8th
MPDGs vs. Kooks
There’s been a bit of talk lately about Manic Pixie Dream Girls (MPDG), a term coined by Nathan Rabin and recently expanded upon by he and compadres over at the Onion A.V. Club. Like an increasingly large number of sentient beings, it happily seems, I too am annoyed by this stereotype, defined 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.” But it got me thinking about a more interesting and reflexive variation on this character: the kook.
A kook, as defined by the trusty Free Dictionary, is “a person regarded as strange, eccentric, or crazy.” The A.V. article lists Katherine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby among the MPDGs. But I don’t think she belongs there. She’s actually a kook, and here’s one major difference between a kook and an MPDG: her male co-star (Cary Grant, natch) doesn’t want her. She’s too fucking crazy. Even Grant’s declaration of love in the final scene seems insincere, possibly sarcastic. Not a minute earlier Grant has scaled a dinosaur to escape her, and when he does profess his amour – “I love you, I think!” – his enthusiasm is severely tempered by that “I think.” If anything Hepburn is a spoof – and a fairly devastating one – on the MPDG character decades before Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly helped make it a staple.
Guys in MPDG movies (Garden State, Sweet November, etc.) might be initially bewildered by their MPDG’s manic pixieness, but they come around at least by the halfway point. (Or sooner: Orlando Bloom’s bland lead in Eliazbethtown is on an epic phone jag with Kirsten Dunst’s inhumanly bubbly stewardess mere screen-minutes after their meeting.) It takes Grant till the final minute to cave in, and then it’s just a weary, hilarious “Oh, alright.”
A deeper scouring of cinematic history is required, but for now I’d like to declare Hepburn’s Susan Vance as the original kook. And I’d like to define “kook” as a twist on the MPDG, characterized by at least one of the following: psychological imbalance, potential danger, an actual inner life, physical homeliness and having her love for her male co-star unrequited (or delayed to an unnatural point). These characters may have been created, at least in part, by a woman, or by men far more critical of the male psyche than, say, Zach Braff.
Consider these filmic kooks:
Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), Annie Hall (1977) She dresses in men’s clothing, she giggles constantly, she tells bizarre stories, she says “la dee da.” And yet Keaton’s Annie Hall is a three-dimensional character, and Woody Allen’s Alvy Singer may be crazy about her, but she just as often drives him into whine fits. And rather than her coaxing the Woodman out of his shell, as an MPDG would have done, he’s the one to change her: at his grilling, she becomes smarter, more confident and by the end the two are completely incompatible. She may start out as a (neurotic) male fantasy, but Woody turns that on its head.
Petulia (Julie Christie), Petulia (1968) Even before she’s greeted him at his door with a toot on a stolen tuba, George C. Scott’s newly divorced doctor has already called Christie’s Petulia a “kook” to her face. But the rest of Richard Lester’s summer-of-love dissection is dedicated to exploring Christie’s inner life, which is in quite a bit of turmoil. Turns out her husband (Richard Chamberlain) is an unhinged, closeted wife beater who has imprisoned her among the rich and fabulous. Her kookiness is her desperate way of acting out and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with breathing new life into the brooding Scott. In fact, the pair spends the majority of the second half completely apart.
Faye (Faye Wong), Chungking Express (1994) Like Cary Grant, police officer Tony Leung takes forever to come around to Faye Wong’s pixieish (and pixie do’d) snack stand clerk, who is stone cold in love with him but not he with her. (Her longing is conveyed during a show-stopping step-print slo-mo shot of her staring at him as he obliviously honks on a cup of coffee.) There’s a reason for that: like Hepburn, she’s really amazingly weird, going so far as to break into his apartment to dump water all over. Also, she’s listens to “California Dreamin’” far, far too often. Or not often enough?
Most Eric Rohmer Women. Maud in My Night at Maud’s. Chloe in Chloe in the Afternoon (recently retranslated, correctly, as Love in the Afternoon). The collectionneuse in La Collectionneuse. Just about any woman in the Eric Rohmer movies that bear their names (or occupations). They all tend to be independent, free-spirited women with deep inner lives who bewitch, in one way or the other, our hapless and hesitant protagonist. In fact, they’re not too dissimilar from your average MPDG, save for the fact that they’re well-written.
The Girl (Jun Gianna), My Sassy Girl (2001) I haven’t seen this, actually, and there’s a long-gestating American remake coming out soon with Elisha Cuthbert that looks…well, you know. But from the sounds of it the original offers a novel twist on the MPDG, painting her as psychologically unhinged, violent and abusive. But still totally hot and fetching! But still psychologically unhinged, violent and abusive.
Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Winslet’s Clementine is one part desirable kook who dyes her hair funky colors, one part violent, alcoholic, unstable monster who is destined to drive overly insular boyfriend Jim Carrey to break up with her no matter how many times they get back together with a literally clean slate. Kudos to Winslet for balancing both sides, but that’s what you get the best actress of our times.
Patsy Newquist (Marcia Rodd), Little Murders (1971) This might be my favorite, actually. Rodd’s bubbly Manhattanite is a failed MPDG. She tries to awaken and loosen up nihilistic photographer Elliot Gould amongst the background of a cartoonishly violent and unsafe ‘70s New York City. And though he meets her every demand – dating, weekend getaways, meeting her (crazy goddam) parents, marriage – he never truly gives in, retaining his hilariously unresponsive, uninterested mien even as the two are tying the knot. “I want to mold you,” she pleads with him as he sits all-too-pleasantly in a comfy chair. “Please let me mold you!” Gould does (spoiler!) give in, but just in time to be too late.
(Aside: why didn’t Little Murders turn Macia Rodd into, like, the biggest supporting player ever? She’s incredible here and hopefully the film has become enough of a cult item that she may wind up more employed than she is now. Or since then.) (Also, if you’re a Gotham City dweller, make sure you go see Little Murders tonight, even if you’ve already seen it. And yes, no one can touch early ’70s Elliot Gould. MASH? The Long Goodbye? California Split? Dayum.)
I’m sure there are plenty more. Fill me in with prominent misses. Off to the film vaults!
