life-affirming way.

more in the “unmoored girls with mental problems are real human beings, not fantasies to project on, you prick” sort of way. 

That’s actually quite a common handling of this sort of character, too - the turn where the previously infatuated character and the audience (but not, usually, the *writers*) realize that they’ve been projecting the whole time.

Liza Minnelli in “Cabaret”

I’d have to disagree with this one the same way I’d disagree with “Almost Famous”—she’s a Dream Girl who turns out to be all too human, and SPOILERyou can’t even really sympathize with the hero’s disillusionment that much since he and Sally are cheating on each other with the same guyEND SPOILER.

Grace Kelly in “Rear Window” is a grating person, but I always assumed that was the filmmaker’s intent.

To a large extent, the problem with her character in the film is that she spends the whole time desperately trying to break out of the box that Jimmy Stewart’s character has put her into, which does make her a little grating.  Personally, I think that if your boyfriend won’t take you seriously as a person until you put your own life at risk for his obsession, it’s time to find a new boyfriend.

I can’t believe they didn’t mention Kate Winslet’s character in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”  And I do generally hate MPDGs and movies that feature them.

I recommend watching The Science of Sleep.  There isn’t an MPDG in it, but the male lead desperately wants the female lead to be his MPDG.  I don’t want to describe it any further as it would entail revealing the plot.

Cheers.

I can see why people might think Clementine was a MPDG, but… I disagree. Joel wasn’t a pretentious douche on some kind of epic journey or other—a key component of the MPDG movies—and Clem wasn’t charming and loveable all the time, and she had her own agenda and her own life. I’d actually say ESotSM is more of a meta-statement on MPDGs. Clem even SAYS she’s not one of those girls. “Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m gonna make them alive. But I’m just a fucked-up girl who’s lookin’ for my own peace of mind; don’t assign me yours.”

I wonder if Mena Suvari’s character in American Beauty counts as a MPDG.  It’s a different dynamic, but same sort of effect on the main male character.

jessilikewhoa: Breakfast at Tiffany’s is #11 in the AV club’s list.

One movie where the MPDG was pretty effectively parodied was LA Story with Sarah Jessica Parker as the over-the-top MPDG.

Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine has definite elements of MPDG-ness, which is a shame because I really like that film. Sweet zombie jesus, I hated Garden State though, the Natalie Portman character is the posterchild for this archetype.

I’m sure this is completely littered with SPOILERS, but I’m too lazy to label them all.  Read at your own risk.

From the article:

Like the Magical Negro, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype is largely defined by secondary status and lack of an inner life.

By their own standards, I don’t think that The Apartment belongs on this list, and I’m pretty iffy about Almost Famous and Annie Hall.  All of the supposed MPDGs in all of those films turn out to have pretty major inner lives that have very little to do with the hero of the film.  There’s a reason Alvy and Annie break up—he can’t stand that she’s become her own person and isn’t his MPDG.  In The Apartment, the Jack Lemmon character is peripheral to her life until he rescues her, and it’s her decision that brings them together.

Almost Famous works best of the three since she’s the deus ex machina who creates the happy ending just to make the protagonist happy.  So she briefly breaks out of the MPDG and then Crowe jams her back into the box.

Again, spoilers, blah blah blah.

When she gives the anti-MPDG line to Joel that’s the “Real Clem”, but most of the time we see her character, it’s an idealized fantasy that lives in the recesses of Joel’s mind. She’s literally nothing but a concept for most of the movie. Her speech against being a concept almost feels like she’s flipping off Joel and the film itself.

That’s the brilliant thing about the movie, though—Joel deals with the fact that he’s created an idealized version of her in his head and (theoretically) won’t fuck things up as badly the second time around.

I also love how strongly the film rebukes the doctor for doing the procedure on his ex-mistress.  He tries to control everything around him and only makes things worse for himself—by trying to have it both ways, at the end he has no mistress and no wife.

Great and useful concept; thanks, Amanda.  I don’t think it fits every bubbly airhead in the movies—Jessica Lange in Tootsie doesn’t quite make it.  It’s a very specific “free spirit” type.

