Manic Pixie Dream Girls : Geet Dhillon in ‘Jab We Met’ Essay Example
Manic Pixie Dream Girls : Geet Dhillon in ‘Jab We Met’ Essay Example

Manic Pixie Dream Girls : Geet Dhillon in ‘Jab We Met’ Essay Example

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  • Published: June 10, 2018
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Educated, independent, confident and loves herself. Geet. Sweeps into Aditya Kashyap’s life despite his resistance. Geet. Teaches Aditya to abandon sorrow and live life to the fullest. Geet. Makes us laugh and cry with her. Geet. Can we even imagine ‘Jab We Met’ (Ali, 2007) without Geet? Yet, this strong, fiery character has very little substance to her. She exists only when Aditya (and the story) needs her, beyond that she is immaterial. Geet, in essence, is an example of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope, a term coined by Nathan Rubin, refers to a character type that “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” (Rabin, 2007) Her primary function is “to lift a gloomy mal

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e protagonist out of the doldrums, not to pursue her own happiness” (Bowman, Gillette, Hyden, Murray, Pierce, & Rabin, 2008). She is bubbly yet lacks an inner life and barely ever has a plausible motivation.

In essence, she exists only to play out a wish fulfilment fantasy (Bowman, Gillette, Hyden, Murray, Pierce, & Rabin, 2008). Hollywood is filled with Manic Pixie Dream Girls. Take for instance Claire from ‘Elizabethtown’ (Crowe, 2005), the inspiration for the term Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She appears when Drew has hit rock bottom, helps him through his troubles without really disturbing his life, disappears for a while to allow him to organise his life and then when he is ready for a relationship, he finds her waiting for him at the market.

Apart from an initial scene when her occupation as an airhostess introduces her t

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Drew, little reference is made to her work, her personal life or her family, i. e. , classic MPDG. Among the other movies that use Manic Pixie Dream Girls (aka MPDGs) are ‘(500) Days of Summer’ (Webb, 2009), ‘Sweet November’ (O'Connor, 2001) and ‘Garden State’ (Braff, 2004) – each movie has a girl with no real life of her own but is used to simply further the storyline of the male hero (Sarkeesian(feministfrequency), 2011). The character of Geet Dhillon is one of Bollywood’s many Manic Pixie Dream Girls.

When we first meet her in the movie, she has just completed her education (lived in a hostel in Mumbai to do this) and is on her way back to Bhatinda, her hometown. Her confidence and independence is apparent from the fact that despite pretty and young, she has not only decided to travel alone by a night train, but even has the pluck to start up conversations with strange men (or is she being plain careless? We will explore this later). Then, in a typical MPDG manner, she involves herself in his life, despite his resistance and tries to fix his situation.

From that moment on begins a series of adventures as Aditya helps Geet get to her lover in Manali, while Geet through her characteristic childishness gives him a new lease of life. Inspired, Aditya launches a new and successful calling card, named after none other than Geet, whom he misses, but her absence doesn’t affect him much. However, while Aditya hits the high notes in his life, Geet is crumbling to pieces. Her lover rejected her, and despite finding a job and some security, she must

play the role of the Damsel in Distress and fall apart, now that there is no man in her life.

Aditya then comes to her rescue. His undying love for her drives him to fix her life for her, and is rewarded when she begins to fall for him (out of gratitude, we presume). Despite the competition that Anshuman presents when he re-enters Geet’s life, Aditya is unperturbed. He is right in being so, since as the male protagonist, he is guaranteed a happy ending. This security allows him to be generous enough to help Anshuman and Geet get married, which (not surprisingly) helps him win over Geet eventually. A few key points are to be noted here.

First, the glaring absence of Geet’s personal life. Yes, her family does play a key role in the movie. However, they are shown only when Aditya interacts with them. Like the rest of Geet’s life, they come in and out of the plot only to move Aditya’s story forward. Second, the effect that both Geet and Aditya have on each other’s lives. Geet plays the role of the motivator in Aditya’s life, while Aditya plays the role of the guide in her life. When Aditya is rejected by his lover, he is demotivated. Geet simply inspires him to not abandon his life and his plans.

Despite the way the movie portrays her, she actually has no life-changing effect on him. However, when Geet is rejected by her lover and is demotivated, she needs Aditya to guide her step-by-step to not just recovery, but to also tell her how to live post the rejection i. e. quit her job as a

teacher and return to her family. It must be noted that when Aditya is single, Geet teaches him how to enjoy life despite being single, but when Geet is single, Aditya shows her happiness by giving her the option of being in a relationship. This leads us to the third key point, that Geet cannot survive this world without a man.

Fourth, like a typical Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Geet’s charm lies in her childishness. These characteristics are all displayed in the hotel scene. Geet’s cute immaturity is shown when she doesn’t seem to understand what the hotel manager implies by renting rooms out on a ‘per hour basis’. Although Aditya understands the hidden meanings, he indulges her. The look on his face is quite fatherly – like he’s letting his child play around, knowing that he is there to take care of her should she get in harm’s way – another reference to Geet’s dependence on a man.

