penny lane's prose

i know that zooey deschanel (also called “the z”, because i cannot spell deschanel without intense concentration) isn’t really someone who should affect my day to day life. she’s real, but only in the tangential way that celebrities and politician’s sex lives are real. in general, they’re blown way out of proportion. with that said, eliot spitzer, i’m still waiting for you to return my calls. 

but this doe-eyed bitch is seriously ruining my life. cracked.com has a phenomenal article that deals with bad relationship advice, which, surprise surprise, overlaps with about 85% of the z’s message. you can read it here. one of the greatest points the writer brings up is the following, something that irritates me to no end: “Hollywood is still teaching women that “dumb” is “attractive,” they’re just hipsterfying it. I don’t know when it happened (maybe after Clueless?), but sometime after the ’90s, “Quirky Eccentric Weird Chick” became the new Bimbo. She’s just as insultingly one-dimensional as the archetypal Ditsy Blonde Bombshell Valley Girl character that was all over the place a decade ago, except now she wears vintage knee-socks and listens to The Smiths, and that’s supposed to be better, for some reason.” 

while the article also highlights things that ms. deschanel isn’t technically guilty of, that manic pixie dream girl has committed one too many crimes for me to stand idly by. and it isn’t really the z’s fault. she isn’t the characters she portrays. but she puts her face on a misrepresentation of women and “cool”, and that shit has got to stop. and to make matters worse, she agreed to be in the happening, so if i ever see her in person, i’m going to demand my $9 back, and then punch her in the boob. WHO MAKES A MOVIE ABOUT THE WIND KILLING YOU?!

REASONS THE Z IS RUINING MY LIFE

i grew them out circa summer of eighth grade. i’ve lived a bang free lifestyle ever since. but then. of course. the z shows up on everyone’s television, and she’s got these freaking adorable bangs. her face practically yells at women across america to copy her look. so, like the sheep in this great culture that i am, i do. i go to a stylist and ask for a “sweep side bang.” three days later they were totally grown out. do i go back to the overpriced chicago stylist? no. i make the classic mistake of grabbing a pair of scissors and thinking i’m capable of “trimming” them myself. i end up with my current hairstyle, which is a chunk of hair that falls directly into my right eye, cannot be controlled by bobby pins, and refuses to accept hairspray. the z told me i could be cute and fun with this whimsical little style move. and the z lied her goddamn face off.

2. she encourages you (women) to plot spontaneity
the manic pixie dream girl isn’t totally zooey deschanel’s fault.remembereternal sunshine for the spotless mind? that movie is a long-winded love song to the persona of a woman who shouldn’t be let out of her padded cell. and don’t get me wrong, i loved that movie. but it’s another version of every piece of pop culture the z has slapped her name on in the past five years. z makes it look like women are only lovable when they are so off-the-wall, their suitor is blown away by their originality. except, in plotting this need to be original in every waking moment you spend with said suitor, you lose all legitimacy. yes, it’s unexpected and fun when you drag a grumpy but grinning male counterpart along on an adventure that only came into your head at that moment. but living your life like these adventures are what make you valuable as a person is wrong.

the best moments i’ve had in my life have been unplanned. by me, my significant other, or mother nature. i don’t plan on sneaking into skyscrapers late at night just for the chance to see the skyline of chicago from a new angle. but what really makes me interesting isn’t that i can weasel my way into off limits places. what makes me interesting (i think/hope) to my partner in crime is that there is a reason for doing my spontaneous thing- an obsession with architecture, a dire need to understand my new home’s history. and that is something the z is missing. she does these kooky, crazy things for no reason, other than to be kooky and crazy and relevant. she has no substance.

3. she broke joseph gordon leavitt for the rest of us
i saw 500 days of summer in theaters with a good guy friend of mine. we smuggled in some cocktails, kicked up our feet, and were prepared for a parade of cute. instead, we got two hours of jgl chasing around a scatterbrained reject from the anthropologie catalogue. granted, he had some flaws in that movie. but no heterosexual female with a functioning libido can watch the following video and tell me she couldn’t just deal with his flaws for a chance to see him serenade you on your romantic birthday getaway he planned because he is so thoughtful, preferably while naked: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQBk7eqoPC4

that’s a man that you don’t walk away from, deschanel. and you made him so sad! yes, it is just a movie. and yes, at the end of it, he falls in love all over again just to validate zooey deschanel being right in that he doesn’t deserve her. but there are literally thousands of z’s out there carelessly stomping on the hearts of thousands of white men covering rap songs with acoustic guitars. and that is practically criminal.

z, i’m sure you’re a nice gal. you have nice clothes, which a stylist carefully selects for you. you say funny things, which other people write for you. but right now, you are ruining the life of every twenty something female who wants to be unique without being ironic, creative without being a cliche, and taken seriously as a woman who is capable of surviving in a modern world as an adult.

should i be a lot less invested in the representation of a person whose sole job is to entertain the masses? absolutly. should she become the model for what is fresh, exciting, and the template for the new wave of woman? over my dead body.