Building on your comments on Almost Famous and The Apartment, I wonder whether the “She really has serious problems/She is a real person, you dolt” twist isn’t itself a bit of a formula by now.  After Hours.  Possibly Brazil, in which the protagonist’s treating his Dream Girl like an extension of his fantasy life gets her killed by storm troopers.

I’m loath to gainsay the claims that Annie Hall is that kind of person, but it would not have occurred to me to put her there, and not just for the reason the Salon reviewer offers.  I just never saw that viewers were supposed to be charmed by Annie or view her as a life-changing experience.  Annie and Alvy are both grating, neurotic (and hilarious and sympathetic) people; Alvy’s desire for her to be an MPDG is thwarted because she gets really into (and benefits from) fulfilling some of his other, contradictory desires as to what side of her character she should cultivate, and she ironically becomes more her own person than she’s been before.  Manhattan, for me, works a lot better as an MPDG story.  There’s no doubt others in the Woody Allen canon as well.

Candy Clark in “American Graffiti”

Madonna in “Desperately Seeking Susan”

Valerie Perrine in “Superman,” “Lenny,” “Slaughterhouse Five”—-anything she’s ever been in, really

I don’t think Keaton in Annie Hall fits the mold.  Alvy changes Annie, then Annie out grows Alvy and leaves him.

Ah, as always, pandagon is here to assure me that I’m not going crazy.  I hate this stereotype because I wasted sooo much time in college trying to emuate it.

On Woody Allen’s films, I really agree with Mnemosyne about Annie Hall—Annie is clearly not really a MPDG, but Alvy wants her to be one, and the relationship can’t survive because of his attitude.  By the end of the film, he’s accepted the fact that she’s a person, and he can relate to her as a person, but not as a GF/partner.

Josh, the example that immediately hit me from Woody Allen’s films was Juliette Lewis’s character from Husbands and Wives, who is exactly this kind of character—young, charming, uninhibited, worshipful and yet honest, everything that Mia Farrow’s character isn’t.  And yet, she doesn’t (positively) transform Allen’s life - his fantasies about her are part of what leads to the breakup of his marriage, which is decidedly not liberating (“is this over?” is the last line of the film, IIRC, spoken by Allen to the off-camera interviewer who’s asking him about his life post-divorce).  Sidney Pollack’s character also finds 2 MPDG’s—the younger lawyer that Judy Davis suspects of having an affair with him, and then the woman Pollack ends up with for a while before returning to Davis.  But their relationship fails completely, because of Pollack’s total lack of respect for her.

There’s a good deal of misogyny in Husbands and Wives, of course, some of it directed at the pseudo-MPDGs.  But there’s also lots of misandry as well.  I think it’s Allen’s most ruthless film, in that, with the possible exception of Mia Farrow’s character, I think he refuses to let the characters get away with anything.  They get called on their shit and are humiliated and made miserable for it.

Soon-Yi Previn, of course, was depicted by the media as Allen’s real-life MPDG.  So that adds several layers of complexity to the concept in Allen’s case.

On Hitchcock—I don’t love Rear Window as much as many do (and I love Hitchcock).  My favorite by far is Vertigo, which you could call a direct, powerful critique of the MPDG concept.  It’s all an illusion, created by men for men, and it ends up destroying everyone.  Real women do exist as 3-dimensional people in Vertigo, but the men won’t/can’t see them because they prefer the illusion.

Do we really need to coin so cumbersome and silly a term for these spin-head characters as “Manic Pixie Dream Girls?” Back in the day, I believe they were called airheads or star-fuckers.

Nah, it’s a worthwhile term, although I prefer “flibbertigibbet” (apparently, “back in the day” for me is 1908).

Anyhow, the characters discussed in the article aren’t really airheads, ‘cause deep down they have the common sense and wisdom to know what’s best for us ... I mean for those uptight and career-obsessed “boys.” And they’re not really star-fuckers, because the “boys” in these movies are usually boring work-a-day types rather than glamorous celebrity sugar daddies and the girls are usually madcap heiresses or happily starving artists or actresses or the like.

What bothers me about the character is that while she pops up in good movies, often her MPDG-ness detracts.

