6/21/11
Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Now evil has a name: Manic pixie dream girl. Actually, the name was coined back in 2007 by the AV Club’s Nathan Rabin, but somehow we only just learned about it the other day. Back then, Rabin was panning Elizabethtown and used the term to describe Kirsten Dunst’s character, second in annoyingness only to Natalie Portman’s character in Garden State:

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is an all-or-nothing-proposition. Audiences either want to marry her instantly (despite The Manic Pixie Dream Girl being, you know, a fictional character) or they want to commit grievous bodily harm against them and their immediate family.