diff --git a/IPython/core/display.py b/IPython/core/display.py
index 8ac4ee6..c94b0b1 100644
--- a/IPython/core/display.py
+++ b/IPython/core/display.py
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ import struct
 import sys
 import warnings
 
-from IPython.utils.py3compat import cast_bytes_py2, cast_unicode, unicode_type
+from IPython.utils.py3compat import cast_bytes_py2, cast_unicode
 from IPython.testing.skipdoctest import skip_doctest
 
 __all__ = ['display', 'display_pretty', 'display_html', 'display_markdown',
@@ -492,7 +492,7 @@ class DisplayObject(object):
 
         self.data = data
         self.url = url
-        self.filename = None if filename is None else unicode_type(filename)
+        self.filename = filename
 
         self.reload()
         self._check_data()
@@ -876,7 +876,7 @@ class Image(DisplayObject):
             # jpg->jpeg
             format = self._FMT_JPEG
 
-        self.format = unicode_type(format).lower()
+        self.format = format.lower()
         self.embed = embed if embed is not None else (url is None)
 
         if self.embed and self.format not in self._ACCEPTABLE_EMBEDDINGS:
@@ -953,7 +953,7 @@ class Image(DisplayObject):
             return self._data_and_metadata()
 
     def _find_ext(self, s):
-        return unicode_type(s.split('.')[-1].lower())
+        return s.split('.')[-1].lower()
 
 class Video(DisplayObject):
 
@@ -1037,7 +1037,7 @@ class Video(DisplayObject):
                 video = f.read()
         else:
             video = self.data
-        if isinstance(video, unicode_type):
+        if isinstance(video, str):
             # unicode input is already b64-encoded
             b64_video = video
         else:
diff --git a/IPython/core/formatters.py b/IPython/core/formatters.py
index 31de644..28f61e2 100644
--- a/IPython/core/formatters.py
+++ b/IPython/core/formatters.py
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ from traitlets import (
     default, observe,
 )
 from IPython.utils.py3compat import (
-    with_metaclass, unicode_type,
+    with_metaclass
 )
 
 
@@ -737,7 +737,7 @@ class PNGFormatter(BaseFormatter):
 
     print_method = ObjectName('_repr_png_')
     
-    _return_type = (bytes, unicode_type)
+    _return_type = (bytes, str)
 
 
 class JPEGFormatter(BaseFormatter):
@@ -755,7 +755,7 @@ class JPEGFormatter(BaseFormatter):
 
     print_method = ObjectName('_repr_jpeg_')
 
-    _return_type = (bytes, unicode_type)
+    _return_type = (bytes, str)
 
 
 class LatexFormatter(BaseFormatter):
@@ -846,7 +846,7 @@ class PDFFormatter(BaseFormatter):
 
     print_method = ObjectName('_repr_pdf_')
 
-    _return_type = (bytes, unicode_type)
+    _return_type = (bytes, str)
 
 class IPythonDisplayFormatter(BaseFormatter):
     """A Formatter for objects that know how to display themselves.
diff --git a/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py b/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py
index 45050b0..c892c22 100644
--- a/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py
+++ b/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ from IPython.utils.ipstruct import Struct
 from IPython.paths import get_ipython_dir
 from IPython.utils.path import get_home_dir, get_py_filename, ensure_dir_exists
 from IPython.utils.process import system, getoutput
-from IPython.utils.py3compat import builtin_mod, unicode_type, with_metaclass
+from IPython.utils.py3compat import builtin_mod, with_metaclass
 from IPython.utils.strdispatch import StrDispatch
 from IPython.utils.syspathcontext import prepended_to_syspath
 from IPython.utils.text import format_screen, LSString, SList, DollarFormatter
@@ -2340,7 +2340,7 @@ class InteractiveShell(SingletonConfigurable):
         exc_info = {
             u'status' : 'error',
             u'traceback' : stb,
-            u'ename' : unicode_type(etype.__name__),
+            u'ename' : etype.__name__,
             u'evalue' : py3compat.safe_unicode(evalue),
         }
 
diff --git a/IPython/core/magics/basic.py b/IPython/core/magics/basic.py
index c2427c9..475ddf8 100644
--- a/IPython/core/magics/basic.py
+++ b/IPython/core/magics/basic.py
@@ -12,7 +12,6 @@ from IPython.core.magic import Magics, magics_class, line_magic, magic_escapes
 from IPython.utils.text import format_screen, dedent, indent
 from IPython.testing.skipdoctest import skip_doctest
 from IPython.utils.ipstruct import Struct
-from IPython.utils.py3compat import unicode_type
 from warnings import warn
 from logging import error
 
