Manic Pixie Dream Girl (n.): "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."
Ten years deep into the term's origination, the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" stereotype has become a well-known character trope, a hack plot shortcut a la the White Savior. The phrase has been popularized and eventually retracted by its creator Nathan Rabin, but it's too late – the MPDG has not only become something close to the desk that lazy writers everywhere can reach for, it's also become a bizarre ideal for a certain subset of young, hip females.
So get your hair bow-aligned and your Belle and Sebastian mixtape in hand. Here's the worst, the best, and the mislabeled (the last five are subversions of the trope, but still demonstrate it in order to do so).
