On Manic Pixie Dream Girls: No, I Will NOT Be Your Ramona Flowers
Sofia Sklar ‘27
A Manic Pixie Dream Girl is defined as, “a type of female character depicted as vivacious and appealingly quirky, whose main purpose within the narrative is to inspire a greater appreciation for life in a male protagonist” (Oxford Languages).
Quite possibly the most famous example of one of these characters is Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010). She has dyed hair, rollerblades almost everywhere, and is fundamentally “different” from everyone else that the protagonist, Scott Pilgrim (who, by the way, was the villain of the story), has interacted with. She teaches him to live his life, rather than just survive.
Cool… I guess… but also not that cool. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype presents a one-sided view of a woman who only exists for the men of her story. She is around solely to provide character development for a male character. The worst part is that the expectation of this archetype doesn’t exist solely on the page: she bleeds out into the real world. I, personally, have lost count of the amount of times that I’ve been someone’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl. The minute that someone calls me “quirky”, I feel the need to exclaim: “I AM NOT YOUR RAMONA FLOWERS!” For fellow neurodivergent people, this is a tale as old as time. I have tried my best to run – or rollerskate – away from this archetype as fast as I can. However, there is unfortunately no way of beating it.
There is apparently something so oddly appealing about the quirky, alternative, bubbly, romantic side character in someone else’s life, who teaches them a lesson like “how to be more whimsical” or whatever. She is utterly disposable by nature, and once a person has their fill of character development, they tend to go back to what they know, and ditch this girl. However, there is a certain, unignorable aspect of neurodivergence that comes into play with this archetype, which affects real-world neurodivergent people. “The atypical nature of the Manic Pixie Dream Girls archetype has a neurological component as well. The more I explore my own late diagnosis of Autism, ADHD, and Bipolar, the more I understand the neurodivergent underpinnings of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl myth” (Nathan Rabin).
Of course, I took to the internet to find out what other people were saying about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. My search took me to a thread on Reddit known as r/adhdwomen, where a community of neurodivergent women talked about the way that they were, “getting real tired of being manic pixie dream girled” (growllison). There were 391 replies on this thread at the time that I read it, and these women offered some valuable insight on the real-world trope of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. The most popular comment – with 1.3k upvotes – was posted by Reddit user That_Advantage_8230, who said “All my relationships starts with ‘you’re not like other women I’ve dated [heart eyes emoji]”’and end with ‘you’re not like other women I’ve dated [wince emoji]’ They create some manic pixie girl fantasy about me, then realizes I’m an individual human, then get upsets when after a while, I haven’t magically turned out to have all the things he loves about his mother [eye roll emoji]”. This seems to sum up the idea of the real-world Manic Pixie Dream Girl very well. It is nothing more than a two-dimensional trope, falling flat when it is applied to the real world.
Not every outgoing neurodivergent woman is your Manic Pixie Dream Girl fantasy. Ramona Flowers is nothing more than a fictional character. Please keep her on the page.
Check in on your so-called Manic Pixie Dream Girls.