What Is It About Dead Girls?

[CQuinlan]

There shouldn't be anything romantic about violence, period. That kind of thinking is what caused The Great War!

(that and the alliance system >.>)

Dulce est decorum est


( http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html)

 

[maybegenius]

I definitely don't think anyone should put the kabash on writing death into their stories by any stretch of the imagination, because death and mortality are very human issues that we all deal with in a variety of ways and the exploration of those things is very important in art and discussion.

However, there's no doubt that we have some weird ways of dealing with death, and using the sexualized/innocent/beautiful imagery in conjunction with a woman's tragic or violent death has a lot of messed up connotations.

I'd prefer to see more stories of death and grief explored from an angle that's not about a hollow shell being shoved off the pier for the benefit of moving a plot along, but more explorations of familial grief, friendship grief, and yes, even romantic grief, but only in the sense that we're dealing with true partners and not the girlfriend-of-the-week. I love books like The Sky Is Everywhere because they explore the death of a sister, which is a whole different type of grief and mourning than some person you were dating for a while. I like it when the deceased feel like real people, instead of idealized shadows.

 

[maybegenius]

See also: the melancholy but beautiful family portrait portrayed in If I Stay.

 

[thebloodfiend]

See also: the melancholy but beautiful family portrait portrayed in If I Stay.

I am probably the singular female on this earth who fell asleep reading If I Stay and couldn't stop groaning while reading Where She Went. I did not enjoy The Piper's Son, but I think it'd go in line with those.

But I agree with everything in your previous post.

An interesting book on grief (and sex/drugs/country music, no not Rock&Roll) is a little known book, Rhythm of the Road. It's Brit YA. Very dark and not for the faint of heart. I'm actually surprised it's not more well known. IMO, it's kind of like Perks of Being a Wallflower for everyone who hated Perks. But I like both. Spoiler: The father dies and the girl has to live on her own.

I have heard many mixed things about The Sky is Everywhere.

How to Save a Life was not bad either. Interesting angle of daughter dealing with her father's death instead of her mother's for once.

Frances Hodgson Burnett's Secret Garden is one of the earlier kidlit examples of mysterious dead mothers I can think of. I suppose I even see that treatment of Harry's parents in HP. Sure, everyone goes on about Lily being a powerful, smart witch, but in the end, I'm only left remembering her sacrifice, her beauty, and Snape's love/lust. But James is like the dude. A bit different circumstance, though.

As I think, Cedric's death is the only really big fridge-like male death as of late I can conjure up in YA (besides Dumbledore, but he does not count). It's funny, because he was never really a character, IMO, and his death is used to haunt Harry almost in the same way a female's death is used. And there was no defrost for him.

 

[maybegenius]

Haha. I was not as moved by Where She Went, but I thought If I Stay was lovely. It's definitely a slow-moving novel, though. The Sky Is Everywhere gets a lot of flak for the MC's sexuality, I think. She's suddenly "obsessed with death and sex," which is something that puts a lot of people off, but that I found pretty realistic, personally.

 

[little_e]

What's so bad about Manic Pixie Girls?

I'd never heard the term before, so I had to look it up. And I've basically either never seen or barely remember any of the movies mentioned. (I mean, Fight Club had, well, fighting. I do remember the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but that was cited as not particularly Pixie.)

Anyway, I think I'd probably qualify as a real-life MPG (My husband: You? Wacky Hijinks? What? Me: We totally almost made it to Maine that one time.) Eh, I've got the hair, anyway. And my husband's kind of broody. And I totally like to think I'm his dream girl.

I take it that the dislike is due to the perceived shallowness of the character? (Honestly, I'm not all that fond of the characterization of something that I perceive as like me as shallow, though since I've not seen just about any of these movies, so I could be wrong, but it seems that very often if someone acts light-hearted, happy, or stereotypically feminine, they're seen as shallow, air-headed, bimbo, etc., while if someone acts more stereotypically masculine, they're mature and deep. I've had enough experience with people dismissing me because I'm female or act cute to get annoyed.)

