What does it mean to be beautiful? Does that opinion reflect the one portrayed in society? Kelly Sue DeConnick attacks these questions in her comic Bitch Planet which is the story of a misunderstood big boned, occasionally violent, african american woman named Penelope who is living in a dystopian society that is constantly screaming at her to change her image and conform to what the men call of the culture define as “beautiful”. DeConnick is a female comic book writer who has openly confessed her frustration of working in a career field dominated by men. However she makes the claim that this struggle is not very different from a  regular woman in society nowadays (175) which implies that today’s society revolves around men and they shape the culture and get to define what beauty is. After becoming aware of this societal flaw, she decides to create the comic Bitch Planet  to portray in perhaps an extreme way, what it is like to be a woman who does not “fit the standard” of beauty in society. The graphic novel really exploits the idea that male dominated societies have an unfair, dehumanizing role in shaping what a proper image of a woman should look like. DeConnick does an extremely good job capturing this idea of men having dominance over women in Bitch Planet especially through the use of her specific color scheme, flashbacks, and the use of Penelope’s appearance, but more importantly shows how women in today’s culture should respond to the subjugations of patriarchy. 

DeConnick immediately establishes one way males have a sense of control over females by her use of color scheme. In the opening scene of the comic, Penelope is standing before a group of men referred to as her “fathers” who are casted on monitors with big white backgrounds. The white background is in contrast to Penny, whose face is shaded and dark. This contrast immediately establishes the dominance of men over women as the white light portrays the men as angelic or truth figures. In contrast, Penny’s face and body is shadowed and darkened. DeConnick did this to show the clear disconnect between her and the fathers.  Penny is imprisoned for having a violent outburst and is now wearing an orange jumpsuit, but Kelly Sue DeConnick uses that to show as metaphor of how all women are actually imprisoned by men in today’s society because unfortunately, men have started to dictate how women should act.

 DeConnick continues to reveal more about this disconnect through the color scheme. The next scene the reader sees is a flashback between Penelope and her grandma. The flashback is a positive childhood memory and as the scene changes from the previous one with Penelope and the fathers, so does the color scheme. The memory is one with Penelope baking with her grandma and they end up making a huge mess and getting cake batter everywhere including Penelope’s hair. The color scheme of the scene is bright vibrant, innocent colors that represent the mind of a young child. This scene is important because it gives the audience a chance to see Penelope came from a loving mother and that the two had a good genuine relationship. The flashback scene ends with armed men charging to the door to most likely abduct Penny and remove her out of her mother’s custody. The color scheme in this image goes back to very dark, shadowed images to display not only the dominance of men but the misunderstanding of the men and women. Seeing that Penny and her mother had a strong connection is vital to understand because Penny’s mother tells Penny the most important line of the graphic novel during this scene, she tells Penny, “If it aint broke, don't fix it” (179) these words become engrained inside Penny’s mind and serve as the overarching moral of the story. The color scheme in the opening scene showed the control that men had over women but in the flashback scene, the color scheme shows that the men are abusing their control over Penny unfairly by removing her from her mother’s custody. 

Another important feature DeConnick uses to portray a disconnect between men and women is through the physical appearance of Penny. As stated earlier Penny is a large, powerful, masculine (in society’s definition), black woman and would not fit the idea of beautiful in today’s society or in the one from the comic. There is a scene later in Bitch Planet where Penny gets in trouble for “misbehaving” for striking a man who was talking about her grandmother. She is forced to go council with a lady who is the polar opposite of Penny. She is blonde, white, petite, and feminine. After talking about her misconduct the lady tries to impose her influence over Penny by telling her that she is not ugly she just needs to change if she wants to be beautiful. She informs Penny all she has to do is, “see herself through her fathers eyes” (188). The reader can see the look in Penny’s eyes as she is in an internal struggle. Part of her wants to just conform to the mold this lady, her fathers, and all of society is saying that a woman should fit into, but the other part of Penny remembers the advice of her mother as she quietly mumbles to herself “If it aint broke, don't fix it” (187). Penny’s mother is potentially the only positive relationship Penny has ever had in her life which makes it that much harder on Penny as she sits in front of this lady extremely conflicted. Sadly, the little blonde lady’s guilt trip works and the scene ends by Penny letting the lady give her a makeover. This shows that men have become so dominant that even the women have subconsciously conformed and accepted the role that men can dictate their image. Therefore sacrificing their own individuality and uniqueness to fit someone else’s standard of beauty. 

Finally all the frustration, pressures of conforming, and disconnect between Penny and the fathers clash in the climax of the novel. The story resumes back to Penny chained and dressed in an orange jumpsuit standing before her fathers on a screen of monitors.  The conversation continues as the fathers start to tell Penelope that they have finally figured out the way to “cure” her. The fathers have created a way to hook up Penny’s brain to sensors that can accurately depict what Penny’s ideal version of herself looks like. Their goal is to try and see what Penny’s goal is and to work towards that. When they hook her up to the monitor and see the results the fathers are astonished beyond belief. Penny’s ideal version of herself is a mirror image of her current self. This means she is not only content with her big body, half shaved head, and masculine figure but thats her idea of perfection. Penny finally has the chance to defend herself by showing her heart and mindset to the fathers who have been struggling to understand why she is so different. The last line of the comic is Penny telling the fathers, “If it aint broke, don't fix it. / I aint broke. /… and you bastards aint never gonna break me” (199). By finally standing up for herself and listening to what she believed to be true not those around her, Penny begins to break social barriers about the perception of beauty and feminism. This is the response DeConnick wants women in todays society to have, a confident persona, or swagger about their image and to refuse to let the men of the world tell them if they are pretty or not. 

In conclusion Bitch Planet may be a bit radical or extreme, but Deconnick was intentional about that because she wanted to bring to the surface these issues in a big way because they are rarely discussed in society today. Beauty and body image are two huge struggles in culture today and the pressure that is put on women especially to look a certain way to be considered beautiful. Its unfair and men get the privilege of being the ultimate judge that dictates it for women. Surely Kelly Sue DeConnick wanted to paint this picture for the reader and also to encourage everyone not just women to stand up to the “fathers” in their own lives and be the person they were born to be. That is DeConnick’s true definition of beauty. 
