The Manic Pixie Dream Girl in US YA Fiction: Introducing a Narrative Model
Coined in 2007 by film critic Nathan Rabin, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a quirky, ethereal figure who exists merely as a tool for self-actualisation and has no narrative purpose beyond that of enriching the life of an apathetic, White, male, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-class protagonist...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Fincham Press
2021-11-01
|
| Series: | International Journal of Young Adult Literature |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ijyal.ac.uk/articles/10.24877/IJYAL.49 |
| _version_ | 1827613103117828096 |
|---|---|
| author | Jennifer Gouck |
| author_facet | Jennifer Gouck |
| author_sort | Jennifer Gouck |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Coined in 2007 by film critic Nathan Rabin, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a quirky, ethereal figure who exists merely as a tool for self-actualisation and has no narrative purpose beyond that of enriching the life of an apathetic, White, male, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-class protagonist. Despite her pervasiveness across film and television, popular culture, and literature – particularly contemporary YA fiction such as John Green’s Looking for Alaska (2005) – the Pixie remains a wholly understudied figure. To address this gap in the field, this article offers a narrative model for a novel type I call ‘MPDGYA’, a pattern I have identified across YA texts, all either published or set in the US, in which the Pixie features. I argue that this five-stage model can not only be used to understand and analyse typical Pixie texts, but can also function, for example, as a means of assessing attempts to challenge or intervene in MPDG discourse. To demonstrate this, the article contains two case studies: Robyn Schneider’s The Beginning of Everything (2013), exemplary of a typical Pixie novel, and Gretchen McNeil’s I’m Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl (2016), an interventionist text. In engaging with two novels at either end of the Pixie discourse spectrum, my work here argues that the MPDGYA model lays important groundwork not only for research opportunities in the field of YA studies, but for the emergence of collaborative and intersectional approaches to the Pixie – and the texts in which she appears – across multiple disciplines. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T08:34:58Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6e821ebcbea843c6bb6df9847cb2a4b8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2634-5277 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T08:34:58Z |
| publishDate | 2021-11-01 |
| publisher | Fincham Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | International Journal of Young Adult Literature |
| spelling | doaj.art-6e821ebcbea843c6bb6df9847cb2a4b82023-12-02T18:39:44ZengFincham PressInternational Journal of Young Adult Literature2634-52772021-11-012112010.24877/IJYAL.49The Manic Pixie Dream Girl in US YA Fiction: Introducing a Narrative ModelJennifer GouckCoined in 2007 by film critic Nathan Rabin, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a quirky, ethereal figure who exists merely as a tool for self-actualisation and has no narrative purpose beyond that of enriching the life of an apathetic, White, male, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-class protagonist. Despite her pervasiveness across film and television, popular culture, and literature – particularly contemporary YA fiction such as John Green’s Looking for Alaska (2005) – the Pixie remains a wholly understudied figure. To address this gap in the field, this article offers a narrative model for a novel type I call ‘MPDGYA’, a pattern I have identified across YA texts, all either published or set in the US, in which the Pixie features. I argue that this five-stage model can not only be used to understand and analyse typical Pixie texts, but can also function, for example, as a means of assessing attempts to challenge or intervene in MPDG discourse. To demonstrate this, the article contains two case studies: Robyn Schneider’s The Beginning of Everything (2013), exemplary of a typical Pixie novel, and Gretchen McNeil’s I’m Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl (2016), an interventionist text. In engaging with two novels at either end of the Pixie discourse spectrum, my work here argues that the MPDGYA model lays important groundwork not only for research opportunities in the field of YA studies, but for the emergence of collaborative and intersectional approaches to the Pixie – and the texts in which she appears – across multiple disciplines.https://ijyal.ac.uk/articles/10.24877/IJYAL.49american yamanic pixie dream girlpopular culturetropesgirlhood |
| spellingShingle | Jennifer Gouck The Manic Pixie Dream Girl in US YA Fiction: Introducing a Narrative Model International Journal of Young Adult Literature american ya manic pixie dream girl popular culture tropes girlhood |
| title | The Manic Pixie Dream Girl in US YA Fiction: Introducing a Narrative Model |
| title_full | The Manic Pixie Dream Girl in US YA Fiction: Introducing a Narrative Model |
| title_fullStr | The Manic Pixie Dream Girl in US YA Fiction: Introducing a Narrative Model |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Manic Pixie Dream Girl in US YA Fiction: Introducing a Narrative Model |
| title_short | The Manic Pixie Dream Girl in US YA Fiction: Introducing a Narrative Model |
| title_sort | manic pixie dream girl in us ya fiction introducing a narrative model |
| topic | american ya manic pixie dream girl popular culture tropes girlhood |
| url | https://ijyal.ac.uk/articles/10.24877/IJYAL.49 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jennifergouck themanicpixiedreamgirlinusyafictionintroducinganarrativemodel AT jennifergouck manicpixiedreamgirlinusyafictionintroducinganarrativemodel |