Am I Your Dream Girl, or Am I Just on Prozac?

Straight men being obsessed with “crazy women,” is, quite frankly, an epidemic. What they consider “crazy” for women is not the same problematic behavior that would be considered crazy for men. It’s always just “I love b**ches on Zoloft,” a weird obsession with mental illness in women (we won’t even dive into the harmful implication of men calling women “b**ches,” but we all know it’s there). There’s a fixation on the idea of a woman needing them for her fulfillment; it’s a fetishization of sadness and dependency disguised as having “quirky” or “unique” taste in romantic partners that cleverly repackages a gendered hierarchy in a modern way that’s easier to digest than the traditional “women belong in the kitchen.”

The thought is, women on anti-depressants are like manic pixie dream girls. They’re spontaneous, adventurous, and, most importantly, damaged to the point of social isolation, so they need a “normal” man to bring them back down to Earth. Then, they change from flighty and fiery to domestic and “settled down” to fit in better with society. Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind all fit the bill: They have no real depth outside of giving meaning and depth to the lives of their male romantic interests. Crucially, they all end up “settling down” in some form or another, and while, yes, the point of these movies is to explore romance and sacrifice, these characters just serve as a tool for the men and their narrative.

The reality is that it’s not even that far from lobotomizing women to fit in better with the housewife archetype after the romanticized mental health becomes too much to handle and breaks the illusion. There’s a disconnect between what actual mental health problems and treatments look like and the portrayal and understanding of mental illness in the fantasies of men. When these men with a fetish for sadness find their manic pixie dream girl  and she behaves in an irrational way as a result of her mental health problems such that she breaks the glamorized dependency, she becomes something outside of the man that needs her to need him. Her medications and therapy visits cease to be a quirky personality trait and instead become a strain on the man who wanted nothing more than a sycophantic, saccharine woman. She suddenly becomes this dangerous, unpredictable thing that he can’t (or won’t) keep up with. From then on, she’s painted as the pinnacle of insanity instead of an individual whose mental health journey isn’t actually dependent on the men in her life. The mirage of the man’s control shatters, and she’s left alone after thinking that she had found someone she could be vulnerable and open with. 

The danger lies in thinking this romanticization is any different from men who want a traditionally feminine, domestic woman that doesn’t fit into the manic pixie dream girl archetype. The only departure is that men who think they want mentally ill women picture the exact same thing as the “ideal,” except the woman in question has bangs or a nose ring. The appeal is the potential for control and the chance to be the “hero” in some poor woman’s life who desperately needs to be saved and shown she wants to settle down and have a family. It’s the investment in “potential” and the belief that all women secretly do want to be subjugated, it just needs to be shown to them. 

Even more dangerous is how this fetishization seems to undermine the efforts of mental health professionals and resources everywhere. The insinuation is that medications, treatments, talk therapy, clinical assessments, and research will never do as much good for a mentally ill woman as a man and a traditional role in the home will. The fact that men feel the need to go so far as to broadcast their love of mentally ill women further implies that other men won’t put up with a woman like that, and it instills a sense of need on the basis of stability, even if that’s not something she wanted before. She needs him, and she can’t find fulfillment or happiness anywhere or with anyone else. He will put up with her for her own good, but he’s actually just stroking his own savior complex and his sense of masculinity.

The fact is, we are in the midst of a mental health crisis predominantly impacting people 18-25. We are also living in a time of extreme polarization, global wars, and rising conservatism, so it’s unsurprising that there’s been a return to tradition out of a craving for normalcy and stability. There’s a romanticization of how things were before, and we forget why they changed in the first place. As a whole, humans have a tendency to forget, so we repeat our mistakes and old patterns, and the newfound obsession with mentally ill women is no different. It’s simply a redesign of the gender roles that have held us back from progress for centuries.

Photo credit to nerve.