Although (500) Days of Summer premiered 13 years ago, the romantic comedy remains the subject of passionate debate. The film tells the story of a failed relationship between Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his co-worker Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel), leaving fans to argue: who was the real villain in the situation?

In a recent reader Q&A with The Guardian, (500) Days of Summer star Zooey Deschanel addressed the villainous role some fans assigned the titular character for her “understandable” rejection of Tom.

“I got that take from day one. It’s a very emotional response. People want the characters to be together, but that not happening makes the movie interesting. She is upfront that she doesn’t want a relationship, but he ignores her,” Deschanel said, going on to describe a pivotal scene in Tom and Summer’s relationship.

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“The most telling scene is when she tells him: ‘I’ve never told anybody that before,’ and he makes it about himself. He is fixated on external details—such as her liking The Smiths—that has nothing to do with who she is as a person. To anyone who thinks Summer is the villain, I say: think a little deeper.”

Deschanel isn’t the only (500) Days of Summer star who sees Tom as the true villain of the film—her co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt previously opened up about his lovestruck character’s “flawed attitude.”

“He develops a mildly delusional obsession over a girl onto whom he projects all these fantasies. He thinks she’ll give his life meaning because he doesn’t care about much else going on in his life,” Gordon-Levitt told Playboy. “A lot of boys and girls think their lives will have meaning if they find a partner who wants nothing else in life but them. That’s not healthy. That’s falling in love with the idea of a person, not the actual person.”

“I’m Not a Girl, I’m a Woman” Deschanel on Manic Pixie Dream Girl Moniker

     Fox Searchlight Pictures

Following the film’s release, Deschanel found herself thrust into another role: “the” Manic Pixie Dream Girl. An archetype coined by film critic Nathan Rabin, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is an eccentric, feminine character who has no discernable inner life and whose only purpose is to provide the male protagonist with valuable life lessons.

Though Deschanel’s character in (500) Days of Summer (and several of her characters in other films) could accurately be described as a MPDG, the actress and singer is not a fan of how the title has transferred to her in real life.

“I don’t feel it’s accurate. I’m not a girl. I’m a woman. It doesn’t hurt my feelings, but it’s a way of making a woman one-dimensional and I’m not one-dimensional,” she said, while noting that she has hope for future female characters.

“I think the tendency is still to make women one-dimensional, so you have to add dimension, if you can. The more screen time a female character gets, the more space there is to show complexities, but there has been a shift, so I’m optimistic.”