The Ethereal Weirdo
From Mindy Kaling’s “Flick Chicks,” The New Yorker:
“The smart and funny writer Nathan Rabin coined the term Manic Pixie Dream Girl to describe this archetype after seeing Kirsten Dunst in the movie “Elizabethtown.” This girl can’t be pinned down and may or may not show up when you make concrete plans with her. She wears gauzy blouses and braids. She likes to dance in the rain and she weeps uncontrollably if she sees a sign for a missing dog or cat. She might spin a globe, place her finger on a random spot, and decide to move there. The Ethereal Weirdo appears a lot in movies, but nowhere else. If she were from real life, people would think she was a homeless woman and would cross the street to avoid her. But she is essential to the male fantasy that even if a guy is boring he deserves a woman who will find him fascinating and perk up his dreary life by forcing him to go skinny-dipping in a stranger’s pool.”
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Thank you, Mindy, for articulating why I find almost every character Zooey Deschanel plays to be profoundly annoying. I’m also not too proud to admit that I probably despise this character because the description hits too close to home—and I don’t wanna be no phony.
