MPDGs and Me

Recently Ruby Sparks was released on DVD and Blu Ray.  It was a film that came out at the tail end of the summer and flew under most people's radar.  It starred Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan as well as being written by Kazan.  The real draw to the film was that it was directed by the crack husband and wife duo that brought us the fantastic Little Miss Sunshine, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.  This is only their second directorial work together and there was a lot of excitement around the film.  Many people were hoping lightning would strike twice and the magic that was Little Miss Sunshine would return.

The bar was set very high by Dayton and Faris and while most critics favor the movie I feel that they didn't quite cross a hurdle.  I do, however, find it a very interesting and engaging film, one with a story that poses a lot of questions regarding relationships with lovers as well as with our own subconsciousness.  That wasn't what drew me to it initially.  My curiosity stemmed from knowing that Ruby Sparks is a film that had one of the most blatant uses of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl to date.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl, or MPDG for short, was a term coined by A.V. Club critic Nathan Rabin and is now used widely to describe the usually two-dimensional, female love interests that populate more and more movies.  By his definition they are "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that 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."  They are most certainly quirky, with little backstory and when they come into the life of the hero/protagonist, it is inexplicable why they fancy him in the first place due to his sad, morose nature.  But once the MPDG is in the protagonists life, his spirits are fully rejuvenated as she shows him a new side of life through spontaneous adventure.

Things don't always go well between the protagonist and the MPDG.  But whatever chasm that might grow between the characters matters little, because there is always a lesson to be learned by the protagonist in hopes that next time he will do better, act better and be better.

I know you're thinking of a few movie characters right now.  Sam (Natalie Portman) from Garden State, maybe even Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst) from Elizabethtown, but most certainly Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) from (500) Days of Summer and you would be right.  These are women who exist solely for the purpose of the men that desire them.  They act as muse, giving the hero back his confidence that has been lost.  By showing him an abundance of unearned but much desired for love and affection, the man discovers how great life can be and is able to conquer the obstacles that stand in his way.

Here's the thing, my true confession.  I adore Manic Pixie Dream Girls.  All those movies I listed are movies I love.  I even love Elizabethtown.  I don't even think Cameron Crowe likes Elizabethtown!  I harbor a deep fantasy of unexpectedly meeting a quirky girl who sweeps me off my feet and shows me the value of life through her spontaneity because I see myself as one of those brooding, sensitive and soulful young writers who is very guarded and needs a little push to open up.  I relate to these protagonists on a very deep level and I understand how bad this is.  Actually this is worse than bad, this is terrible.  I'm letting this much derided character model dictate my romantic desires and expectations while playing into the hands of these usually weak male characters.

Much can be said as why the MPDG archetype is damaging for all people and Ruby Sparks illuminates many of those points.  The film follows the life of Calvin Weir-Fields, a young novelist who wrote a highly acclaimed novel when he was nineteen, went on to fame and fortune but has slipped into a mindset that keeps him from writing.  It's the ten year anniversary for his novel, Heart Broken Old Times and everyone is excited about what he might write next.  He goes to therapy often to try to deal with his many emotional issues but he seems to find anxiety everywhere.  It is as if his block extends far past writing and into life itself.

His therapist issues an assignment hoping to shake him out of his current state.  He asks him to write a few pages about meeting someone.  That night he had a vivid dream where he was in the park reading.  A stunning red head comes up and starts talking to him about his dog.  They have a very strange conversation and upon waking, Calvin feels inspired and begins to write.  Excited about having a new project, he fills in more and more of this mystery woman's character.  He names her Ruby Sparks and sets her birthplace at Dayton, Ohio (because it sounds romantic).  He makes her to be a firecracker.  She got kicked out of High School because she slept with one of her teachers and he gave her a long list of past bad-boy boyfriends.

Eventually Calvin begins to find strange feminine items around his house like a woman's razor in his bathroom and colorful lingerie in his drawers until one morning he finds the woman from his dream eating cereal in his kitchen.  Horrified, he rushes out of the house thinking that he has gone insane.  Ruby soon finds him and that's when Calvin learns that other people can see her because she is a real person.  He literally wrote the literal girl of his dreams into existence.  They begin a whirlwind romance all dictated by Calvin as he continues to write his book.  All goes well until Calvin's feelings for Ruby begin to change.  Calvin must learn to love reality or he might loose Ruby forever.

