The problem with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) trope actually boils down to my belief that Love is a human need. Not just a feeling, a choice, an action, but a NEED.
Enter an Austistic woman who feels everything deeply (including love, care, and compassion), and watch how relief bubbles up in everyone around them in the context of a late stage capitalist society (which rewards emotional numbing and paints authenticity, empathy, and care as luxuries). People who are starving for the feeling of being seen and loved find these women and cling to them because what else could they do? Itâs only natural to crave what you need but cannot gather.
But the thing is, social reciprocity is also a need. In a world where genuine care is painted as superfluous at best and worthless at worst, Autistic women asking to be loved in equal measure to that which they offer have to face a wall of thorns that they are told will never grow for them (by people who donât want to face the systemic reality).
People who donât know that empathy is a skill can see asking for equal labor as a fundamental insult. They can feel that they were not born with an empathy talent and that itâs unreasonable to hold them to any standard in that area. In fiction, the MPDG usually pays for this with a tragic, bittersweet, and/or melancholic end.
In real life, itâs usually just rejection and ostracization. Again.
Manic Pixie Dream Girls are skilled at lighting a fire in others (often that they didnât realize they lacked), and are punished for it when they ask to be treated with equal care.
