by Zoë Pollock
As a film character, she's been defined as a woman who "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." Think Natalie Portman in Garden State. The Onion has likened her to the Magical Negro, as they are both "defined by secondary status and lack of an inner life." Serwer condemns the "nice guys" who fall for her:
My theory is that the MPDG is a fantasy molded from the clay of an infinite number of adolescent rejections from the women of their youth. Precisely because the relationship never reaches the stage of genuine intimacy, the MPDG remains a two-dimensional projection of the desires of a guy who is progressive enough in gender matters to want a woman who is "interesting," but not one that has an internal life of her own beyond the superficial qualities that made her "cool" and "not like other girls" to begin with. Key to the MPDG is that the concept reflects the gender-based hostility of the nice guy. …[S]he is defined by some kind of glaring emotional vulnerability that makes her, in an abstract sense, a damsel in distress who needs rescue.
A while back, Racialicious tackled the trope in black culture, but Alyssa wanted to let all Zooey Deschanel characters, black or white, go gently into that good night.
The Dish 