It’s Me, Writing Psychoanalytic Feminist Film Criticism
This week, I drafted a blog post I liked too much to keep to myself. Instead of posting it here, I sent it to a cool New York City website called “The Awl” and 48 hours after pitching it, the story was published. It’s doing well — getting tweeted and shared and picked up by other news sites. There is an audience out there who gets it.
However, I realize all the psychoanalytic feminist film criticism in it might be off the beaten path for many of the kind people who know me personally and read my stuff out of love. The “Awl” article assumes readers have already heard of and dismissed the trope — the flat, stock film character — known as the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl.” The term was coined by critic Nathan Rabin in reviewing a movie where a sad young man is rescued by a “psychotically chipper” woman. Rabin explains, “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl 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.”
My article is a cheeky look at a possible source of this self-indulgent, embarrassing character. Something tremendously compelling must keep male-writers coming back to it. The piece was a lot of fun to write and I’m enjoying people’s reaction to it.
Maybe give it a read here:
Jennifer Quist, PhD 