Rielle Hunter is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

MonteLukast

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Fri Sep-25-09 12:45 PM
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Rielle Hunter is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

So was George W. Bush. MPDGs don't always have to be female.
So are evangelical megachurches. MPDGs don't even have to be human.

What is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

Film critic Nathan Rabin coined the term after seeing actress Kirsten Dunst in the 2005 movie Elizabethtown. The Manic Pixie is, in his words, "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."
--NPR

Someone on DKos described RH as a “clichéd character from a movie”, and as it turns out, that’s exactly what she is.

Manic Pixie Dream Girls are the perfect fount of wish fulfillment. The embodiment of a fantasy, all the promises of The Secret and Tony Robbins personified. The MPDG is more positive, more fabulous, more fascinating than anybody in real life could hope to be.

No matter that the MPDG has no inner life of their own. No matter that in movies, she exists only to serve the needs of the male lead. No matter that in real life, MPDGs are usually insufferably self-absorbed.

American society loves MPDGs. Americans need positive thinking and relief from stress too much. MPDGs provide this valuable service, in spades. They’re not going away.

*~*~*~*

How could John Edwards resist? His real life was getting too onerous. He needed escape. He needed a booster of positive energy. He didn't care where it came from, or the character of the person providing it. He just needed it now.
He already KNEW real love and partnership from Elizabeth... but sometimes, real people just don't provide emotional relief quickly enough.
He was telling the truth when he said he didn't love RH. MPDGs by definition are creatures of intense, fleeting fancy... not long-lasting love. But damned if it doesn't feel like you're falling in love. And that's enough for too many time-starved, desperate-for-release Americans.

His warning is our warning. Remember, in 2000 and 2004, half our country fell to the seductions of that Manic Pixie Dream President, Dubya Bush. Promising safety from terra-ists, but also from having to be straddled with a President who just didn’t “dazzle” us enough. In other words… John Kerry wasn’t enough of a MPDG for us.

And the fallout from our country choosing the MPDG has been about as disastrous for us as Edwards’ choice of the MPDG has been for his own life.

*~*~*~*

We may laugh at them, but in real life, MPDGs are dangerous. Socially dangerous.
For they are custom-built for our emotional needs, individually and collectively.

Our society places a high premium on positivity. Our customer service-oriented jobs enforce cheerfulness, and our Senate is one big happy social club.

Americans value getting along over everything else in the world, and it has very little to do with kindness, courtesy and even empathy.
Rather, getting along is about being non-threatening. Approachable. Suitable to be a corporate spokemodel. It's the spokesmodel's job not to tell the truth. That would be too negative, would reflect too badly on their company's brand... and they'd be looking for another job very soon.

Getting along has become about managing what others think of you. What our parents told us about being happy by not worrying about what others think of you, is a lie.
How others perceive us has very real consequences for our paychecks, our relationships, even our ability to contribute to the world. Contributions from those perceived as social hubs, are still rewarded more than contributions from those perceived to be on the social fringes. Look at Dennis Kucinich.

{G}iven that well-connected people are likely to pass on health benefits to a greater number of people, should medical interventions be directed preferentially at social "hubs"?

-- review of "Connected", by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler

We watch people who go along to get along, continually reap the highest rewards of our society and command not only gigantic paychecks, but the approbation of their social circles, and by extension society. People see that social success-- who wouldn't prefer to be a social hub?-- and they emulate it... thereby creating more people who go along to get along.

People see the social support offered by an evangelical megachurch, see the obvious niceness and likeability of most fundamentalists, and they're hooked. Why wouldn't anyone want to be in the company of such nice people? Look at their happy spouses and respectful children! What's a little second-class citizen status as a woman? It's but a small price to pay for having such a rewarding social network, for having genuine happiness, for having a genuinely positive outlook on life.

In this environment, real people simply cannot compete with MPDGs. They can't hold a candle to that super-concentrated boost of positive thinking and approachability.
Americans are stressed out, under time pressure, discombobulated by all the mixed messages from the media about how best to live your life, and how best to relate to others. They want speed. They want clarity. They want instant gratification. They want to feel happier, NOW.

MPDGs provide.

And we watch as real-world consequences arise. Our jobs and promotions are given to them. We get pushed to a more peripheral social position in favor of them. And if we dare complain, we're called anti-social, negative, and told to lighten up. Sometimes, our mental health and our neurology are called into question.

Pretty strong social enforcement favoring MPDGs.

And it doesn't help at all that too many misguided authenticity-seekers give themselves free rein to be mean, callous, even sociopathic... or at the very least, take their discourse lessons from Joe Wilson; and call that "authenticity". It makes keeping it real that much more unattractive… and us thereby that much more susceptible to the "charms" of a MPDG.

The power of MPDGs speaks to the dearth of any real wonder or joy we feel in our own lives. It speaks to feeling completely powerless to make our lives more extraordinary. It speaks to our collective inability to rise above mere going along to get along, and our losing sight of what real social solidarity, and real love, are like.

Edwards lost his formerly eagle-like eyes on it, when he let himself in a period of weakness succumb to fast-food positivity. Our anger towards him is as much about him forsaking the authentic in favor of the comfortable, as anything else.
Our anger toward our Senators comes from their putting comfortability over the needs of the country. Of putting their own social networks over a greater goal.

Comfortability is our enemy.

It won’t be easy to wean ourselves from it. It’s a basic instinctual need. Following it is, tragically, necessary to maintain our social support systems.

Our challenge, as progressives, is to decouple it from relationship building. So that our social networks are founded on true companionship and common purpose—being a true “team player”—and not on the least-resistance path of going along to get along.

So we no longer feel the need to seek out an MPDG... or feel the pressure to become one.