A Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a stock character type in fiction, usually depicted as a young woman with eccentric personality quirks who serves as the romantic interest for a male protagonist. The term was coined by film critic Nathan Rabin after observing Kirsten Dunst's character in Elizabethtown (2005). Rabin criticized the type as one-dimensional, existing only to provide emotional support to the protagonist, or to teach him important life lessons, while receiving nothing in return. The term has since entered the general vernacular.