@@ -550,7 +549,7 @@ Currently the magic system has the following functions:""",
         help=argparse.SUPPRESS
     )
     @magic_arguments.argument(
-        'filename', type=unicode_type,
+        'filename', type=str,
         help='Notebook name or filename'
     )
     @line_magic
diff --git a/IPython/core/magics/namespace.py b/IPython/core/magics/namespace.py
index 68442f9..343db92 100644
--- a/IPython/core/magics/namespace.py
+++ b/IPython/core/magics/namespace.py
@@ -25,7 +25,6 @@ from IPython.testing.skipdoctest import skip_doctest
 from IPython.utils.encoding import DEFAULT_ENCODING
 from IPython.utils.openpy import read_py_file
 from IPython.utils.path import get_py_filename
-from IPython.utils.py3compat import unicode_type
 
 #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # Magic implementation classes
@@ -460,8 +459,8 @@ class NamespaceMagics(Magics):
                 try:
                     vstr = str(var)
                 except UnicodeEncodeError:
-                    vstr = unicode_type(var).encode(DEFAULT_ENCODING,
-                                               'backslashreplace')
+                    vstr = var.encode(DEFAULT_ENCODING,
+                                      'backslashreplace')
                 except:
                     vstr = "<object with id %d (str() failed)>" % id(var)
                 vstr = vstr.replace('\n', '\\n')
diff --git a/IPython/core/magics/osm.py b/IPython/core/magics/osm.py
index 0d85a01..a301ee4 100644
--- a/IPython/core/magics/osm.py
+++ b/IPython/core/magics/osm.py
@@ -35,7 +35,6 @@ from IPython.testing.skipdoctest import skip_doctest
 from IPython.utils.openpy import source_to_unicode
 from IPython.utils.process import abbrev_cwd
 from IPython.utils import py3compat
-from IPython.utils.py3compat import unicode_type
 from IPython.utils.terminal import set_term_title
 
 #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -764,7 +763,7 @@ class OSMagics(Magics):
              'The file will be created if it does not exist.'
     )
     @magic_arguments.argument(
-        'filename', type=unicode_type,
+        'filename', type=str,
         help='file to write'
     )
     @cell_magic
diff --git a/IPython/core/prompts.py b/IPython/core/prompts.py
index 7802bc5..93ec7f9 100644
--- a/IPython/core/prompts.py
+++ b/IPython/core/prompts.py
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ class LazyEvaluate(object):
         return str(self())
 
     def __unicode__(self):
-        return py3compat.unicode_type(self())
+        return self.__str__()
 
     def __format__(self, format_spec):
         return format(self(), format_spec)
diff --git a/IPython/core/tests/test_completer.py b/IPython/core/tests/test_completer.py
index 4b81de6..142da78 100644
--- a/IPython/core/tests/test_completer.py
+++ b/IPython/core/tests/test_completer.py
@@ -18,7 +18,6 @@ from IPython.core import completer
 from IPython.external.decorators import knownfailureif
 from IPython.utils.tempdir import TemporaryDirectory, TemporaryWorkingDirectory
 from IPython.utils.generics import complete_object
-from IPython.utils.py3compat  import unicode_type
 from IPython.testing import decorators as dec
 
 #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -102,7 +101,7 @@ def test_line_split():
     check_line_split(sp, t)
     # Ensure splitting works OK with unicode by re-running the tests with
     # all inputs turned into unicode
-    check_line_split(sp, [ map(unicode_type, p) for p in t] )
+    check_line_split(sp, [ map(str, p) for p in t] )
 
 
 def test_custom_completion_error():
@@ -123,7 +122,7 @@ def test_unicode_completions():
     # Some strings that trigger different types of completion.  Check them both
     # in str and unicode forms
     s = ['ru', '%ru', 'cd /', 'floa', 'float(x)/']
-    for t in s + list(map(unicode_type, s)):
+    for t in s + list(map(str, s)):
         # We don't need to check exact completion values (they may change
         # depending on the state of the namespace, but at least no exceptions
         # should be thrown and the return value should be a pair of text, list
diff --git a/IPython/core/tests/test_interactiveshell.py b/IPython/core/tests/test_interactiveshell.py
index a350316..65190aa 100644
--- a/IPython/core/tests/test_interactiveshell.py
+++ b/IPython/core/tests/test_interactiveshell.py
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ from IPython.testing.decorators import (
 from IPython.testing import tools as tt
 from IPython.utils.process import find_cmd
 from IPython.utils import py3compat
-from IPython.utils.py3compat import unicode_type, PY3
+from IPython.utils.py3compat import PY3
 
