MSCL.com

the more i think about it, the more i've decided that patty is the most well-developed character on mscl. this is not to say that others are not complete, or well-portrayed, but rather that patty's character is just so thouroughly done. part of this, of course, is that she's older than the teenagers, and thus the writers were able to add more little tidbits to her "history" that give us an idea of the sort of person she is.
bess armstrong also does a brilliant job of playing patty.
i guess i thought this was important to mention because patty gets so much criticism.
even in her most annoying, "nagging" moments, i can see the motivation in what she says or does. this was particularly apparent to me last night when i watched life of brian. my boyfriend was siding with graham throughout the wallpapering/signing up for cooking class conversations. i could not help see where patty was coming from, despite how pushy she was being.
as much as patty is sometimes such a princess (in dancing in the dark and the zit especially), she's also so much more of a practical, hard-headed realist than graham.
i know this is a bit of a non-sequiter, but LOB got me thinking....

I totally understand where Patty is coming from - Graham is a nice guy, a good parent, etc. but he is not aggressive unless he's wearing purple tights. Despite his list of "possible people to possibly call," Graham would have stewed in his indecision a lot longer if Patty hadn't signed him up for cooking classes. Just as Graham shows his love for his familly through food, this is one of the ways that Patty shows her love for Graham - by giving him the opportunity to pursue a lifelong dream. When Graham balks and reminds her that he wanted to go to a culinary institute, she reminds him, "But [classes] we can afford, so why are you closing your mind?" She realizes that even though a culinary institute is out of their budget, cooking classes are a place to start, and at the very least will provide Graham with a creative outlet. She's a resourceful one, that Patty! As she explains to Chuck, "Graham is at a turning point in his life." She wants to help Graham at this crucial point in his life because she knows that he sometimes has a problem getting motivated. She doesn't sign him up for cooking classes to be pushy or to dictate his future to him - she does it because she knows it's something he wants to do but might not attempt if left to his own devices. Graham was right when he said that Patty "just wants everyone to be happy." It's just that sometimes people interpret her actions as "control freak."

yeah - just like patty says, she's forced to be 'the mean one' all of the time. angela and danielle live in a structured environment and for the most part, patty did the structuring.
she knows graham, and likely this is not the first time he has slacked off when he needed to get something accomplished (the wallpaper proves this point)?
if patty hadn't signed graham up, would he ever have realized just how talented a chef he was?