At any rate, I don't think every character in a story needs to be a deeply-fleshed out, realized, meaningful character for it to be a good story. (Not even every dead character.) I don't kill my characters unless I have a very good reason to do so--I generally can't bring myself to kill anyone, actually, and have to go back and make myself kill folks off to make things more realistic, (because who ever heard of a revolution in which everyone calculated the odds before a battle and so the losing side simply surrendered without a fight?) so I have to remind myself that the characters *aren't* real--they exist only to be parts of the story.

It's only a problem if certain kinds of people appear disproportionately in such roles. Then we have a trend, and should give that some careful thought.

I really don't have enough data to go on, but I've truly never noticed a trend toward killing off characters of either sex. (Telepaths, on the other hand, never get to be real characters who don't die.) Perhaps that's just because I find the idea of finding one kind of death more meaningful or significant than another kind just weird. Wouldn't the death of any loved one be meaningful to the protagonist?

 

[Castaspella]

What's so bad about Manic Pixie Girls?

'Film critic Nathan Rabin, who coined the term after seeing Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown (2005), describes the MPDG as "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." MPDGs are said to help their men without pursuing their own happiness, and such characters never grow up, thus their men never grow up.'

That's the definition from Wikipedia - arguably not the best source in the universe, but this is the definition of the term as I understand it.

So ... that is what is bad about them. We've been talking about "fridging" (female deaths whose sole purpose is to forward the story of a male) in this thread and manic pixie dream girls are a related concept ... except alive.

 

[thebloodfiend]

'd never heard the term before, so I had to look it up. And I've basically either never seen or barely remember any of the movies mentioned. (I mean, Fight Club had, well, fighting. I do remember the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but that was cited as not particularly Pixie.)

Eternal Sunshine is the partial deconstruction the MPDG. I've often heard it said that Marla, in Fight Club, is the anti-MPDG, much like an anti-Mary Sue.

(500) Days, while a favorite of mine, was a failed deconstruction of the MPDG. And then you have Looking for Alaska, which is also a partial deconstruction of the MPDG, but it fails because it kills Alaska before she becomes a fully realized character and her death is used to push the MC and his male friend to a higher state of "spiritual intelligence". JG also makes use of the dead mom trope with Alaska as well.

I love the book, but I feel like Looking for Alaska would have been the perfect deconstruction if she'd stayed alive. JG even states the purpose of her existence as a trope several times (which is exactly what maybegenius said):

After her death, she's no longer there to make mistakes or be human. She becomes the ultimate passive female character -- her story ends, and everyone else gets to keep the story moving and/or make up her legacy for her.

It's kind of like the idea that putting a woman on a pedestal is a good thing that we all want, when in reality, it's very much harmful because it means we're not allowed to be imperfect or human. If we shatter the illusion of our perfect sainthood, WE'RE the bitch. If you kill the girl before she shows her flaws, then that illusion can continue indefinitely.

Her “sweetie” felt condescending, not romantic, like a boy enduring his first biblical rainstorm couldn’t possibly understand her problems—whatever they were. It took a sincere effort not to roll my eyes at her, though she wouldn’t have even noticed as she walked out of the cafeteria with her hair dripping over her face.Green, John (2008-08-14). Looking for Alaska (p. 68). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

“I don’t want to upset you, but maybe you just need to tell us all why you told on Marya. Were you scared of going home or something?”

She pulled away from me and gave me a Look of Doom that would have made the Eagle proud, and I felt like she hated me or hated my question or both, and then she looked away, out the window, toward the soccer field, and said, “There’s no home.”

“Well, you have a family,” I backpedaled. She’d talked to me about her mom just that morning. How could the girl who told that joke three hours before become a sobbing mess?

Still staring at me, she said, “I try not to be scared, you know. But I still ruin everything. I still fuck up.”

“Okay,” I told her. “It’s okay.” I didn’t even know what she was talking about anymore. One vague notion after another.

“Don’t you know who you love, Pudge? You love the girl who makes you laugh and shows you porn and drinks wine with you. You don’t love the crazy, sullen bitch.” And there was something to that, truth be told.

