manic pixie candid girlfriend
bitterness as a virtue, girlfriend-muses and knives chau
I watched Scott Pilgrim vs The World for the first time last week. I say this not as a fun anecdotal tidbit, but as a self-qualifying fact; I am now certified to speak on all things manic pixie and bitter ex.
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Subway Takes is a TikTok page that asks people for their takes. Stef Dag (funny, comedian, sporadically on my for-you page) was on it and had a take. The take went viral. All things considered, not much cause for alarm, made all the right waves, touched all the right FYPs. It’s never really the bit itself that lights discourse, it’s the volume of enthusiastic agreeing that makes everyone assume there’s smoke where there’s fire. But there are a few things worth talking about: bitterness, externalizing a muse onto your girlfriend - even the original sin of being easy to fall in love with.
‘Bitterness snowballs when it rolls down the hill you’re so ready to die on’. I got some irritated TikTok replies telling that sentence didn’t mean anything, but my unbiased opinion is that it holds up. The hill you’re willing to die on is the moniker, essentially. The box that we’re putting said girl in. Candid girlfriend, manic pixie dream-girl, pick-me girl, whatever your descriptor of choice is. Some labelled the act of categorizing women as misogyny, others said they were just observable truths that needed to be spoken aloud (‘she’s right’, ‘I get her’ etc). But it’s easier to attribute it to bitterness. Everyone’s been bitter. It’s a relatable, familiar explanation for the cruelty, more neutered than the idea of society-wide misogyny. It’s something I create on my own, and it’s something that stops existing when I stop feeling it.
But a man saying all this is rich. In fact, it’s borderline defensive. Just another manipulative tool for a man hoping you don’t see it, don’t notice it. The candid girlfriend is real, and you don’t care what I say. The big smile, the silhouette on his Instagram story, the tan, the mousy hair, the natural makeup. There are definitely women that are easy to fall in love with, and you want to be of them. You kinda want to have nothing going on in your brain.
Or. Maybe it’s not any of that at all. Maybe that’s just leaning on the stereotypical notion that women are catty and competitive, mangy and mean. Perhaps the disgust has nothing to do with her at all, and everything to do with him.
All guys want her because they want to make a muse out of her.
As someone who has made a muse out of a girlfriend, it’s funny that I’d argue against that premise. I think it happens, but it can’t happen that easily. Think about movies centered around manic pixies. They always insist upon the premise that it’s a magical, unintentional thing, that he’s being swept up in a real emotion for this one specific girl, that the rapidly approaching honeymoon phase is entirely self-pollinated.
And I’d agree.
But of course I’d agree. Manic pixie dream-girl flicks are generally written from the male perspective. 500 Days of Summer, Scott Pilgrim, Ruby Sparks, Eternal Sunshine, list goes on. Meaning, there’s not much space to ask yourself if she’s being manic (or candid) on purpose. And even if she is, and the men are poor babes being led astray by women calculating enough to activate their love response - it wouldn’t really absolve the men. Being easily hoodwinked wouldn’t be a virtue, it’d be embarrassing, and it’d mean we’d receive even more disgust.
So, does Ramona Flowers know she’s easy to fall in love with? Do the candid girls do it all on purpose? Are we all easily categorized into nifty internet terms? I’m sure these are all great, really important questions. But they shouldn’t really matter to you in this circumstance. As the embittered ex in this story, you’re Knives Chau. The movie is over, and you can’t rationalize away the disappointing ending. In fact, you should be busy telling yourself they deserve other. Because,
- azeez