Lady Business

I don't think the manic pixie dream girl trope is so much a problem as a barometer, you know? A distillation of an idea, that ends up illuminating the way we fulfill ideals in our society, fi that makes sense. I actually wrote about this a bit a long time back, talking about Breakfast at Tiffany's I think - which, being a story ABOUT a 'manic pixie dream girl', more or less, is interesting in that it's conclusion is to point out that girl is hiding from life, missing the messiness and complexity of non-manic-pixie humdrum-ness. In the end, when she kidn of falls apart and admits that's she's really still 'just Lula Mae, stealing chickens,' you can see simultaneously watch her seek out her own internal pixie dream girl (or depending on your reading of the film, make Paul Varjak into one), while learning who she is under the veneer of manic-pixieness.

Come to think of it, it's worth pointing out that Paul, at the beginning of the film when he's essentially a 'boy-toy' for his 'decorator', IS something of a male manic-pixie dream girl to his mistress. But, of course, you only see the story from his point of view, and from his point of view, he's a young writer with a REALLY bad case of writer's block - which, since he eventually leaves the relationship he's in to chase his own 'muse' in Holly makes for some very interesting implications, as well. (Another manic-pixie-dream-boy might be Neal Cassady in On the Road, but being as the main character is male, this changes the mechanics a bit from a feminist persepctive, I suppose)

On the other hand, I think that part of problem is that in a subconscious way, we as a society tend to think ill of muses and helpmates, and much of poets and wild-eyed creators - I think this in part is evidence of the dregs of a pre-feminist society, when, since these roles were generally filled by women, they weren't viewed terribly positively. We measure success, very simply, by productions that contribute to the 'important': poems you've written, things you've built, money you've earned, fame you've garnered, etc, and so we tend to pity or look for signs of repression in people who DON'T receive these outward markers of success. Hence the sort of pity-shame complex our nation has over, for instance, housewives, or the oddity there is to the idea of a male kindergarten teacher (many parents I know would be uncomfortable sending their kids to one, I would suspect), or to anyone living a small, simple, hidden life. We try to jury rig things - give out mother of the year awards and such - but the problem is simply that we're structurally trying to fit a culture and system that rewards traditional male behaviour while tolerating traditional female behaviour onto an ethos that recognizes the weaknesses of such a system.

I, personally, can imagine nothing better than to be someone's muse - I'd rather be a manic pixie dream boy than a poet, anyday, though I don't make a terribly good one.