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pennypancake1922 · 4 months ago

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🎀Pansy, My Beloved Mean Girl🎀

Although her goth-grunge haircut in the PoA film turned fanon!Pansy into an edgy badass, book!Pansy is a caricature of the girly mean girl.

Pansy bursts “[into] tears” over Draco's hippogriff injury, and later “simpers” at him; she wears “very frilly robes of pale pink” to the Yule Ball; she “shrieks” and “giggles” at cruel jokes; she spreads gossip about the Golden Trio's love life.

However, what sets Pansy Parkinson apart from the more celebrated mean girls is that Pansy is completely one-dimensional. While others — Kate Sanders, Sharpay Evans, Regina George, Blair Waldorf — are allowed to be charismatic, attractive, powerful, vulnerable, Pansy is only presented as annoying, “pug-faced”, and “thicker than a concussed troll”.

While other works examine the motives and the secret pains of the mean girl — distant families, insecurities, lack of true friends, pent-up rage — Pansy is simply mean, because she is. You’re not meant to see her as a human being at all; Pansy is an effigy to be burnt.

In the words of JKR herself:

I loathe Pansy Parkinson. [...] She's every girl who ever teased me at school. She's the Anti-Hermione. I loathe her.

So, if Pansy Parkinson is so unlikeable, why do I like her?

🎀 First, because she is girly.

The construction and treatment of Pansy’s character fits what’s termed “demonisation of hyperfemininity”: a trend in media to associate girly girls with villainy, spite, and everything not nice, often in opposition to a virtuous Not Like Other Girls girl (such as Hermione).

If this concept has been used (rightfully, imo) to discuss the mean girls I described above as multi-faceted, then Pansy’s lack of nuance hyperdemonises hyperfemininity. Even her name itself is an insult used to deprecate femininity.

Once you’re aware of this trope, though, it’s not difficult to separate the hyperfeminine wheat from the demonic chaff. There is no doubt that Pansy has condemnable traits, but must every trait of hers be condemned? Is it shameful to pursue your crush, giggle, and like pink frills? Of course not.

For years I thought it was, but now, in the era of bimbocore and barbiecore, I am finally overcoming that internalised prejudice and reviving the girly part of me I had repressed. Now, I really enjoy exploring the positive side of Pansy’s girliness: she’s affectionate, bubbly, interested in cute aesthetics (and in my mind she knows all about beauty products). 💋 Second, because she is mean.

At the same time, observing that a part of Pansy is unjustly maligned doesn’t warrant downplaying her flaws. Just as Sharpay is self-obsessed and manipulative, Pansy is a bigot and a bully. But I love that in a fictional character.

I admit her canon taunts are pretty insipid; you can’t make a “Pansy Parkinson being iconic” quote compilation. Nonetheless, I can only see her wanton meanness towards other girls as a sign of insecurity, which I find sympathetic and relatable — even if JKR refuses to give Pansy any humanity, I simply do not believe that she is the way she is for no reason.

I think Pansy has the need to put others down so much because she doesn’t know how else to feel good about herself — the insipidness of her bullying actually makes her seem even more like someone who lashes out out of desperation for assurance, even if she herself may be in denial about that.

Pansy was probably taught, both by our patriarchal society and by her own individual upbringing, that she had impossible standards to conform to and that other girls were her competitors.

Indeed, many of Pansy’s insults focus on the appearance of her female peers — beauty standards being the most obvious tool of the system to make women hate themselves and each other.

On top of that, I imagine Pansy’s mother must be overly critical of her and of everyone else too, instilling in Pansy a lack of self-confidence and modelling viciousness as acceptable behaviour — things Mrs. Parkinson herself must have learnt from her own trajectory under patriarchy.

It’s the tragic old cycle of hurt women hurting women, which so many of us end up being part of in one way or another.

Plus, in general, I relate strongly to any character who is an insecure little bitch. I admit it: I have a fragile self-esteem and I’ve always struggled with envy and urges to seek validation in toxic ways. Although I've got a lot better at dealing with these feelings, I love to see a character who makes me feel less alone in my dysfunctional behaviours.

Lastly, Pansy’s meanness is just fun to write. I find it a fun exercise to come up with the most egregious things for someone to say or do in (fan)fiction. 🌸 Third, because JKR hates her too much.

There are many criticisms Pansy undeniably deserves, but JKR goes beyond those, which makes me feel compassion for the girl.

Exhibit A:

On her old website, JKR once made a post called “For Girls Only, Probably,” which discusses incidents that made her reflect on “being thin”, or “the issue of size and women”.

Besides the hypocrisy of her writing that without addressing the rampant fatphobia in the Harry Potter books, the post itself is full of misogynistic clichés and, once again, demonisation of hyperfemininity.

In the first paragraphs, after assuming (yikes) that a girl on a magazine has an eating disorder and body-shaming her (“her concave stomach, protruding ribs and stick-like arms”), JKR concludes:

This girl needs help, but, the world being what it is, they're sticking her on magazine covers instead.

If you squint, there could be a salvageable point there about toxic beauty standards being pushed by the media, but by the end of the article that is lost in victim-blaming and derision:

[Pink’s] latest single, ‘Stupid Girls’, is the antidote-anthem for everything I had been thinking about women and thinness. ‘Stupid Girls’ satirises the talking toothpicks held up to girls as role models: those celebrities whose greatest achievement is un-chipped nail polish, whose only aspiration seems to be getting photographed in a different outfit nine times a day, whose only function in the world appears to be supporting the trade in overpriced handbags and rat-sized dogs.

[...] I don't want [my daughters] to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before 'thin'. And frankly, I'd rather they didn't give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Let them never be Stupid Girls.

