I have a closet (or not-so-closet) affection for manic pixie dream girls. Coined by Nathan Rabin, “manic pixie dream girl” is a term for those kooky, quirky girls in movies who enliven the worlds of brooding male heroes. Holly, on the other hand hates them.

• “Garden State“
• Cracked.com: The Dark Secret Behind Quirky Romantic Comedies
• Manic Pixie Dream Girls: A Cinematic Scourge?
• Why are manic pixie dream girls getting dumber and dumber?
• Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (the film version)
• Jess in “New Girl“
• Katherine Hepburn in “Holiday“
• Giselle in “Enchanted“
• Amelie in “Amelie“
• Ramona Flowers (who is more a MPDG in the movie than the Scott Pilgrim books)
• “Chasing Amy” and its portrayal of lesbians
• Maude in “Harold and Maude“
• Marie Antoinette in “Marie Antoinette“
• Joon and Sam in “Benny and Joon“
• Annie Hall in “Annie Hall“
• Meg Ryan’s everybody in “Joe vs. the Volcano“
• Penny Lane in “Almost Famous“
• Rita “Arrested Development“
• “Anne of Green Gables”
• Leslie in “Bridge to Terabithia”
• A boy one: Jack in “Titanic”
• Real-life MPDGs (by reality or perception): Betsey Johnson, Zooey Deschanel, Gilda Radner (for Gene Wilder)
• This one time I dressed as an annotated Manic Pixie Dream Girl for Halloween
• The stunning lack of diversity in the MPDG trope, and MPDGs as related to the term popularized by Spike Lee, the Magical Negro
• Listener mail! It’s more on making books into movies. It’s from Kam from Manila, the Philippines. And I get irked about a film adaptation of “Mansfield Park.” (And the “Persuasion” adaptation I love is a 1995 version.)

My research:

• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Trope vs. Woman
• Evolution of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, from Audrey to Zooey
• An Argument For the Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Holly’s research:

• Four Lies Movies Taught Us About Dating
• The plague of the manic pixie dream girl
• Manic Pixie Dream Girls: A Cinematic Scourge?
• Wild things: 16 films featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls
• Why Are Manic Pixie Dream Girls Getting Dumber?
• An Argument for the Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Episode link: Manic Pixie Dream Girls

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