The Manic Pixie Dreamgirl

I'd like to visit the theme of the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl in a couple of posts, because the more I think about her, the more she fascinates me. (That's right: I guess I'm announcing to the world that I have a crush on a disembodied abstract concept. At least she doesn't have a boyfriend.) She actually has been an important figure in my life: I've had big crushes on my fair share, even dated one or two, am friends with others, and created a whole line-up of them back in the day when I fancied myself a writer. As I dig deep, it's hard to escape the MPDG her two relatives (I'll introduce you a little later) in any aspect of my life.

The Onion piece in question provided a decent overview of how she's been presented in film in the past 70 years, but the army of critics don't go back any deeper, ignoring her long literary pedigree. Let's take a step back and review the essentials: the MPDG "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." She appears as if by magic, forever changing the way the the dour hero will look at the world. While her favorite tool today is whimsy, her forbears didn't always have that option in their arsenals, and thus took very different tacks.

The earliest MPDG that I am aware of happens to be one of the most important literary figures of the Middle Ages. She arrives at just the right time, as our hero's life is in shambles; he finds himself locked in prison as a political prisoner, unable to make peace with the world.

I who once wrote songs with Keen delight am now by sorrow driven to take up melancholy measures. Wounded Muses tell me what I must write, and elegiac verses bathe my face with real tears. Not even terror could drive from me these faithful companions of my long journey. Poetry, which was once the glory of my happy and flourishing youth, is still my comfort in this misery of my old age.

So begins Boethius's Consolatio Philosophiae, written in the early 6th century. His salvation comes in the form of Lady Philosophy, who uses Socratic dialogue to make him reconsider what matters in the world (early Medieval Christian asceticism) and what doesn't.

It may seem like a long road from The Consolation of Philosophy to "Elizabethtown," but the essential story is the same: a man is rescued from his (literal or metaphorical prison) by a woman who teaches him not to be so serious and reconsider what's really important in life, be it through silly dancing or neoplatonist asceticism. Having made that intellectual leap, we can trace the MPDG's subsequent incarnations as Beatrice in Dante's Paradiso, Shahrazad from Alf Layla Wa Layla, Reason in La Roman de la Rose, Lucy Manette (A Tale of Two Cities), Eppie from Silas Marner, and even Olivia in "Twelfth Night." Shaw put his own satiric stamp on it time after time, perhaps most memorably in Man and Superman, when Ann Whitefield rescues John Tanner from his life of socialistic bachelorhood.

Opera has no shortage: while Donna Elvira and Marie (Wozzeck) can't quite finish the job, Elsa (Der Fliegende Hollander), Marie (Der Frieschutz), Magdalena (Die Meistersinger), Brunhilde, and even Mimi with her consumptive little heart all offer some sort of redemption.

Even though the MPDG may seem like empty fun, there for the sole purpose of redeeming the male, as I've shown, she actually has a long heritage and is capable of quite a bit of depth. If she represents lightness and redemption, though, she does have a mischievous twin sister, lurking in darkness to bring destruction to men. Next time I'll introduce this figure (in one way or another). As this series continues, it will explore both the literary heritage of this darker figure and the way she appears in movies today; a look at their interactions in the work of Woody Allen; the influence these figures have had on my life; and their rare and devastating child.