Manic Pixxies Dream Girl (2020)
Film critic Nathan Rabin coined the term Manic Pixie Dream Girl to describe the often one-dimensional female characters found in the films of sensitive writer-director types. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists only to support and guide the male protagonist through his journey while she is never developed into a full character. The thing with media is that it reflects our times and can often be a step behind the cultural and societal shifts happening in the zeitgeist. This in turn makes it easy to look at our screens and see what's wrong with how people are represented and to point out which groups of people aren’t represented at all.
It’s no fun criticizing things all the time; sometimes a person just wants to sit back and watch a show or a film from the 90s without considering the all-male cast, lack of people of color or the abundance of stereotypes flashing across the screen. But it seems we can’t publicly get away with that anymore. We live in a time where everything that has come before is being challenged and often falls short of our evolving values. Even the creator of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, Nathan Rabin, has since apologized for inventing the characterization and labelled his insight as sexist and reductive. What an interesting reversal.
Zurich-based band Manic Pixxies’ debuted on the scene with their stirring pop ballad called … “Dream Girl”. In the song “dream girl” is whispered at the outset of soothing melodies and soaring vocals. It is a multilayered experience offering depth of feeling without being somber. So lovely.
Dig Deeper
No one is perfect, but if you’re a fellow cinephile, then you might love rogerebert.com. Mr Ebert passed on in 2013 and the more recent reviews on the site are from other film critics. Roger Ebert’s reviews sought to be fair to films and always provided refreshing insight. He was known for hardly ever giving a scathing review and being humorous when he did dislike a film. He received the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for criticism, the first film critic to be awarded the prestigious prize.
Here he is being interviewed, and he gives praise and credit to Eddie Murphy for his effort in playing multiple characters in his movie The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. Absolutely no one is expecting one of the most famous and respected film critics ever to give credit to a movie like The Klumps, but Mr Ebert does. He loved movies and it shows. He published a number of books on the subject of films, including I Hated, Hated Hated this Movie. His writing was always direct and entertaining, a true connoisseur of the cinematic arts.
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