Excessive preoccupation with weight is a ubiquitous feature of a fair few 2000s mean girls — Regina and Blair, of course — but the character JKR’s rhetoric most reminds me of is Shelby Cummings from A Cinderella Story. You know, the one who asks, “What can I get here that has no sugar, no carbs, and is fat free?”

That film puts a lot of emphasis on food as a marker of a woman's morality: while Hilary Duff's Sam is a good-natured, booksmart tomboy who loves greasy cheeseburgers, Shelby is portrayed as a vapid, spiteful girly girl obsessed with dieting.

Hyperfemininity, shallowness, cruelty, and weight concern are all framed as parts of the same contemptible character flaw. Liking beauty and fashion equals being dumb and bitchy; body image issues are an individual moral defect, not a response to hurtful social pressures.

That is exactly the same unfair treatment JKR’s post gives both Pansy and real life "Stupid Girls", which drives me to side with Pansy. In fact, because of this blog post, I've started headcanoning Pansy as not only being insecure about her appearance, but also struggling specifically with her weight and with disordered eating/an eating disorder — one more element that increases her relatability.

Exhibit B:

The quote cited earlier is from an interview where JKR was asked who Draco had married, and if it had been Pansy. Her full answer:

No! God, it wasn't Pansy Parkinson. I loathe Pansy Parkinson. I don't love Draco but I really dislike her. She's every girl who ever teased me at school. She's the Anti-Hermione. I loathe her. Yeah, sorry! Sidetracked there by my latent bitterness. He married Astoria Greengrass.

Essentially, marrying Pansy is a punishment too harsh even for Draco, because while he is bad, she is worse — but how is Pansy worse than Draco?

As school bullies, they often act together, but Draco’s insults are arguably harsher: Pansy targets appearance and we never see her say “Mudblood”. Draco often mocks Harry’s orphan status and grief, plus uses the word “Mudblood” 15 times (I counted lol). They both abuse their power as prefects, both join the Inquisitorial Squad and try to take down the D.A.

In the war, Pansy clamours for Harry to be handed to Voldemort. Draco enthusiastically becomes a Death Eater, attempts murder twice (necklace, mead), lets Death Eaters and a feral werewolf into Hogwarts, and actually tries to capture Harry to hand him to Voldemort (right before the Fiendfyre).

Not to mention, Pansy is the one always treating Draco like a king and being used or led on — which she puts up with for years. He accepts her affection when it suits him and never reciprocates, yet she remains loyal to him.

If anything, Pansy is too good for Draco. If anything, instead of being sentenced to "not getting the guy", Pansy should dump Draco.

(Though to me they are both problematic faves & I ship them fixing their relationship <3)

But no, the bad girly girl must remain irredeemable and be punished for it, while the more charismatic bad guy is allowed depth, self-improvement, and happiness.

JKR’s personal trauma with Pansy-like classmates might be a factor in her bias, but the way this bias affects her writing still results in choices that come across as illogical and sexist. 💗 Fourth, because she is a scorned woman.

That said, Pansy’s chasing an emotionally unavailable boy is relatable, and makes for a kind of story I’m interested in (and also contributes to why I believe she has self-esteem issues). However, I have mixed feelings about its canonical ending: on one hand, it’s infuriating; on the other, it’s an effectively moving tragedy.

I don’t like love triangles between a shining Refined Woman and an utterly contemptible Obnoxious Woman, and I tend to root for the latter. I don’t see myself in the glass slippers of the victor; I get horrified at the nightmare of being labelled a despicable failure and being replaced by some perfect, virtuous, better woman.

In Pansy’s specific case, it’s doubly frustrating, because there is some unrecognised good (or at least neutral) in her, and she is flawed in precisely the ways I connect with. Meanwhile, Astoria is much harder for me to like, since her main trait and sole reason to exist is “being better than Pansy” — as per the interview above, JKR was the first to define Drastoria by Pansy bashing.

Astoria is barely a character; she’s a mere tool in Pansy’s punishment and Draco's redemption, which is doing Astoria dirty, too. Astoria and Pansy are both scenery in Draco's journey — and it’s a bit rich that Pansy is the Corruption-upon-Styx from which he must distance himself, when his offences are greater than hers.

Another facet of Pansy’s punishment is that she couldn’t marry Draco because she shouldn’t be a mother.

Exaltation of motherhood is a huge theme in Harry Potter: the motherly love of Lily, Molly, and even Narcissa is a great force against evil. Plus, nearly all Light Side women either are (or become) mothers, or have a caretaking role as school teachers.

Being childfree, on the flipside, is stigmatised by its association with the worst female antagonists: Rita Skeeter and Umbridge, who are also hyperfeminine, and Bellatrix — the latter directly defeated by Molly's love for her daughter. The only exception is Petunia, yet another hyperfeminine antagonist, who represents a perversion of motherhood.

So, in this reactionary framework, of course Pansy was forbidden to have children. Childlessness is her burden for being an irredeemably bad woman, which in turn reinforces how bad a woman she is. Inversely, Astoria gets to be a mother because she is a good woman, and motherhood makes her even better (than Pansy).

Paradoxically, though, as much as I hate JKR’s approach to this whole thing, I’m glad my OTP Dransy isn’t canon endgame, because Pansy’s thoroughly whumped figure is even more compelling for it.

I can’t blame anyone if, even considering all this, Pansy is still not their cup of tea — after all, she was created to be as unpalatable as possible. But despite JKR’s efforts to convince me to hate character, everything about Pansy Parkinson ends up making her very much my cup of pink strawberry hot chocolate.

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