As I watched the film I couldn't tell whether the filmmakers were unaware of how misogynist this all came off or if they were purposefully laying it on thick as to comment on the MPDG archetype. Calvin is a character that at times is so repugnant that sympathy for him is easily disposed of.  Despite his meek and bookish manner, he exhibits many domineering male characteristics that are shared with abusive partners.  He doesn't like Ruby leaving his apartment and he disproves of the idea of her getting a job.  He can also re-write Ruby's characteristics to his pleasing.  Twice Calvin made Ruby French and when she talked she mysteriously forgot the English language.

Now, it could be argued that this was part of the point.  As the film draws closer to the climax, Calvin makes small changes to Ruby in order to correct changes that he made previously.  In one almost disturbing sequence, Ruby is made never to leave Calvin's side after Calvin senses Ruby's desire to move on.  Ruby becomes a terrifyingly clingy girlfriend that can't deal with not being in contact with Calvin to the extent that she bursts into tears if he so much as gets up to answer the phone.  With each new change Calvin makes to Ruby, she becomes less desirable, and in effect less human.  There is something liberating about having him lose control of his fantasy, however I feel that this message is far more subtle than the one paraded through the rest of the movie of you gotta find a woman that you can change.

And that's at the heart and what is so disappointing in this film.  Ruby seems like a fun, smart and all around terrific girl who any man would be lucky to be with.  However she is not her own person.  She did not exist before Calvin and their relationship is an ever shifting kaleidoscopic of tropes and clichés because that is what is in Calvin's head at the time.  It's this reason that Ruby Sparks has become the Manic Pixie Dream Girl with the least amount of character because it's all Calvin's character.

I'm puzzled and slightly disturbed why Kazan has chosen not only to construct a character that is traditionally two-dimensional, but she also plays her in the film.  Has this largely male fantasy icon pervaded our culture to the extent that even women are now saturated with their personality traits?  Kazan has naturally denied all of this in interviews saying the term is better applied in a critical use more than a creative one.  I will giver her that.  But then she criticized the term for being diminutive and reductive, something that the character of Ruby Sparks definitely experiences in the film. Kazan has a strong disdain for the term of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl but the concept of her still abounds in the film.  In the end I will chose that she meant to comment directly on the trope whether it was a conscious decision or not.

What these movies tell you is that all your problems, shortcomings and failings make you endearing, desirable or otherwise ripe for nurturing and affection.  What real life tells you is that you can never be good enough for love.  You either don't look the part, make enough or say the right things.  Whatever it is, there is an equation to be found.  We are usually lacking in a few aspects and never seem to add up.  Failure is never fun and that's why it's rarely in our movies.  But failure is a part of life and life is much more than 120 minutes.  Why these characters are so attractive is that they are manifestations of the people that we want to be.  They are little more than distilled essences of our own traits and desires that become watered down when even a tiny bit of reality is applied.

The challenge at hand is to divorce my affection from these characters.  I realize that at the heart, these movies propagate an outdated male-centric worldview that's filled with flighty nymphs who pop in and out of existence, and yet I will still watch and love these movies.  They are filled with gag inducing clichés, I know, but I want these clichés in my life more than anyone! I will always see a possibility that a little bit of fiction will become my reality because I know that all fiction is based in reality.  We live life viewing only one perspective and the people around us are little more than characters in a story that can only be told by us.  So why not throw a little fantasy in the mix and have fun with life?  As long as I keep one foot on the ground, I should be fine.

Ruby Sparks got funnier on the second viewing, or maybe I just took it less seriously.  And maybe that's my take away lesson, don't be so serious.  People always tell you to be the person you want to attract, so maybe I should be a little more quirky, unpredictable and fun.  Who knows, I just might run into a Manic Pixie Dream Girl of my own.  I could be someone that she's not usually used to, she could make me an abundance of mixtapes and we could go off into the sunset on some cross country road trip.