Although the most recognized “strange girl” is probably Carrie White from Brian De Palma’s classic bloodfest Carrie, Rafferty mentions several other strange girls that appear in recent movies. He argues that horror films provide a place for the strange girl, the outsider with big eyes and a scary past: “Horror has a special place in its icy little heart for strange girls: the sad girls, the lonely girls, the ones who feel invisible to others and often ghostly to themselves.” For Rafferty, the weird little girl is celebrated in horror films through her victimization and revenge, and through this process, she taps into the sleeping teenager in all of us:

What you may recall, though, from the dimmer recesses of memory, is the feeling this movie evokes, a feeling perhaps peculiar to (certainly most vivid in) adolescence:the sense that the world is almost unbearably charged with significance, electric with meaning. It’s a state akin to madness, or possession. Every teenager’s mind is a haunted house.

This is the reason the strange girls, friendless everywhere else, feel so at home in horror. Their painfully heightened sensitivities make them ideal mediums for all the terrors of the phenomenal world; the long hours they spend alone facilitate brooding and, sometimes, dire imagining. They suffer from a constant and bizarrely eroticized awareness that everything around them, animate or inanimate, is (or can be) threatening.

The strange girls are not a phenomenon limited to film. Strange girls also show up in horror fiction, from Edgar Allen Poe to Shirley Jackson, who created one of the most archetypal strange girls in her 1962 novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The strange girls could be seen as just another unfortunate, two-dimensional label (like the evil twin of the manic pixie dream girl), and sometimes they are just that, but generally, strange girls are allowed a power that the MPDG’s lack. The trailer of The Uninvited shows spooky-girl Anna (Emily Browning), who recently returned from a stay at a mental institution, taking an active role in outing her father’s new girlfriend, and possible murderer, Rachel (played by Elizabeth Banks). Anna, while wide-eyed, pretty, and young, does not appear to be as blandly accepting as the classic quirky MPDG.

However, the most interesting about the weird-girls of horror, and something that unfortunately Rafferty barely discusses, is the fetishistic way that we watch the strange girls. These girls are not simply passive victims; their power arises from a sort of sixth sense, a hyperawareness of the threatening nature of the world. But, as Rafferty points out, this persistent suspicion is eroticized, made sensual and appealing. It is the appealing/appalling dynamic that hints toward the greater conflict of the adolescent (female) sexuality itself. Rafferty writes that part of the appeal of the evil/strange girl could arise from a fear of the “entire female gender.” Indeed, there seems to be a long tradition of connecting female sexuality with supernatural forces. It remains to be seen whether The Uninvited falls into this trap, although from the trailer, it appears as though weird-girl Anna is not the sexualized one, but rather her succubus-like co-star, Elizabeth Banks.

‘The Uninvited,’ ‘A Tale of Two Sisters’ and Cinema’s Sisterhood of Spookiness [New York Times]
The Uninvited- Official Trailer [YouTube]

• Megan got some airtime with feminist grand dame Gloria Steinem and we were all a little awestruck.
• We suspect that Ms. Steinem would not approve of John Edwards' wandering willie.
• You know what else she's probs over? The annoyingly quirky and underwritten Manic Pixie Dream Girls littering movies today.
• However, she might like Mad Men's sassy, gorgeous Joan Holloway.

• What would the gross sexist dudes in the Mad Men office think of Erin Andrews' controversial outfit? Nothing good. Ugh.
• Maury tortured some poor lady with cotton balls. So that happened.
• We hung out with admitted Mathlete Danica McKellar.
• The Prodge Run Olympics challenge was cray cray!!
• And speaking of the Olympics, they began today. So remember these lady Olympians to watch and tube out with some amazing athletes. It's Friday!

#1.) You do drugs or you like talking about how you do drugs.

#2.) You use unique, half-witty, half-annoying sayings like “Dudesies!”, “For YAYs” and make jokes about “Rim Jobs” because you are so cool with your sexuality.

#3.) On dates, rather than awkwardness, you manifest your wants/needs/insecurities through aggressive lines like “So when are you going to kiss/fuck/lick my C???”

