Patty (Peanuts)

Patty (not to be confused with Peppermint Patty, a different and later character Patty. from the same strip) is a female character from the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz. Her closest friend is Violet.

Although Patty always insults and mocks other people when she is with Violet, she is usually nice when she is without her meaner friend.

Abuse
An example shows Patty and Violet reciting a very mean-spirited poem, pointing out that "Boys are rotten filled with cotton" and that "Girls are dandy filled with candy!" They then walk away smugly, where Charlie Brown retaliates with the phrase, "Generalities!!!" Still another involves the two berating Charlie Brown (in front of Linus) about a wrong answer Charlie Brown gave to a teacher's question, both going so far as to call him "stupid" and then walking off laughing at him.

"We're having a party, and you're not invited!"

While Lucy's insults tend to be fairly blunt - calling Charlie Brown names like "blockhead" and making sarcastic remarks at his expense - Patty and Violet prefer to use social exclusion as their weapon, sometimes going to the extremes of making him feel like an outcast. This can be seen as a caricature of the "in crowd" that exists at many elementary and secondary schools - a lording of their own status over peers who are not members of the "in." For example, in one strip they invite him to join their "secret club," and then immediately reject him after he accepts. In an early Sunday strip, Patty and Violet put Charlie Brown and Shermy to work building a clubhouse for them, only to hang a "No Boys Allowed" sign on the clubhouse door after it is finished.[2]

On several other occasions, especially in the early years of the strip, Patty and Violet go out of their way - sometimes with unconcealed glee - to make sure Charlie Brown knows that they are throwing a party and he is not invited. However, Charlie Brown manages to get back at them on several occasions:

In one strip, when they mention excluding Charlie Brown from their party, he lets it roll off his back saying he does not want to go to their "dumb ol' party" anyway. After he leaves, they ponder whether he meant it. Violet is convinced he did, so Patty suggests "In that case, maybe we'd better invite him."[3] In another similar situation, he replies to them saying if they do not like him they are better off not inviting him. Stunned to silence, the girls simply walk away, with Charlie Brown smiling after them.

In the strip from September 1, from 1954, Charlie Brown uncharacteristically threatens to strafe, then bomb their house if he is not invited, to which both girls state "Okay, you're invited."[4] In another strip, he tells the girls that he does not care and runs off laughing, only to become disappointed at being rejected when he is out of sight from them.[5]