My classic example of that situation is the Janet Leigh character in The Manchurian Candidate—what the heck is she doing in that picture? At first you think her and Sinatra’s weird “meet-cute” on the train is a part of the general paranoia of the thing, but it goes nowhere.

I’d also agree with you regarding the characters in Almost Famous and The Apartment, and would add that, in the former film, Kate Hudson was playing off her real-life mother’s screen persona.

One sad result of this phenomenon is that some young women consider the various film and chick-lit incarnations of the “MPDG” as worthy of emulation, not understanding that in real life it’s only charming for about 40 minutes and that the staid object of their affections isn’t looking to be changed or rescued. The guy who longs for the this kooky and free-spirited archetype is in for a big disappointment if she presents herself. And that hold true even if she happens to be as gorgeous and sexy as the actresses they cast in these fantasies.

I don’t think I realized this before, but I’m totally alone among people I like in liking Garden State.

Everything said about the movie is totally accurate, and it’s a stupid male fantasy, but damn if I don’t still like the movie.

I had the same problem with High Fidelity, liking it while all the sane people around me denounced it, until I watched it like a year ago and couldn’t make it all the way through it was so annoying.  Now I kind of don’t want to watch Garden State ever again, afraid I’ll hate it because it’s so obviously full of terribad.

I seem to be the only person who actually liked Joe Versus the Volcano.  I don’t necessarily disagree with the article’s assessment of all three of Meg Ryan’s character’s as MPDGs (though the first one doesn’t hang around long enough to do more than be initially entranced and then repulsed by Joe’s sudden paradigm shift), but this is a movie filled with the ridiculous and impossible.  Setting it up as the precursor to Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail will only irritate fans of all three movies.  Even with it’s sci-fi twists, Eternal Sunshine is far more grounded in reality than JvstV; every character in the film occupies a similarly bizarre and unlikely state (except maybe the protagonist), but we haven’t had entertaining articles written about, say, The Overzealous Salesman:

“Where are you going?”
“I’m traveling to the middle of the Pacific Ocean to jump into a volcano and appease an angry lava god.”
“That’s an interesting problem…from a luggage perspective.”

It’s like ragging on the Bedazzled remake for having a Magical Negro when the character in question is God; of course the character is magical, he’s the all-powerful, all-loving (don’t think about it too hard) creator of the universe.

Elliot:

I recommend watching The Science of Sleep. There isn’t an MPDG in it, but the male lead desperately wants the female lead to be his MPDG. I don’t want to describe it any further as it would entail revealing the plot.

I second this recommendation. The Science of Sleep is a deeply weird and kookily directed film, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I’m with Mnemosyne on her interpretations of both Annie Hall and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Both films are, each in their own ways, repudiations of the MPDG stereotype. Woody Allen fucked it up by repeatedly attempting to re-write Annie Hall for the rest of his career and failing ever more miserably — and moving his female characters closer and closer to the MPDG archetype — with each new film, but one could easily argue that this repudiation is a pretty consistent hallmark of Charlie Kaufman’s creative style.

Does Christina Ricci in “Black Snake Moan” count? Isn’t sexual addiction related to mania?

Or is she not really a Dream Girl, in that she doesn’t change the life of some emo slacker jackass?

Maude?  From Harold and Maude?  I’m afraid to say I think that may be one.  I second Kate Winslet’s character in Eternal Sunshine.  I always called those characters “catalyst girl.”  I’m glad the phenomenon is getting it’s due recognition.

Bugger, I really liked Garden State. I don’t think I entirely agree that the Natalie Portman character lacks her own inner life, but I’m not going to be able to watch that film in the same way now.

How about Leeloo in The Fifth Element? Except she’s the Manic Pixie Dream Girl that has to save the entire planet instead of just Bruce Willis.

You’re all expanding the concept too far, the MPDG has a very strict criteria. She has to a)Act in direct opposition to perceived social convention, b)Be kooky and all over the place mentally, c)Be very thin and willowy. It’s not just every perky, stupidly supportive woman in hollywood (of which there have been many). SJP in LA Story, definitely. Grace Kelly in Rear Window, no way. 

