In a recent column at the Week, film critic Monika Bartyzel made a convincing argument that it's time to retire the term "Manic Pixie Dream Girl." Critiquing a particularly hollow and noxious stereotypical female character that was cropping up in films like Garden State and Elizabethtown, Nathin Rabin coined the popular term back in 2007. But awash in an endless stream of analysis, over-analysis, supercuts, and admittedly pretty hilarious parody Twitter accounts, Bartyzel now thinks the term has “outlived its usefulness and become a part of the very marginalizing trend that it was designed to rally against.”
Not convinced? Look no further than the common perception of Miss Polka-Dots-and-Cupcakes 2013 herself, Zooey Deschanel. The title star of Fox's sitcom “New Girl” and sundress-clad half of AM radio nostalgists She & Him, Deschanel has also become the English language’s most popular synonym for “Manic Pixie Dream Girl.” Her pretty-vacant role in (500) Days of Summer and the misleadingly “adorkable” marketing campaign behind “New Girl” notwithstanding, there’s more to Deschanel than the stereotype suggests. True, most musicians have to deal with misconceptions and pigeonholing in some form or another, but pop culture has caricatured Deschanel in a way that’s quietly denied her artistic agency. Need proof? Last week, I conducted a very unscientific experiment: I asked five people in casual conversation if they knew that Deschanel wrote all the original songs on She & Him's albums. All five of these admirably honest people gulped, looked down at their shoes and said no, they did not.
A big reason why it’s easy to underestimate Deschanel is that the actor-moonlighting-as-pop-musican is ripe for both parody and Dogstar jokes-- still, I'd bet the keys to my red Plymouth that most people wouldn't have a hard time believing that Jared Leto at least wrote all of the bloated-ego space-operas on the last 30 Seconds to Mars record. But like the unexpectedly complex character arc of her “New Girl” character Jess Day, Deschanel's breezy, inviting, confidently arranged tunes come as a pleasant surprise to those who've dismissed her on flimsy principle (or hypothetical twee allergy) alone. Volume 3-- the latest collection of sun-dappled pop songs she’s recorded with M. Ward under the name She & Him-- provides further proof. Pulling tricks from the songbook of 60s pop and country crooners like Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline, She & Him bask unabashedly in the glow of nostalgia, but Deschanel also finds a way to assert a unique personality within the pop idiom. “I’m stronger than the picture you took before you left,” she sings in her amiable, mid-morning yawn of an alto on “Turn to White”, one of Volume 3’s highlights. “In the light, it faded to white.”
Perhaps even moreso than the first two She & Him albums, Volume 3 has an an alluringly casual feel: Deschanel has a certain kind of charisma that allows a song to hang loosely but never fall apart. On a few occasions, things get a little too lax: she mumbles the verses of “Somebody Sweet to Talk To” like a person recovering from dental surgery, but she gets it together in time for a sprightly chorus that ends up being one of the album’s catchiest melodies. M. Ward’s production is at once detailed and featherlight. It sometimes recalls the gilded edges and baroque flourishes on his lush, self-produced 2009 record Hold Time, but the songs themselves aren’t as tight as, say, “Never Had Nobody Like You” (an M. Ward track on which Deschanel provides back-up vocals). Ward gives them enough room to sway leisurely, as though a warm breeze is rustling through.
Volume 3 is the first She & Him album since Deschanel’s divorce from Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard, but those scouring the lyrics for gossip might be a tad disappointed: unlike Ray J, Deschanel is tactfully tight-lipped about her personal business. The best songs here are the ones about heartbreak, but that’s been true on every She & Him album. Deschanel is not a confessional or even very specific lyricist, but she often gets mileage out of zinging, gently self-deprecating turns of phrase like the ones on the excellent opener “I’ve Got Your Number, Son”. “What’s a man without all the attention?/ Well he’s just a man,” she sings, “Who am I without all your affection?/ I’m a nobody, too.” She has a way with that kind of line that Jenny Lewis has perfected-- cutting in one breath and knowingly self-lacerating in the next.
But that’s precisely why Deschanel's music ultimately transcends the Manic Pixie Dream Girl tag: She spends the following 13 songs asserting that she’s not a nobody when she’s alone. It doesn’t shy away from sorrow, but as far as heartbreak albums go, Volume 3 is surprisingly resilient. When she’s wallowing-- as on the drizzly piano ballad “London”, one of the album’s more forgettable numbers-- Deschanel finds comfort in the fact that at least everybody else around her is wallowing, too. “We all go through it together, but we all go at it alone,” she sings on “Together”. The sentiment might be depressing if it weren’t tucked inside the most infectious melody on the whole record.
