Many women strive to be the perfect stereotypical female. They strive to be the perfect size and have the perfect hair. If you let others change who you are then they will but if you are able to power through everyone’s opinions, then you should be able to stay the way you are.  In “Bitch Planet,” Penelope is basically the complete opposite of the stereotypical female. A stereotypical female would be white, skinny, with long straight hair and would often be a follower in a group. On the other side, Penelope is strong minded, African American, that is heavy set, and has half of her head shaved. Through “Bitch Planet”, by Kelley Sue DeConnick, she uses filmic language to contribute to the theme of people can change people, if they let it happen. 

In many settings division can often be seen. In the opening shot, of “Bitch Planet,” Penelope, the main character, is standing in front of the fathers with guards behind her. The main picture in the panel is an establishing shot and long shot. It is an establishing shot as it sets the scene for the rest of the comic. It introduces Penelope to the reader, and establishes her image. The long shot also shows her picture as she is not the average stereotypical women. In the bottom corner of the panel it shows her eye in an extreme close up, showing the amount of anger that she has for what is going on around her. There is a clear cut line, division, between the midground and the background of the shot. Penelope is in the midground while the guards behind the glass are in the background. The midground and the back ground can easily be picked out by the color and the fact that there is something literally in between them. The colors show the separation between them. This contributes to the theme of people change people because the reason Penelope is in this location is because the fathers are trying to change her to be more like the stereotypical women.

Emotions can be seen on people’s faces even if they don’t necessarily want them to be known. On the fifth panel of page 183, Penelope is showed in a medium shot as it only shows her from her waist up. Her anger is very evident as she is clenching her fist and has her mouth open from yelling. The fathers are in the background looking at her. They are the ones trying to change her, so she can be more like the way they want her to be. There is a close up showing one of the fathers grasping his face like he had said something wrong. He brought up Penelope’s mother, which Penelope was taken away from as a child. The thought of someone changing her or her mother brought back memories that angered her. Penelope lost many things when she was a child, she lost her mother and grandmother, it’s unclear in the comic why she was taken away from them. She did not want to lose anything else, she did not want to lose who she was as a person so she would not let anyone change her. This contributes to the theme by having respect to yourself and believing that you are perfect the way you are and not letting anyone change who you are just to fit in with the crowd. 

Penelope is often angered by the way people are treating her. The fathers are not the only ones trying to change her. After she was taken from her mother and grandmother she was taken to a foster care like facility where Mother Siebertling would also try and change her. Penelope stuck to what her mother and grandmother said in order to keep their spirt alive inside of her because she was no longer able to be with them because she was taken away. Penelope is stuck in her ways and will not let anyone change her. 

Change is not the answer to everything, a person must be willing to change in order for them to get the response that they want. On the last page of the comic, in the first panel, Penelope is shown in an over-the-shoulder shot showing the reader not only what she can see in the mirror but also the device that the fathers have put her on in order to do the testing. In the scene the reader can also see the fathers in the background behind the mirror and the guards that are standing at the mirror. The fathers are the ones telling Penelope that she needs to change and do this testing but the guards are the ones that have to follow through with everything that the fathers want done because they are behind the screens. The testing that is being done on her is to see how Penelope views herself. The fathers believe that she should be like the others in the population and want to look and act just like them, the stereotypical female. Since her reflection in the mirror is the exact same as her actual appearance, it means that she is just the way that she wants to be. After the fathers realize that she likes just the way she is they drop the experiment because they now realize that it would be nearly impossible to change her because she truly enjoys being exactly who she is. This contributes to the theme of people can change people, if they let it happen since she did not want to change she was able to convince the fathers to not make her change.

In conclusion, Kelley Sue Deconnick’s theme of “Bitch Planet” is that people can change people, if the person lets them. Penelope sticks to her philosophy, that she learned from her mother and grandmother, of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” (DeConnick 199). Penelope does not let anyone change who she is, inside or out. That is a major lesson that many people need to learn in today’s society. Everyone wants to be equivalent to the very best person they know but everyone is made to be different and unique in their own way.