Green, John (2008-08-14). Looking for Alaska (pp. 95-96). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Sadly, JG (probably) knew her death would make this like those epic "dead dog" books. He seems to be fairly well acquainted with the trope, anyway. I'd in no way say he's lazy (he pays way too much attention to small details) or ignorant (him and Hank are pretty smart). I'd say The Cheese Monkey's and Norwegian Wood are perfect accompany reads for LfA. You get so close to a fully realized deconstruction, but for whatever reason, the (male) writers pulled away because leaving the mystery, note "one vague notion after another," still leaves her perfect and mysterious and beautiful.

It's just sad he came so close. Some say Paper Towns is his attempt to rectify or show the other side of LfA. I almost agree. But I don't think it was successful, either. Especially since the girl was gone for the majority of the novel and I didn't really give a shit about anyone else.

I won't even start on Barry Lyga and his anti-thesis of the trope. Love Fanboy and Goth Girl to death, but man does he have a lot of problems with women in his work.

 

[chicgeek]

'Film critic Nathan Rabin, who coined the term after seeing Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown (2005), describes the MPDG as "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." MPDGs are said to help their men without pursuing their own happiness, and such characters never grow up, thus their men never grow up.'

This is a pretty solid definition of the MPDG archetype. To me, the quintessential MPDG is Natalie Portman in Garden State (although I'd argue that her character gets a bit of her own growth, but she still fits the trope to a T). A close second is Kate Hudson in Almost Famous. Even Milla Jovovich in Fifth Element fits the bill in my mind, albeit with a bit more fire.

My boyfriend likes to tease that I was his MPDG (we had a long courtship that involved him disentangling himself from a 7-year-long relationship that was killing his joy and keeping him from going anywhere with his life). That's actually part of the inspiration for my AW avatar -- Olivia Wilde in TRON is very nakedly an MPDG, and the BF insists she's my celebrity doppelganger.

Seemed like a perfect fit. Now if only TRON had been a better movie.

 

[Dreity]

This reminds me of College Humor's State Home for Manic Pixie Dream Girls.

 

[JustSarah]

So isn't the basic cure for this to just give them their own mental devices and give them flaws beyond being weak to kryptonite? And not make their death the primary motivation to beat the bad guy?

 

[Zoombie]

Seemed like a perfect fit. Now if only TRON had been a better movie.

Hey, TRON was great! TRON had Bruce Boxlightner and David Warner and The Dude.

...TRON Legacy, though, that was shit.

And JustSarah, the cure is pretty much that: Write characters who are also females. Not tropes, not objects, not property. Characters.

 

[chicgeek]

Hey, TRON was great! TRON had Bruce Boxlightner and David Warner and The Dude.

...TRON Legacy, though, that was shit.

Yeah, sorry, that's what I meant. Grew up watching the original TRON as a kid! The sequel sucked, but it was pretty to look at.

 

[little_e]

'Film critic Nathan Rabin, who coined the term after seeing Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown (2005), describes the MPDG as "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." MPDGs are said to help their men without pursuing their own happiness, and such characters never grow up, thus their men never grow up.'

That's the definition from Wikipedia - arguably not the best source in the universe, but this is the definition of the term as I understand it.

So ... that is what is bad about them. We've been talking about "fridging" (female deaths whose sole purpose is to forward the story of a male) in this thread and manic pixie dream girls are a related concept ... except alive.

Characters in stories aren't real. They all exist for the purpose of telling some sort of entertaining story to the reader/listener. Not 100% of characters are going to have deep, meaningful story arcs. (Heck, not 100% of real people have depth to them, either.) Interactions between a more fully fleshed-out MC and a series of supporting characters can result in MC growth and a good, interesting story without those supporting characters needing their own independent story arcs.

It only becomes a problem when certain categories of people are strongly correlated with certain roles, and my reading of books/movies (admittedly, hardly a scientific survey,) has not suggested to me that there exists some terrible imbalace of 2D female characters. (Not on the scale of, say, black supporting characters, which seems more obvious.)

Perhaps I have missed something.

 

[Castaspella]

Certainly they are not real, but characters and stories can be sexist and problematic; I think that is the problem some people have with this kind of objectification and why it is being discussed here.

 

[Zoombie]

Plus, even if they're not real, they should seem real.

 

[maybegenius]

The main problem is that MPDGs aren't truly people. They're ideas of people. They're something to inspire a male character and break him out of his boring life, and without him, they practically wouldn't exist.