 if PY3:
     from io import StringIO
@@ -473,7 +473,7 @@ class InteractiveShellTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
     def test_inspect_text(self):
         ip.run_cell('a = 5')
         text = ip.object_inspect_text('a')
-        self.assertIsInstance(text, unicode_type)
+        self.assertIsInstance(text, str)
 
 
 class TestSafeExecfileNonAsciiPath(unittest.TestCase):
diff --git a/IPython/core/tests/test_prompts.py b/IPython/core/tests/test_prompts.py
index 6595dab..4082b14 100644
--- a/IPython/core/tests/test_prompts.py
+++ b/IPython/core/tests/test_prompts.py
@@ -5,7 +5,6 @@ import unittest
 
 from IPython.core.prompts import  LazyEvaluate
 from IPython.testing.globalipapp import get_ipython
-from IPython.utils.py3compat import unicode_type
 
 ip = get_ipython()
 
@@ -14,8 +13,7 @@ class PromptTests(unittest.TestCase):
     def test_lazy_eval_unicode(self):
         u = u'ünicødé'
         lz = LazyEvaluate(lambda : u)
-        # str(lz) would fail
-        self.assertEqual(unicode_type(lz), u)
+        self.assertEqual(str(lz), u)
         self.assertEqual(format(lz), u)
     
     def test_lazy_eval_nonascii_bytes(self):
@@ -31,7 +29,6 @@ class PromptTests(unittest.TestCase):
         lz = LazyEvaluate(lambda : f)
         
         self.assertEqual(str(lz), str(f))
-        self.assertEqual(unicode_type(lz), unicode_type(f))
         self.assertEqual(format(lz), str(f))
         self.assertEqual(format(lz, '.1'), '0.5')
 
diff --git a/IPython/lib/tests/test_clipboard.py b/IPython/lib/tests/test_clipboard.py
index c0d6ed9..f1050bf 100644
--- a/IPython/lib/tests/test_clipboard.py
+++ b/IPython/lib/tests/test_clipboard.py
@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@ import nose.tools as nt
 from IPython.core.error import TryNext
 from IPython.lib.clipboard import ClipboardEmpty
 from IPython.testing.decorators import skip_if_no_x11
-from IPython.utils.py3compat import unicode_type
 
 @skip_if_no_x11
 def test_clipboard_get():
@@ -19,4 +18,4 @@ def test_clipboard_get():
         # No clipboard access API available
         pass
     else:
-        nt.assert_is_instance(a, unicode_type)
+        nt.assert_is_instance(a, str)
diff --git a/IPython/utils/openpy.py b/IPython/utils/openpy.py
index 1ec22a4..ad7e267 100644
--- a/IPython/utils/openpy.py
+++ b/IPython/utils/openpy.py
@@ -10,7 +10,6 @@ from io import TextIOWrapper, BytesIO
 import os.path
 import re
 
-from .py3compat import unicode_type
 
 cookie_re = re.compile(r"coding[:=]\s*([-\w.]+)", re.UNICODE)
 cookie_comment_re = re.compile(r"^\s*#.*coding[:=]\s*([-\w.]+)", re.UNICODE)
@@ -129,7 +128,7 @@ def source_to_unicode(txt, errors='replace', skip_encoding_cookie=True):
     txt can be either a bytes buffer or a string containing the source
     code.
     """
-    if isinstance(txt, unicode_type):
+    if isinstance(txt, str):
         return txt
     if isinstance(txt, bytes):
         buffer = BytesIO(txt)
diff --git a/IPython/utils/ulinecache.py b/IPython/utils/ulinecache.py
index f53b0dd..e12819d 100644
--- a/IPython/utils/ulinecache.py
+++ b/IPython/utils/ulinecache.py
@@ -25,8 +25,7 @@ else:
         filename = py3compat.cast_bytes(filename, sys.getfilesystemencoding())
         lines = linecache.getlines(filename, module_globals=module_globals)
         
-        # The bits we cache ourselves can be unicode.
-        if (not lines) or isinstance(lines[0], py3compat.unicode_type):
+        if (not lines) or isinstance(lines[0], str):
             return lines
         
         readline = openpy._list_readline(lines)