We live in a world where there are certain standards of perfection and if you don’t meet these standards you’re automatically treated differently, like a basket case in desperate need of being helped. It doesn’t matter what that person thinks or wants, its so that everyone around them can feel better about themselves. In Bitch Planet, Penelope is constantly being told to change something about herself.  Through the two panels, Kelly Sue DeConnick illustrates this “unnecessary pressure” Penelope faces to fit the image of those around her through the contrast in personalities between the two characters and the use of flashbacks. 

In the panel to the left, the visual contrast in personalities between the two characters, Penelope and Mother Siebertling, explicitly shows the ideal female versus the rejected female. Mother Siebertling’s office is straight out of Barbie’s Dream House. Just looking at her physicality, she has the ideal body image of a woman in society today. The thin, tight clothes of Mother Siebertling next to the baggy, bulging clothes of Penelope shows the difference in status; the confident, accepted authority figure helping the “misguided”, inferior student. In the background of this panel, the audience can see Greek letters representing her sorority. This specific allusion plays into the stereotype of sorority girls, referring to the dumb, party girls who got through college on their daddy’s trust fund. Although these are all not a true representation of Greek life for women, it is an easy allusion for the audience can pick up, adding the argument as a whole. Even the different shades of pink in the office plays into the idea of femininity and type of women society accepts and expects. In this panel, Mother Siebertling comments on Penelope’s hair, saying “What are we going to do with this hair of yours?” (DeConnick, 187). While she’s saying this, she is holding a brush while wearing a glove, showing how Mother Siebertling is not asking for Penelope’s permission, but rather feeling that it is now her responsibility to fix the mess. However, Mother Siebertling uses the phrase “we” (DeConnick, 187), making it seem that this change is a mutual decision but if you take a closer look at Penelope’s face, you can see that she is not happy about this situation.

Towards the beginning of the comic, Penelope and her grandmother are baking in their kitchen when her grandmother uses the common phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” (DeConnick, 179).  Later, in the right panel, that same quote is used, but in a different way. The right panel’s reference creates the idea that Penelope is in fact not broken, so she does not need Mother Siebertling’s “fixing”. Mother Siebertling is pulling a brush through Penelope’s hair in this panel, trying to “tame” it to fit her own standards of what’s appropriate. This quote has been used in every scenario where Penelope is being forced to change herself to fit the standards of someone else. The original scenario of this common phrase was in a happier time in her life. Her grandmother was trying to cheer her up, so she would not get upset about the little things, such as the messed up cookie dough. When the grandmother originally said it she did not realize the personal impact it would have on Penelope’s life. Even the detail in this panel shows Penelope’s facial expression and how Penelope retracts to the childhood mind set. Comparing the two scenarios, Penelope exudes the feeling of inferiority and the thought of being a “mistake” through her facial expressions. 

Kelly Sue DeConnick illustrates the “unnecessary pressure” Penelope faces, made up by her society, to fit the image of perfection through the contrast in personalities between the two characters and the use of flashbacks. These two panels provide examples to add to the argument of the work as whole, in which people will always try to change you to fit their standards, but you have the power within yourself to stop it. These panels are the incidents that happen before Penelope realizes that she decides what looks good and what doesn’t for her own self-image. It takes the whole comic for Penelope to figure this out, but when she does, she is set free.