I've been on the fence about Zooey Deschanel for some time now. Partly because she sang a ridiculously cute song with My Fantasy Boyfriend a few weeks ago, and partly because I feel that she's cultivated this totally annoying Manic Pixie Dream Indie Rock Girl persona, and it just seems to goddamn fake. But then I'm like, eh, maybe I'm just jealz. Zooey D. has a TV show! And no credit card debt! And a cotton commercial wherein her warbly voice sings about "the touch, the feel" whilst we peer into her cavernous closet full of retro-inspired frocks. Good for her.

And then I read her interview in Allure magazine and I wanted to die.

First off, the coverline says "Hollywoods' Cutest Weirdo -- She Takes That As a Compliment." And the interview itself just reeks of a woman trying to coyly come off as just such a unique little flower! For instance, here's Zooey talking about why she went to Northwestern University for a minute: “I went to Northwestern because I had gone to a really nontraditional high school. I was like, ‘It’d be cool to have a traditional college experience,’” Deschanel, 32, explains. “Then I was like, ‘Oh, but none of these people understand what’s cool about me. My specialness is not appreciated in this place.’” See, regular people just couldn't "get" her. Then there's this: “I’ve always straddled a weird line — there’s a lot of mainstream stuff that I love. At the same, I still feel like an outsider. I’m the outsider who’s on the inside.”

I don't really buy it, though. I think that Zooey Deschanel has made a lot of aesthetic decisions that perhaps make her different from the average Hollywood starlet, but don't particularly make her all that weird. She's really not a weirdo, in the sense that there's about a zillion girls in places like downtown Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles that look just like her. But there ARE women out there that ARE weirdos, in the best sense possible. Women who eschew standards of beauty, who cast off convention, and who have made waves in ways that are groundbreakingly different. These ladies are truly beautiful weirdos, and we salute them. Zooey, take a look.