#4 – Power Play | HappiMess Media

JANUARY 1984

The twins look about five seconds away from Frenching on this cover. Did anyone read this and not hate Jess’ guts by the end? It’s almost appalling how much of a pyschobitch she is, and yet she’s one of the heroines and thus we’re supposed to care about her. I think that’s what infuriates me the most—she’s a villain but we’re expected to root for her.

All right, so Robin Wilson is a little overweight, and by “overweight,” FP means morbidly, disgustingly obese to the point where she’s deserving of ridicule. Remember? How could it be forgotten? Francine Pascal/the ghostwriter reminds us of this fact every goddamn time Robin appears on the page and paints the girl as a total loser who is deserving of the fact that she has zero friends. I mean, she eats whole cheesecakes all by herself!

R.Wil’s weight completely repulses Jess, whom Robin has some kind of unfounded girl crush on. Liz feels sorry for Robin, especially when Mrs. Wilson calls the Wakefield residence and starts bawling about how her daughter sucks at life. Then Robin comes to the door to deliver Jess’ dry cleaning and stuff her face with a large chocolate bar and “rhythmically chew.” Even good ol’ kindhearted Liz thinks Robin’s a heffer. Anyway, Robin asks Liz to plzplzplz remind Jess to put her name up for Pi Beta Alpha membership since Jess “forgot to.” In truth, Jess doesn’t want Robin in PBA, the school’s “snobbiest sorority” (wait—“snobbiest”? Insinuating sorority in the plural? How was even one allowed?) because…well, she’s fat. Knowing her sister’s feelings toward Robin, Liz agrees to just nominate the poor girl herself.

Jess is determined to have Robin never step foot in PBA, so she makes the girl’s life a living hell by hazing her to humiliation. Let’s examine how Jess treats Robin, shall we?:

Shrinks in distaste when Robin hugs her
Calls her a “fat wimp,” “tub of lard,” “lardo,” “blimp,” “fatso” and “butterball,” and says she’s “surrounded by two tons of fat”
Has Robin run her errands
Holds a one-person “Olympics for Chubbos,” in which Robin is forced to run around the school’s track five times a day for a week wearing shorts and a tank top
Makes Robin play beach volleyball in a bikini
Tells Robin she needs to get Bruce Patman to take her to the Discomarathon (Another dance? :: DIES :: )

Liz bribes Bruce with promises of an article about his awesomeness in The Oracle as long as he takes Robin to the dance. However, Bruce then dumps and humiliates Robin at the Discomarathon by loudly asking everyone, “Anybody want to steer the Queen Mary around the floor tonight?” and walking out, much to Jess’s delight. Robin cries in the bathroom and attempts to run home, but Liz bumps into shy boy and photographer extraordinaire Allen Walters and sends him after Robin. Why him, I don’t know. Robin treats Allen like crap and then finally apologizes to him before saying all sorts of passive-aggressive things, and then they become BFFs right there in the parking lot. They go back in, have a dance, and blah blah.

However, even after Robin does everything that Jessica requests of her, Jess still blackballs her and then tells her, “I know you feel it leaves you out of everything worth having at Sweet Valley High, but I’ll still be your best friend.” HATE! Robin then proceeds to creep out Jess and the rest of PBA by walking around school like a zombie, wearing a circus tent/dress, and running around the track all the time, an act that causes her to lose about 50 pounds in about eight days. Since she’s no longer fat, Jess calls Robin “space cadet” and “deranged freak” instead.

Robin’s next act is to try out for cheerleading, and she’s made co-captain much to Jess’s dismay, and Bruce Patman is all up on R.Wil, aching to see her in her birthday suit. In fact, everyone wants to rub one off to Robin nowadays—the Chemistry Club even names their new formula “The Robin Reaction.” (So SVH is inventing fucking scientific formulas now?) She then wins the football queen/Miss Sweet Valley High or something, Jess shits her pants over it, and Robin and Allen Walters fall madly in love as Bruce Patman chauffeurs them around against his will in his Porsche. OMG HAPPY ENDING!

In a subplot, Lila Fowler’s daddy issues rise again! Now she’s pulling a Winona Ryder and shoplifting from Lisette’s for her father’s attention, which is supposed to be an upscale French boutique but is probably just a DEB. Liz sticks her nose in Lila’s beeswax like she does with everything else and tells Jess to stay away from Lila, to which Jess responds, “Why are you so hateful and mean to her?” YES. JESSICA WAKEFIELD SAID THAT.

Other Notes:

Liz is always bitching about how much she hates PBA. THEN QUIT! My God.
“No one dared to object to a friend of the Wakefield twins.” Um, okay, then how about someone just object to the twins themselves? I’ll go first.
During a typical PBA meeting, the members spend their time “chatting, checking their faces in compact mirrors, [and] brushing their hair.” For real real? And girls reading SVH aspired—hell, still aspire—to this? This must be tongue-in-cheek. PLEASE be tongue-in-cheek.
More obnoxiousness from Jessica! She’s super forthright with her boredom concerning her sister’s life: “How can I have a sister who always talks about crazy, impossible things like becoming a novelist? It’s more than I can stand!” Then she turns the focus back on her and how she wants to be the football queen, and attempts to persuade Liz to burn other contestants’ pictures for an Oracle write-up. She also proceeds to cry about how unfair it is that Robin’s running for the football queen, too, in spite of PBA “forbidding” anyone who isn’t a member to go out for the crown. Can she suck any more? Oh, yes, and she will, I promise you that.