Chapter 1
Birth of a cinematic cliché
Chapter 2
Anatomy of a dream girl
Chapter 3
The great deconstruction
Chapter 4
Real-world ripple effects
YOUR GOAL
Master of Chasing the manic pixie dream girl
Ch 1 · Birth of a cinematic cliché
choko The Manic Pixie Dream Girl
She's a flight attendant saving a sad boy's life, the very first Manic Pixie Dream Girl!
choko Decades before the 2000s, European cinema laid the groundwork for this eccentric character type.
BETA
choko Swipe movie clichés to discover how the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype functions.
Fun Fact
Coining the term: Nathan Rabin wrote his famous review of Elizabethtown while suffering from a severe fever, which he claims fueled his creative naming process.
Glossary
the a.v. club (noun)
A popular online pop-culture publication famous for its witty, in-depth reviews of movies, TV shows, and music. It is best known in film studies as the birthplace of the term 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl,' which critic Nathan Rabin coined there in 2007 while reviewing the movie Elizabethtown. Just like a dictionary adds new slang, this website helped give film fans the exact words to talk about one of cinema's most famous character clichés.
A popular online pop-culture publication famous for its witty, in-depth reviews of movies, TV shows, and music. It is best known in film studies as the birthplace of the term 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl,' which critic Nathan Rabin coined there in 2007 while reviewing the movie Elizabethtown. Just like a dictionary adds new slang, this website helped give film fans the exact words to talk about one of cinema's most famous character clichés.
choko Natalie Portman's character in Garden State became the modern blueprint for the trope.
Glossary
manic pixie dream girl (noun)
A stock character in fiction who is quirky and eccentric, serving solely to help a male protagonist find fulfillment. Film critic Nathan Rabin coined this term in a 2007 review of the movie Elizabethtown.
A stock character in fiction who is quirky and eccentric, serving solely to help a male protagonist find fulfillment. Film critic Nathan Rabin coined this term in a 2007 review of the movie Elizabethtown.
Quiz
Which French New Wave director's 1960 film 'Breathless' featured an early prototype of this archetype?
Quiz
In what publication did the critic first use the term 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' in 2007?
Quiz
Which 2005 movie starring Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom inspired the coining of the term?