As a sidebar, Garden State was on TV last night, hadn’t seen it since the cinema, where I hated it. Had read the article earlier on and decided to check it out for a laugh. Got about five minutes into it when the ‘Whenever I feel unoriginal I decide to do something no one has ever done before” bit, and had to change the channel before I put my foot through the screen in existential rage. It could be V for Vendetta or any other recent film she’s been in but I’m really not a Natalie Portman fan.

Maybe we could call it a draw and say “Real Clem” isn’t, but “Head Clem” is.

Yes, I agree.

For what it’s worth, a few days ago one of the writers of the Onion piece and I were discussing how some people felt Clementine fit, and he said in part “[W]e discussed Clementine, but I don’t think she fits at all.”

Garden State is redeemed for me because it captures New Jersey culture—and specifically the experience of going back to New Jersey to see the friends you grew up with—pretty well. However, Natalie Portman is the weakest part of the movie, which was probably not what Zach Braff intended.

And Clementine and Annie Hall are specific rebukes of the MPGD concept. However, Alvy writes a play in which Annie Hall is re-written into a MPGD.

Clementine is treated that way by both Joel and Patrick. Joel gets disillusioned by the reality of dating Clementine, which is why they break up, and by the end *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* they get back together with the knowledge that Clementine is a person he wants to be with for the sake of it, not because she’s his fantasy woman.

Reminds me of an old XKCD, “Quirky Girls”:
http://xkcd.com/122/

Oh dear Lord, I love LA Story! Totally forgotten that movie. Although Emma Thompson is a bit odd, too, but not perky at all—she’s very English Eccentric and Hat Wearing, which is usually not portrayed as sexy.

Is there a Manic (not Pixie, cause that would be Teh Gay Oh Noes) Dream Guy? There are plenty of semi-stalkerish Guys Who Woo in Wacky Ways, but I guess that’s not the same thing. (perhaps Johnny Depp in Bennie and Joon?)

I don’t think Melanie Griffith in _Something Wild_ is exactly right, because there’s much more chaos and darkness in that movie.  She sparks Jeff Daniels, sure, but it’s not in a treacly life-affirming way.

Yeah, I don’t think she fits either, not just because of her interior darkness, but also because of the interior darkness of Daniels’ character.

I seem to be the only person who actually liked Joe Versus the Volcano. 

Not the only one. It’s one of my favorite films. Few films trade in utter absurdity as well as Joe does. And the ending is as good a description of love as I’ve seen.

“Jennifer Aniston in ... “Office Space””

Really? I thought her character in “Office Space” wasn’t even close to an MPDG.  The main character idealizes and projects, sure, but he only asks her out after he’s started his break-down.  Then he dumps her because he can’t handle the one actual weird/quirky/non-standard thing that can be chalked up to her—a healthy sexual appetite and corresponding (rumored) number of previous partners.  Her function in “saving” him is by anchoring him to normalcy and calling him on the fact that he’s veering too off-course—and that’s not even really her deal, since it doesn’t hit home until after his scheme blows up in his face.  Hell, his weird behavior convinces her to change her own life and take a risk (finally quitting the job she hates) that she wouldn’t have before she met him and got a bit jolted out of her own rut.  In a film with a different tone, she’d be the ball-and-chain girlfriend the hero’s muse helps him break free from.

Good call, preying mantis, I was thinking Amanda was off on Aniston in “Office Space,” but I couldn’t exactly explain why.

Aniston bucks the main character, which your classic manic pixie dream girl shouldn’t.

(Already spoiled, but spoiling)

It sounds like I’m glad I read “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and didn’t ever watch it. Holly? With the narrator? It was years early for the filmmakers to be on LSD.

Damn, The Fifth Element is a really good call. And the fact that she doesn’t even speak English really gets at what the male fantasy is all about there.

Cameron Diaz in There’s Something About Mary is a given, right? And I also feel like Winona Ryder must have played the MPDG role once or twice.

Agree with Tyro, Portman’s character is the weakest part of Garden State, and Braff’s lead is only decent because he works as a total cypher: the central story, to me, is about how Peter Sarsgaard’s character, initially presented as a drug-addled loser, is revealed over the course of the film to be thoughtful and sensitive, but Braff is so self-absorbed and distracted by Portman’s superficial quirkiness to even really see it or care. So I read the whole film as a satirical take on MPDG obsession.