I'm guessing you're probably not going to discover, upon taking this quiz, that you are a QAF. Because the thing is, I've never actually seen any character besides Olivia Thirlby's character in this movie who pulled all this nonsense. (Okay, maybe Natasha Lyonne back in the day, but only cause I think she was kind of aggressive in real life. And on drugs. And if we're really trying, Betty Garrett in On The Town. ) Maybe she's trying to lump her in with Juno, who's also smart and wordsy? But that does a disservice to both characters. Cause, see, I actually thought that, whatever The Wackness's flaws, they made an effort with the characterization of Stephanie; it may have been borderline annoying, but they did try to round her out and I'd venture to say she was based on real people. I mean, I'm the first to admit that there are a lot of female archetypes at work in film (manic pixies, adorable neurotics, brassy best friends all spring to mind) and I daresay a dearth of really interesting roles floating around. But that seems to me all the more reason to give props when a writer makes an effort, and not try to reduce it to one more stereotype when there are plenty of crappy stereotypes out there. And "smart girls" really shouldn't be considered another.

I get it: people want to coin phrases. Everyone wants to have come up with the next "metrosexual." But a neologism can only catch on if it's labeling a phenomenon that already exists and that people have registered. Everyone's seen the annoying free spirit changing some uptight guy's life with her whimsy and magic. And I would go so far as to suggest there's a "zany" subset of that spectrum (see: Jenna Elfman in Dharma and Greg, Jennifer Aniston in Along Came Polly, Sandra Bullock in Forces of Nature) that almost overlaps with the "Quirky Aggressive" Bans is trying to invent. But the drug-addled eccentric shouting about rim jobs and "Dudesies"? Not so much. I mean, where does it stop? "The One-Armed Eastern European Taxidermist/Housekeeper With A Codeine Habit Who Used To Be A Child Star?" "The Transgendered Old Man With A Shady Past And An Interest In Concert Films?" "The Enigmatic Manicurist?" In a way, I hope The Quirky Aggressive does become an archetype — a kind of female version of the Apatow man-boy — as it would at least provide a change from the spunky cuteness we're used to. But until that happens, I'm afraid we're going to have to look for another phrase to coin.

In Which I See The Dopeness You Only See The Wackness
Related: Manic Pixie Dream Girls Are The Scourge Of Modern Cinema

I hated that character from the second she flounced on the screen. I remember distinctly Portman telling Zach Braff's character that she was "weird" and then doing a silly little dance to illustrate her "weirdness." Honestly? Anyone who telegraphs their so-called weirdness so outlandishly is not actually weird, they're merely quirky enough to be vaguely interesting without having their own thing going on. They're completely mainstream but have one really big tattoo, or occasionally sing really loud in the shower! "Oh, Natalie," the A.V. Club writes, "your unconventional ways are so inspiring, and your beauty is surprisingly non-threatening!"

As the A.V. Club deftly notes, "Like the Magical Negro, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype is largely defined by secondary status and lack of an inner life. She's on hand to lift a gloomy male protagonist out of the doldrums, not to pursue her own happiness." Since they've defined it so succinctly, I've realized that many recent films employ the MPDG stock character — Forgetting Sarah Marshall, for instance, where Mila Kunis's character is a free spirited nymph deposited on the shores of Hawaii in order to encourage Jason Segel to write the vampire rock puppet musical he's been fantasizing about for years. But what of the dude? You know, the brooding artsy loser in need of a MPDG to revive his creative and sexual juices? The ones who use MPDG's to stroke their fragile egos and project their muse-fantasies on? What should we call him? I think he deserves a name because these movies, and the notion of the MPDG, are really about him: his needs, his desires, his artistic endeavors.

Wimpster, while appropriate, lacks the specificity of MPDG and also is so four years ago. Maybe the new bromantics, because that term emphasizes their dudeliness but also their childish notions of romantic attachment? In any event, these self-absorbed whiners are to be avoided in real life, though, like (adorable!) Jason Segal in FSM, new bromantics can be charming in film.

Wild Things: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls [AV Club]
Soapbox [The Petite Sophisticate]
Meet The Wimpster [The Black Table]