Being wacky and carefree doesn't make a character a MPDG. little_e, the biggest difference between you and a MPDG (I mean, I don't know you, I'm going off what you said) is that you are a person who exists independently of your significant other. You have your own hopes, dreams, and desires that motivate you. You don't exist in order to give HIS life meaning. Does that make sense?

It's not even about the shallowness. Sometimes an intentionally shallow character really works in a narrative. It's about a female character existing only to give the male protagonist's life meaning. She's never an equal partner or a respected friend (at least, not when the trope's not being subverted). You barely even know what she does outside of her time with Deep Ennui Guy. Or if she does anything at all. Or if she even exists when he doesn't need her around.

 

[maybegenius]

I've actually been meaning to watch the movie Ruby Sparks because I've heard it's another deconstruction of this trope. It's literally a film about a sensitive writer guy who writes a MPDG and then she comes to life.

 

[nightowling]

I've actually been meaning to watch the movie Ruby Sparks because I've heard it's another deconstruction of this trope. It's literally a film about a sensitive writer guy who writes a MPDG and then she comes to life.

I saw it recently. The screenwriter, Zoe Kazan (who also plays Ruby), talked about MPDG in an interview. She doesn't like the term:

Well, I am not a fan. Look, I don’t think of her as that; I hope other people don’t think of her as that. I think if they do they’re misunderstanding the movie. That term is a term that was invented by a blogger, and I think it’s more of a term that applies in critical use than it does in creative use. It’s a way of describing female characters that’s reductive and diminutive, and I think basically misogynist. I’m not saying that some of those characters that have been referred to as that don’t deserve it; I think sometimes filmmakers have not used their imagination in imbuing their female characters with real life. You know, they’ve let music tastes be a signifier of personality. But I just think the term really means nothing; it’s just a way of reducing people’s individuality down to a type, and I think that’s always a bad thing. And I think that’s part of what the movie is about, how dangerous it is to reduce a person down to an idea of a person....What bothers me about it is I think that women get described that way, but it's really reflective of the man who is looking at them, and the way that they think about that girl. Not about who that girl really is or what her personality actually is. I think that to lump together all individual, original quirky women under that rubric is to erase all difference. Like, I’ve read pieces that describe Annie Hall as a manic pixie dream girl. Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby. To me, those are fully fledged characters that are being played by really smart actresses. I just think it’s misogynist. I don’t want that term to survive. I want it to die.

Also, what do you guys think of The Virgin Suicides? Are they MPDGs, or are they a deconstruction, since the boys realize that they didn't really know them at all and just loved the idea of them and their mystery?

 

[maybegenius]

Hmmmmmmm while I agree that I see a lot of characters referred to as MPDGs who I feel don't fit the term at all, I don't think the criticism of the term itself is all that flawed. It's essentially using a specific sort of female character (one that is specifically drawn as childlike, "weird," wondrous, artsy, free-spirited) as a thing that inspires a guy. So, I don't think the character name and criticism is unfounded, although I do think a lot of people apply the term where it doesn't really fit.

I mean, I feel the same way when people use the term "Mary Sue" to define any female protagonist they don't like. Because girls, apparently, are never allowed to be annoying or have low self-esteem or do well at things or not do well at things or like boys or want to be appreciated or have doubts or be confident or...

 

[JustSarah]

So basically just give their own memoir? I'm mean that might be a bit extreme, but they should feel like a fully realized human being.

 

[little_e]

Yes, but sexism lies not in an individual portrayal but in the context of that portrayal. IE, the portrayal of a member of a particular group in a positive or negative light is not a priori sexist/racist/whateverist (an author could simply assign characters their attributes at random), but the consistent portrayal of people from this group in this way is.

So, it's not a problem for white people to be main characters or black people to be supporting characters. It IS a problem when all of the main characters are white, and all of the black characters are supporting characters.

It is not a problem that particular kinds of stories use particular tropes designed to appeal to certain audiences. If I'm writing an action-adventure story designed to appeal to a specific audience, then I know that audience will respond emotionally to some things and not others. By contrast, if I'm writing a coming of age story about a boy and his dog, different things will appeal to the audience.