Is there a Manic (not Pixie, cause that would be Teh Gay Oh Noes) Dream Guy?

No, because romantic comedy is male-centered.  Romantic comedy is all about the guy getting his dream girl, and there’s no discussion of what the dream girl wants.

Off the top of my head, the only movie I can think of that’s even close to having a Manic Dream Guy is His Girl Friday, where Cary Grant is the force of nature that brings Rosalind Russell back to her true love:  journalism.  (Well, and him, but mostly journalism.)  Other than that, I’m drawing a blank.

Oh, and I think the Jennifer Aniston MPDG role is Along Came Polly, which I haven’t seen because it looked like a piece of crap.

Oh, and a classic film that turns the MPDG idea on its head:  The Lady Eve, with Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, where we see how carefully she manipulates him to become his MPDG.

Watch out for the really, really bad stereotypes of African-Americans, though—total Stepin Fetchit time.  Sturges always has at least one really embarrassing one in every one of his films, which really sucks, because they tend to be quite feminist.  The Palm Beach Story is another Sturges film from the MPDG’s point of view, but fast-forward past the “hi-larious” scene with drunk rich guys shooting at the black bartenders.

Ewan McGregor as Manic Dream Guy in Down With Love?

Also, anyone have any thoughts on how Fred from Angel was to any extent an MPDG character? She was definitely quirky and nerdy, and I feel like a lot of conflict in the show stemmed from some of the various male leads trying to put her into that kind of a role.

Good call on Steppenwolf by WhatTheHey. I’ve only read three of Hesse’s novels, but all of them—Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and Narcissus and Goldmund—embrace the MPDG concept.

So I read the whole film as a satirical take on MPDG obsession.

A good Portman film that dissects/mocks the MPDG thing is “Beautiful Girls,” featuring two characters that the lead, played by Matt Dillion, wants to be his MPDG (one, Uma Thurman, the other, a 13-year-old Natalie Portman), until he realizes he’s acting like a complete idiot (favorite scene: pondering the possibility of waiting 5 until Natalie Portman’s character turns 18).

I almost think something that Zach Braff watched this movie and thought it would be a good idea to make his own movie, but this time allow the lead (played by himself!) to have Natalie Portman in the end.

I hate this stereotype because I wasted sooo much time in college trying to emuate it.

lucky you that you stopped. I just realized I was the MPDG in my marriage. We more or less played out like Annie Hall. How lame is that?

Tyro, I think it was Timothy Hutton’s (Willie???) character you’re thinking of. Matt Dillon’s character was the douche who couldn’t get over his high school sweet heart and strung along his girlfriend whose life basically revolved around him. I think you’re right tho, Zach Braff’s character was basically a total rip off.

I prefer “flibbertigibbet”

Do we count Maria from “The Sound of Music” as a squeaky clean Catholic edition of the MPDG?

Drew Barrymore in Mad Love. Bubbly crazy without a real defining mental problem—she drives too fast, and loves too much, and crashes cars and then cries over poor kids. I think in some ways its an extension of the ideal of the Victorian hysteric: too fragile and pure for this world, basically big-hearted children. The heartier MPDGs seem like a happy-ending variation on the theme.

Do we count Maria from “The Sound of Music” as a squeaky clean Catholic edition of the MPDG?

Do you have any doubt that Captain von Trapp needed some loosening up?

Also, check out those hand-made curtain dresses and dancing around on meadows—quirky! She even plays folk guitar.

d’oh. make that “hardier”

“Ewan McGregor as Manic Dream Guy in Down With Love?”

Ewan McGregor as Manic Dream Guy in Life Less Ordinary?  It’s really hard to come up with examples of male versions, though.  Guy-roles are way more likely to be fleshed out, and it’s rare that the male half of a couple winds up in the ancillary role.

TV Tropes did it first. See Genki Girl. The description above of Penny from “Almost Famous” would be termed a “Deconstruction” over there; the idea is that you take a trope very, very seriously, and show the consequences.

Funny enough, the only movie on that list that I saw was “Annie Hall”. Clearly someone has different taste in film from me.

Thinking of the reverse thing with the Manic Dream Guy, what about The Sweetest Thing?