Her MPDGism is more prominent when are in the hotel room. Geet’s entire mannerism is extremely child-like. Her “Magar mujhe Karate aata hai” dialogue is reminiscent of a child being protective of his or her toy. The following dialogue “Nahi main bas clear kar rahi hoon, tumhe koi wrong signal na mile. Station par maine tumhe hug kiya aur kaha kisi hotel pe chalte hain, pata nahin tum kya soch rahe hoge” indicates that she acts first and thinks later, further displaying her immaturity. Even the way she swings from side to side while declaring “Mai apni favourite hoon”, is very child-like.

Such immaturity confirms the earlier mentioned hypothesis that by readily opening up to strange men on the

train, she displays carelessness and immaturity, not confidence. Her immaturity and childishness is also confirmed by Aditya’s attitude towards her. She is safe with him, not because she is a trained “brown belt” in martial arts, but because he has no intention of harming her. Even when he speaks to her, there are many indicators that he thinks her less intelligent than himself – words like “cartoon”, “bachpana” and “bewakufi” are used with reference to her.

This scene also establishes their power relations. The dialogue, “Oh god! The famous silence and all! Itna bada secret kya hai tumhara? Maine sab kuch bata diya tumhe, tum kyun nahi bol sakte? ” establishes that while her life is completely open to him, she has access only to those parts of his life that he allows her into. Thus, this scene quickly confirms that she is indeed a Manic Pixie Dream Girl – childish, dependent on a man and primarily exists to improve the man’s life. Bollywood has almost as many MPDGs as Hollywood.

However, as seen with Geet, they have an additional characteristic of being extremely dependent on men, especially the male protagonist. Manju in the film ‘Khubsoorat’ (Mukherjee, 1980) is one of the earliest examples. Lacking a personal life, she is able to spend many months with her brother-in-law’s family. Her perkiness is the centre of the film, and hence the only aspect of her that is shown. However, it isn’t enough to show her livening up the Gupta household – the story comes full circle, only when she marries one of the sons, Inder. Pooja from the film ‘Lamhe’ (Chopra, 1991) too displays such characteristics.

Her life revolves

around “Kunwarjee” and eventually her childishness changes his broodiness to love for her – thus ensuring she isn’t left high and dry without a man. The list of Bollywood’s Manic Pixie Dream Girls is incomplete without Anjali from the film ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’ (Johar, 2001). Her madness that wins Rahul’s heart is her defining characteristic. Except for a few emotional moments when her over-the-top nature is masked by silence, she is lively and attractively childish. And like other MPDGs, she rarely has anything intelligent to say, and lets Rahul take control of her life.

A much more recent example is that of Aditi in ‘Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na’ (Tyrewala, 2008). A slight deviation from the typical MPDG, because she doesn’t suddenly enter Jai’s life; she is already an inseparable part of his life at the start of the movie. However, the rest of the elements are in place. Her immaturity is shown in her cute violent streak and egoistic stubbornness. Her personal life is shown only when either Jai is a part of it or when some place needs to be made for him (ref: showing that she has a bad fiance, so that Jai can take his place).

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope is made for the male ego and is an attempt to assert male superiority. It very conveniently ignores the complexity of romantic relationships by limiting women to only a supportive role in a man’s life. By showing women as childish and immature, it attempts to establish that women by nature are dependent on and inferior to men. However, as much as men may desire such “Dream Girls”, they do not

exist. Women do have personal lives and problems, and while they may brighten up a man’s life, that is not all they are capable of doing.

As Clementine from ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ (Gondry, 2004) says, “Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a fucked-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind; don't assign me yours. ”

Bibliography

  1. Ali, I. (Director). (2007). Jab We Met [Motion Picture]. Bowman, D. , Gillette, A. , Hyden, S. , Murray, N. , Pierce, L. , ; Rabin, N. (2008, August 4).
  2. Wild things: 16 films featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls. Retrieved November 11, 2011, from http://www. avclub. com: http://www. avclub. om/articles/wild-things-16-films-featuring-manic-pixie-dre am-g,2407/ Braff, Z. (Director). (2004).
  3. Garden State [Motion Picture]. Chopra, Y. (Director). (1991). Lamhe [Motion Picture]. Crowe, C. (Director). (2005).
  4. Elizabethtown [Motion Picture]. Gondry, M. (Director). (2004).
  5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [Motion Picture]. Johar, K. (Director). (2001).
  6. Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham [Motion Picture]. Mukherjee, H. (Director). (1980).
  7. Khubsoorat [Motion Picture]. O'Connor, P. (Director). (2001). Sweet November [Motion Picture]. Rabin, N. (2007, January 25).
  8. The Bataan Death March of Whimsy Case File #1: Elizabethtown. Retrieved November 11, 2011, from http://www. avclub. com: http://www. avclub. com/articles/the-bataan-death-march-of-whimsy-case-file-1-eliza,15577/ Sarkeesian(feministfrequency), A. (2011, March 24).
  9. Tropes vs. Women: #1 The Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Retrieved November 11, 2011, from http://bitchmagazine. org: http://bitchmagazine. org/post/tropes-vs-women-1-the-manic-pixie-dream-girl Tyrewala, A. (Director). (2008).
  10. Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na [Motion Picture]. Webb, M. (Director). (2009). (500) Days of Summer [Motion Picture].
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