shades fills you in

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a movie and TV trope for female characters. MPDGs are bubbly, attractive, and slightly unhinged. They’re there to further the male protagonist’s journey -- says tvtropes.com

Think Ramona Flowers from “Scott Pilgrim vs the World,” Summer from “500 Days of Summer,” or Clementine from “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”

Film critic Nathan Rabin coined the phrase in 2007, but apologized for it in 2014 -- he thought naming the trope added to its popularity, and that it morphed into something gross

By 2019 though, Studiobinder said the trope was officially dead -- and good riddance, it was sexist and cliché

The Daily Campus agrees, MPDGs are sexist. Instead of being fully fleshed out characters, they’re just bland narrative devices for cruddy male protagonists

But Glamour Magazine says MPDGs aren’t dead, writers are just getting better at disguising them -- one common trick is giving the MPDG a tragic backstory so she’s a “real character”

The Atlantic is super anti. This isn’t just a harmless TV trope -- it has real world consequences. Entire generations of young women watched movies with restrictive, narrow, empty MPDGs as their primary female representation. That’s not reality, and it’s not a good message

TCK says hold on, let’s be careful here -- not all quirky or bubbly female characters are MPDGs! We should be welcoming of “weird” female characters

TheMarySue says, “Don’t ditch it, reclaim it! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being stylish, doe-eyed and wacky -- stop being so harsh on lovable characters”

And what about the Manic Pixie Dream Boy? A free-spirited guy determined to improve the female protagonist’s life even if she doesn’t want him to -- NoFilmSchool says this trope should die too

Vice thinks we’re now in the Manic Pixie Dream Boyfriend era -- don’t Pete Davidson, Machine Gun Kelly, and Travis Barker fit the stereotype?