So, Manic Pixie Dream Girl is the Magical Negro of the world…?

I have only recently become aware of this phenomenon in film or in real life, but now I can see MPDGs all around.  I once had a semi-serious flirtation with a woman, at a time when I was absolutely *not* in the market for yet another woman in my life, yet she drew me in with a strange glittering intensity that I found quite irresistable.  The next day she told me she didn’t want to see me any more, because she needed to go into therapy for some serious problems in her life.  My first impulse was to tell her that her concerns were nonsense, but after a moment’s reflection I agreed that she had a problem, and my fascination with her “eccentric” personality was no reason to try to get her to delay treatment.

I like High Fidelity until the end.  The concept is great—-a guy who is beholden to the MPDG fantasy revisits his lost loves and his fantasies and realizes that he’s trying to use women to make himself something he’s not, and that if he wants to be the person he wants to be, he has to just do it and quit looking to women for validation.  But then the way it ends, with him settling for someone he doesn’t have much in common with, struck me as a false dilemma.  Like it was saying, “Okay, there’s no such thing as a MPDG, so basically you have to accept that women mostly suck and that’s okay.” Well, no.  There are plenty of interesting, arty women that are still grounded human beings out there.  It’s not give-up-the-fantasy-give-up-all-hope-of-an-interesting-girlfriend.

I tried watching it again and spent the whole time wanting to strangle John Cusack’s character.  And I don’t think it really deconstructs the MPDG trope so much as it really does say, “Women suck.  Just try to marry the least horrible one.  Too bad you could never marry Lisa Bonet, huh?  She was great.”

The whole movie’s just an annoying male fantasy to me now, and I *liked* that before.  Now, I watch Rob go through the movie, realizing everyone he’s ever been with was crazy, shallow, or (in one case) that he “won” and shouldn’t feel bad about how things ended.  I know it’s being done with a sardonic eye, and the movie isn’t kind to Rob, but the whole thing just grates on me now when it used to make me laugh on a Saturday afternoon.

I think I’m just a little sad that becoming a better feminist over the years has had a lot of benefits, but it’s made some fun stuff I used to like much less enjoyable.  Garden State might be next, if I watch it again.

Grr, lack of edit function.  Obviously I meant to italicize the part quoted from Amanda’s post.

Re:  Almost Famous:  Is there a more heartbreaking scene in movie history when Patrick Fugit tells Kate Hudson that Billy Crudup (who is a crudup in real life, too…I mean, who in his right mind dumps Mary-Louise Parker for that cow Claire Danes?—speaking of MPDGs, how about The Shopgirl?) that he traded her for a six-pack of beer, and she fights back tears and asks, “What KIND of beer?” —as if that would make a difference.

Hm…Scarlett Johannson in Lost in Translation? I haven’t seen the movie in quite a while, so I’m not completely sure if she fits the bill.

Tyro, I think it was Timothy Hutton’s (Willie???) character you’re thinking of.

You’re right. It was Willie. I just checked imdb before I wrote my original comment, saw that Matt Dillon had top-billing in the movie, and assumed that he was the character I was thinking of.

Also, I like High Fidelity.

Hm…Scarlett Johannson in Lost in Translation? I haven’t seen the movie in quite a while, so I’m not completely sure if she fits the bill.

Probably not. She’s not upbeat, and while she and Bill Murray kind of revive each other, his view of her is pretty realistic and not all that dazzled. He recognizes that she’s more fun than he’s used to, but I don’t think the movie lets him pretend that she’s anything except a mildly fucked-up, mostly normal girl who flirts back.

Actually, I wonder if the true MPDG relationship only comes up between peer characters.  The age difference in Lost in Translation (and Shopgirl, actually) brings up all new dynamics that are kind of contrary to something like Garden State.

In that clip, when Braff asks Portman what she’s listening to, and the deep, male voice is cut in to say “Nelly” I was like “Oh hell yes! Portman has been possessed by the devil!”

On the possibility of the male MPDG—how about Brad Pitt in Fight Club?  SPOILERS!!Sure, he’s imaginary, but then so are all MPDGs, in fact.END SPOILERS!!  He’s not kooky and quirky, but he is wacky and supportive (in his own way) and he forces a whole world full of men to…well, not necessarily to grow, but they think they’re growing.

