Criticism and Debate
In an interview with Vulture about her film Ruby Sparks, actress and screenwriter Zoe Kazan criticized the term as reductive, diminutive, and misogynistic toward female characters. She disagreed with describing Hepburn's Bringing Up Baby character as a MPDG, stating "I think that to lump together all individual, original quirky women under that rubric is to erase all difference."
In a December 2012 video, AllMovie critic Cammila Collar embraced the term as an effective description of one-dimensional female characters who only seek the happiness of the male protagonist, and who do not deal with any complex issues of their own. The pejorative use of the term, then, is mainly directed at writers who do not give these female characters more to do than bolster the spirits of their male partners.
Read more about this topic: Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Famous quotes containing the words criticism and, criticism and/or debate:
“The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“My first debate in high school—”Resolved: Girls are no good”—and I won!”
—Donald Freed, U.S. screenwriter, and Arnold M. Stone. Robert Altman. Richard Nixon (Philip Baker Hall)