Zooey Deschanel is combating a stereotype rife in entertainment.
Deschanel (“500 Days of Summer”, “New Girl”) slammed the one-dimensional trope of “manic pixie dream girl” in a new interview with The Guardian.
“I don’t feel it’s accurate. I’m not a girl. I’m a woman,” Deschanel said. “It doesn’t hurt my feelings, but it’s a way of making a woman one-dimensional and I’m not one-dimensional.
“I think the tendency is still to make women one-dimensional, so you have to add dimension, if you can. The more screen time a female character gets, the more space there is to show complexities, but there has been a shift, so I’m optimistic.”
Deschanel also countered the argument that her character in “500 Days of Summer” — which she starred opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt — is the villain.
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“I got that take from day one,” Deschanel said. “It’s a very emotional response. People want the characters to be together, but that not happening makes the movie interesting. She is upfront that she doesn’t want a relationship, but he ignores her.”
“The most telling scene is when she tells him: ‘I’ve never told anybody that before,’ and he makes it about himself. He is fixated on external details — such as her liking the Smiths — that has nothing to do with who she is as a person. To anyone who thinks Summer is the villain, I say: think a little deeper.”