I think the point of looking for male examples is not to find absolute equivalents, because gender is not incidental to the MPDGirl role, but to see if there are male characters who serve similar plot functions and occupy a similar social space for the main character.

Actually, I wonder if the true MPDG relationship only comes up between peer characters.  The age difference in Lost in Translation (and Shopgirl, actually) brings up all new dynamics that are kind of contrary to something like Garden State.

Regarding peer status for the genre, I believe the rules are:

1. The male lead has to be staid and serious about his work, but not necessarily more successful or wealthy or from a higher social class than the MPDG.

2. The MPDG has to be roughly the male lead’s age, or (only if she is more successful/wealthy/etc.) no more than 10 years younger.

3. There has to be a real possibility of romance and sex by the end of the film rather than mere longing.

Otherwise you end up with distant cousin genres like:

1. The Adorable Moppet” genre (e.g. The Game Plan)—the quirky and wise girl is a child, no romance between her and her and the male adult lead she helps.

2. The “Odd Ships that Pass in the Night” genre (Lost in Translation)—one or both of the leads are quirky, but age, existing relationships, and other peer-related complications preclude any real possibility of romance. They help each-other for a brief period, but that’s the extent of the tension.

3. The ever-popular Cinderella Story (e.g. da Pretty Woman)—the possibility of romance is present, but the girl is younger and of lower status than the guy she helps (which means that she isn’t allowed to be quite as quirky or off-beat as her MPDG counterpart.

Not sure about the male equivalent of the MPDG—the man-child characters played by John Cryer and John Cusack and Hugh Grant in the ‘80s and ‘90s who are “rescued” by more down-to-earth women seem to fit the bill, but it’s not quite the same thing.

Male MPDG: Ferris Bueller comes to mind. Of course, the only relationship that matters in that film is between the guys; the girl just seems to be there so we won’t get any funny ideas about Teh Gay. And Ferris is nominally the main character, but we learn a lot less about his emotions and what makes him tick than we do about Cameron.

On the subject of High Fidelity: When I read the book, I thought the point of the whole think was that Rob himself was not the person he was trying to be. He keeps talking about how miserable he is, and how much he hates his music-geek friends and likes Laura’s yuppie friends. He only got into the record shop thing because he was depressed when Charlie, the MPDG, left him. So I figured that it was about rejecting the whole music geek persona entirely for a more conventional life. Of course, when I saw the movie I thought that John Cusack and co. were just too proud of their indie cred to let the movie end that way, plus the actress playing Laura wasn’t very good, so it seemed like a cop-out.

Oh, and more male MPGD: Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites.

Gracchus:  Not sure about the male equivalent of the MPDG—the man-child characters played by John Cryer and John Cusack and Hugh Grant in the ‘80s and ‘90s who are “rescued” by more down-to-earth women

But they’re not manic, to me.  They’re squishy and sensitive and they deserve someone who’ll appreciate them for who they are.  They’re at the intersection of emo and Nice Guy (tm).  They’re not really female fantasies, they’re male fantasies of alt-masculinity.

(True confession:  as a shy nerdboy myself in the ‘80s, I loved those kinds of characters.)

Ferris Bueller is a good analogue, and I LOVE the idea that the real romance is between Manic Pixie Ferris and Needs-to-Loosen-Up Cameron.  Spot on.

Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing isn’t exactly manic/quirky, but he sweeps into the life of Baby, loosens her up, and puts her in touch with her animal nature.  That’s akin to the function of Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise, which was suggested earlier.

Ooh, just thought of one…  OK, didn’t see the actual film, but going by the trailer, it looked like Matthew McConaughey was Manic Pixie Dream Dude in _You Me and Dupree_.

At college, I attempted to be a Manic Pixie Dream Boy.  One of my circle wrote a song which devoted a verse to each member of the group, and mine advised that after a footrub and conversation with me, “Our feet feel fine but our minds are tied in knots”.

Years later, one former member of that group told me that she had thought I was pretty terrific, when I wasn’t trying to distract people by knotting up their minds.  Ah, well, live and learn….