magical pixie dream girls: what boys really want
I was listening to Ben Folds Five's Kate on my bike ride last night and something in the lyrics really struck me:
Everyday she wears the same thing
I think she smokes pot
She's everything I want
She's everything I'm not
And the choruses are just a reiteration:
And you can see daisies
In her footsteps
Dandelions (dandelions)
Butterflies (butterflies)
I wanna be Kate! Kate! Kate! Kate!
She never gets wet
She smiles and it's a rainbow
You can see
I wanna wanna wanna wanna be
Kate! Kate! Kate! Kate!
I've read a fair number of Magical Pixie Dream Girl* deconstructions, but never have they touched on what, I really believe, is the true heart of this yearning guys have for these girls, these untouchable, impossible girls they write about, create and splash up on the screen or in song: they don't just want them, they want to be them.
I think you can extrapolate this to men's other desired women objects: many men in general are jealous of women, of their perceived "freedoms," of the choices they think women have over the sexual aspects of relationships, or the power position in the relationship. So often men (who have, what, 80% of the writing power in media?) depict het men as the helpless ones in the relationship dynamic. It's utterly ridiculous.
So many guys want to be us. And many women just want to be equal.
Funny.
*I prefer 'Magical' to 'Manic.'
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Everyday she wears the same thing
I think she smokes pot
She's everything I want
She's everything I'm not
And the choruses are just a reiteration:
And you can see daisies
In her footsteps
Dandelions (dandelions)
Butterflies (butterflies)
I wanna be Kate! Kate! Kate! Kate!
She never gets wet
She smiles and it's a rainbow
You can see
I wanna wanna wanna wanna be
Kate! Kate! Kate! Kate!
I've read a fair number of Magical Pixie Dream Girl* deconstructions, but never have they touched on what, I really believe, is the true heart of this yearning guys have for these girls, these untouchable, impossible girls they write about, create and splash up on the screen or in song: they don't just want them, they want to be them.
I think you can extrapolate this to men's other desired women objects: many men in general are jealous of women, of their perceived "freedoms," of the choices they think women have over the sexual aspects of relationships, or the power position in the relationship. So often men (who have, what, 80% of the writing power in media?) depict het men as the helpless ones in the relationship dynamic. It's utterly ridiculous.
So many guys want to be us. And many women just want to be equal.
Funny.
*I prefer 'Magical' to 'Manic.'
[ X-posted to Dreamwidth with
comments | How to use OpenID ]