Stories are not real. We like to pretend they're real while we're reading them, but I don't think Cinderella got to be such a popular story because anyone thought it was particularly realistic or that Prince Charming was a well-developed character. Sauron does not have depth. Certainly the folks in Twilight have been accused of being very shallow characters, and yet--regardless of what you or I may think of the books--many folks LOVED that story.

(People say they want villains with depth. Then they read LOTR or HP or watch Star Wars in droves.)

I don't see the problem, a priori, with stories about men whose lives are positively impacted by bubbly, happy women. (Can we resist calling adult women 'girls'? 'Cuz infantilization really does bother me.) Likewise, I don't have a problem with the dudes in "princess" movies being under-developed placeholders for female fantasies or My Little Pony FiM having almost zero male characters.

Given how rarely I've encountered the magical pixie archetype in the media I have consumed (and surely i'm not THAT out of the loop?) I have trouble seeing the existence of a grand pattern.

 

[maybegenius]

It's not about realism, though? I write speculative fiction. I'm never going to sit here and say everything must be 100% plausible 100% of the time. But that doesn't mean fictional portrayals don't matter.

Studies have shown that reading fiction actually increases empathy because it invigorates certain areas of the brain that are more "pliable," for lack of a better word at the moment. In other words, reading things in fiction can actually cause us to absorb the ideas and implications being portrayed. So even though it's not "real" (which I mean, come on, I think everyone in this conversation is fully aware that fiction is, y'know, fiction), portrayals still matter. Portrayals still affect our very real lives.

I'm really not arguing that all characters at all times including the pizza delivery boy without a name must have intricate backstory and complex roles in every story. And every single story can't be a grand masterwork of staggering genius. That's not how creation works. But that doesn't mean we should just stop making valid criticism of problematic characters and themes that we notice even when others don't, you know?

 

[little_e]

I saw it recently. The screenwriter, Zoe Kazan (who also plays Ruby), talked about MPDG in an interview. She doesn't like the term:



Also, what do you guys think of The Virgin Suicides? Are they MPDGs, or are they a deconstruction, since the boys realize that they didn't really know them at all and just loved the idea of them and their mystery?

Yes, what Ms. Kazan says.
I can't speak for movies I've never seen. But I definitely feel like there's an aspect of the male gaze at play here, where things-men-value/traits-men-have/or-so-perceived are perceived as 'deep', while the feminine traits are not.

Of course, I think the Virgin Suicides is the Great American Novel, and have given people the Death Glare of Hate for dismissing it as "chick lit" (I do not mean any disdain to the genre, but to people who dismiss a work because of its perceived audience.)

It has nothing to do, for me, with the narrators at all--though I thought the narration was a nice touch.
I am fond of the book because I lived it.
I was pulled out of school, homeschooled, and had my social life very controlled by my conservative, controlling, themselves mentally degenerating parents. I found the book intensely moving and transcribed passages onto my walls.

The narrators, to me, expand the kinds of experiences in the book--the friend who'd first recommended it to me found it moving in the ways the narrators thought, because they were closer to his experiences. So I don't object to other folks getting something else out of the book than what I did. They're just not what moved me.

 

[thebloodfiend]

Also, what do you guys think of The Virgin Suicides? Are they MPDGs, or are they a deconstruction, since the boys realize that they didn't really know them at all and just loved the idea of them and their mystery?

I've read the book (I think I did?) and the screenplay, but I found it rather forgettable. I think it's a borderline deconstruction that was, for the most part, unsuccessful in that it fizzles out in the same way LfA does. But I don't even think it was meant to be a deconstruction. It seemed more in vein, IMO, with The Lovely Bones and the deification of cold, dead girls.

I mean, the description is so poetically gorey and lovely of the first girl's suicide, and we're left with hardly any insight into their psyche, I can't say it was a deconstruction at all. Especially with the subplot about the girl (can't remember her name, but Kirsten Dunst played her in the movie) and her fuck buddy. Something about him and her turned me off.

Doesn't mean I think it's a bad novel, though it bored me, but I wouldn't say it was attempting (and if it was, succeeded) in doing was Eternal Sunshine set out to do.