Even if I wanted to be.
My junior year of high school, I took a class during the interim week between our fall and spring semesters. It was called "portrayals of women in contemporary film", and was centered around the way women are shown in cinema. As an accumulation of the three day class, we watched and discussed "500 days of summer". For those who are unfamiliar, this movie follows Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel as they fall in and out of love. Specifically, we see Deschanel's Summer through the rose-colored lens of JGL's Tom. She is his manic pixie dream girl.
What is a manic pixie dream girl you ask? To me (and this is my blog that nobody really reads so my opinion matters the very very most), it is the ideal woman through the eyes of the male gaze. She is beautiful and slightly mysterious, just troubled enough to need saving but not enough to detract from the male protagonist's spotlight. Her hair is long and wavy and ethereal when backlit in warm artificial sunlight.
When we were discussing this archetype, sitting in the mostly-white room (as I did attend an all-girls catholic school), I realized that I did not identify with the manic pixie dream girl at all. In fact, I couldn't think of a single Black woman on screen who portrayed this role either. When I brought this up, the next day we were told as a class that, while women of color do face different experiences in their portrayals on film, we were going to focus on all women as opposed to just some. Coming from two of my favorite teachers, I figured I was just out of place and sought to contribute within the boundaries set.
A year later, I am still wondering. How can we say we're discussing all women if the experiences of Black women, of which there are millions, are deemed non-existent? Furthermore, what does it mean that I feel no connection whatsoever to this very common archetype?
The most salient aspect of the manic pixie dream girl type is the idea that she is someone worthy of being saved, thus, protecting. Black women in film and in life are rarely treated with that level of care and fragility. Our softness is not valued- instead, it is taken advantage of until we are forced to conceal it. While our trauma is also placed in the background, there is no climactic savior sequence for us. Instead, we are made to push our hurt and pain deep inside to fight for everyone else whose identities intersect with our own- Black men, white women, so on and so forth.
I'm not a manic pixie dream girl. Sometimes I'd like to be. The idea that someone sees me as not a tool or show of strength, but someone deserving of care, and protection, like everyone else. Black women are the world's security blanket, but where is ours?