So... Here's a poorly written blog post from 2005 where I doing a poor job of expressing what would later become the manic pixie dream girl theory. Re-reading myself, I come off at the very least problematic and at the worst incredibly sexist. I was a naive and a little off with the "girl's don't make mix tapes like that" point. What I was trying to get at was the scenario seemed... unlikely? No, that's not right. Elizabethtown went against everything I had experienced as a young person dealing with others in those semi-romantic/more-than-platonic-friends situations. There was a lot about Clair (Kirsten Dunst's character) that seemed unrealistic to me, but specifically the commanding taste in music. I realize now I lacked the necessary language to express my thoughts without sounding like a jackass. I think it's the "... and she's pretty to boot" part that makes me cringe the most. What does how she looks like have to with anything relevant? Or is it relevant to everything since it's in the context of a Hollywood movie that exploits her femininity? I'm unsure. If I'm being kind to my younger self, I saw some part of this and just filtered it through the lens of the music selection. If I'm not, I was just another sexist 20-something boy who couldn't imagine a woman applying a vast knowledge of music and history to create what in my mind was a work of genius.
Maybe I'm making things worse. I don't know if I have all the tools necessary to express myself properly without coming off like an ass. I fully admit that I have under examined my privilege concerning gender issues. I've been called out about this in the past. It's difficult to confront but I'm trying.
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