Okay, so maybe I'm just overly feminist but I really believe that all characters should have more to them then just to serve the purpose of making another character change something about their ways.
In my fiction class today, we read a boy's short story in which he had such a character. A man moves to a new city, and he is naive about many things. He meets a pretty girl, and basically just from meeting this girl decides to change his life.
I don't buy that. And I told him so. But that he replied something along the lines of, "I feel like most guys do that." And my professor (who is a woman, by the way) agreed. Which really annoyed me. This girl should at least be using the guy for something in her life too. She shouldn't just be pretty and fun.
The female character he wrote is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Many movies I love have characters like this. Zooey Deschanel basically is one in real life. Wikipedia tells me that the MPDG is "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."
Why is this okay? How can a whole class of writers accept this? Maybe, I've grown to be too big of a feminist but I really believe all the characters should have their own purpose not just the purpose of making someone else's purpose.
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