Oh good it's not just me and jethrien

[trinityvixen]

Some way while back, I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and liked it, with the reservation that I'm constantly annoyed by the free-spirit wild-child romantic interest character as played (excellently, don't get me wrong) by Kate Winslet in that movie. I'm sick of near-schizophrenic free-thinkers "saving" people--sorry, not people, men--with their cah-ray-zee antics that would more likely get the fellow on the receiving end fired, arrested, or killed, depending on the severity of the life-saving method.

Well, thank god, the AV Club agrees with me. DOWN WITH THE MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL. (In all of her incarnations!)

An article commenting on the AV Club article over at Salon has this great addition:

I would suggest that women like the Manic Pixie Dream Girl do exist; it's just that, when I've known them, they've mostly been self-obsessed nutballs.

And this is precisely what jethrien and I were griping together about. It's really an insult to the smart, together, fun girls out there that this MPDG archetype is "the dream." Personally, I find that person to be unstable, and while that's fun for the occasional romp and perhaps easy to fall in love with, you don't have a future with this person. Because if they were on the meds they're supposed to be on, they wouldn't be fun. They'd just be self-obsessed instead of being self-obsessed muse-gurus meant to free penises from the chokeholds of dress pants.

Comments

[negativeq.livejournal.com]

Here is the other thing that disturbs me - I don't know if anyone mentioned it yet:
If the Clementine we see for most of the film is what Joel REMEMBERS her as, or PERCEIVES her as, then what he (and the viewer) see of her is abhorrent. Why does he even want her back?
How much of his perception is true? Maybe she is not really a manic pixie? If not, what does it say about Joel that he views her as such?
The mind boggles.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

See, people keep defending "the real Clementine." That's besides the point in terms of how she is loved. Carrey loves--apparently--this manic version in his brain. That's the one we're supposed to believe is so magnetically charming that the loss of her is so devastating he lobotomizes himself.

The point is that the film gives us a Manic Pixie that the person loves. Whether she's that way outside of his head or no, that's what he wants! What he seems to love! What!?