Bonnie Rockwaller

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Bonnie Rockwaller
File:Bonnie (Kim Possible).png
Bonnie Rockwaller
First appearanceCrush
Created byMark McCorkle,
Bob Schooley
Portrayed byKirsten Storms,
Kelly Ripa
In-universe information
NicknameB
Bon-Bon
FamilyConnie and Lonnie (Older Sisters), Mrs. Rockwaller (Mother)

Bonnie Rockwaller is a bossy and abrasive cheerleader from Disney's animated television series Kim Possible.

First introduced as a rival to the show's titular character, Bonnie debuted in the opening episode in June 2002,[1] and was last seen in the season 3 finale.[2] She is scheduled to appear in a 4th season where her rivalry with Kim will be taken to a new level.[3]

Bonnie is one of the show's most active background characters. She usually serves as a McGuffin device to allow a smooth lead in for the episode's primary plot, or as the instigator for sub plots revolving around peer pressure and the difficulties that Kim experiences balancing her home/school life with her missions.[4][5][2] She co-stared alongside Kim in one episode,[6] and indirectly became a genuine villain in another after she was accidentally cloned by Dr. Drakken.[7]

Bonnie's background has the most exposure of any secondary character.[6]

Bonnie is is voiced by Kirsten Storms. In the three part feature Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time, a 20-years-older version of Bonnie is voiced by Kelly Ripa.[8]

Bonnie Rockwaller

Like Kim, Bonnie is a cheerleader. Unlike Kim, Bonnie is quite snobbish, petty, shallow, selfish, and mean-spirited, even though she seems to like Mrs. Dr. Possible and is fairly neutral towards Monique. She had an on-and-off relationship with the school's dim-witted quarterback Brick Flagg until he graduated. In line with traditional high school stereotypes, her looks and position on the cheersquad mean that she remains one of the most popular students despite her unfriendly demeanor.

Personality

In many ways Bonnie is a typical fictional cheerleader. She is confident, assertive, highly competitive, and is aware of her own ability to succeed. In this way, she has many of the same basic personality traits as Kim.[9][5] However, the two characters diverge significantly once you get beyond these points.

While Kim's drive to succeed usually - though not always - comes from internal motivations; primarily the desire to meet her own high standards, Bonnie is driven by a desire to be adulated by others, even if she personally dislikes them. To this end, she likes to steal the spotlight, does not engage in thankless tasks if she can possibly avoid them, and she sees a victory gained by subterfuge as being the same as an honest victory if the end result is the same. [9][5]

Although Bonnie is highly image conscious, she has a forceful personality that typically leads her to be a source of peer pressure for other characters, and a dictator of local fashions. This comes in contrast to Kim, who is highly susceptible to peer pressure, and tends to follow, rather than set, trends. A fact which is often used as the premise for elements of the Bonnie-Kim rivalry.[10][8][5] Another key difference between Bonnie and Kim is the way in which she acts when faced with a challenge that she is uncertain about. If Bonnie does not believe that she can overcome a challenge, she will often try to avoid it. Preferring to be seen as uninterested rather than risk being seen to lose. Commonly she achieves this by dismissing either the challenge or the challenger as being beneath her. This, combined with her assertiveness, gives her a very abrasive personality and means that she had a tendency to put others down as a means of self gratification. [8][9][5]

Bonnie also has a problem taking direction from others;teachers and students alike, especially from Kim as captain of the cheer squad. However, whenever she does gain a position of leadership she does not hold on to it for very long because of her aversion to the work involved. [5] As well, Bonnie shows a pattern of being incapable, or unwilling, to learn from her own mistakes, or to change any of her misjudgements of Kim and Ron, even after acknowledging herself in the wrong.

Despite her flaws, Bonnie has been shown to be surprisingly together and resourceful at times, and is among the least likely of the shows cast to panic over serious issues (though the same cannot always be said over trivial matters) and, although never depicted as being particularly brave, she is also not a coward. Her usual reaction to a dangerous situation, or to a threatening individual, is to show contempt rather than fear.[11][6]

Rivalry

File:Kim and Bonnie.png
Kim and Bonnie

One of the running themes of the Kim Possible franchise has been the ongoing, and fairly bitter, rivalry between Bonnie and Kim. Both are highly competitive, though for different reasons, and both compete ferociously not to be outdone by the other. Something which is not only true when they are pitted against one another, but even when they are on the same side.[5][9]

The roots of this rivalry are known to go back several years, even before Kim supplanted Bonnie as the head of the cheers squad. The earliest depiction of the antagonism between the two was during the second part of A Sitch in Time, when it is revealed that Bonnie's younger self assigned Kim a Cheer squad tryout routine that was supposed to be impossible to complete successfully.[8] At the time, the rivalry appeared to be one sided, with Kim's younger self seemingly being oblivious to it but, by the time of the first series, feelings had become mutual.

From Bonnie's side, much of this rivalry can be put down to the fact that she often sees Kim as "overachieving on purpose" to make her look bad, and the belief that Kim is constantly lauding her successes over her. [4] This belief is, in part, born out by Kim's own admissions and is in line with her competitive personality), including times when Kim admits that she would rather risk humiliation than seeing Bonnie win, [12] and that her interest in a boy might purely be down to the fact that he asked Bonnie out.[13]

Despite the rivalry being mutual, in most instances Bonnie remains the villain of the piece, with Bonnie usually turning the force of peer pressure on Kim in an effort to humiliate or over-stretch her, or setting her up for a fall in some other way - such as by inviting her parents to chaperon a school trip in the knowledge that they will embarrass her,[14] ingratiating herself with Kim's parents (and later, her brothers) to annoy her,[15] or by pushing her to delegate extra-curricular activities knowing that this will encourage her to do the opposite[9][5] Although Kim has responded in kind to Bonnie's attacks in the past, such occasions are rare, though Kim always enjoys every occasion when Bonnie takes a tumble, as well as moments when her family have been the ones to retaliate against Bonnie.[14][16]

As the protagonist, rather than the antagonist, these rivalrous incidents usually end in Kim's favor. However, at times they have been mutually self destructive, with both Kim and Bonnie losing out.[9] While she is usually cast as being the bad guy, Bonnie has been known to bring out the worst in Kim, pushing her competitive nature and desire to succeed to unhealthy levels. These include incidents in which she has engaged in tit-for-tat revenge, or where Kim has felt driven to succeed purely to prevent Bonnie from doing so.[5][9] This doesn't seem to be the case in the rivalry between Kim and Shego, which is more driven by Kim's sense of justice.

Though present from the outset, Bonnie's rivalry with Kim increases somewhat in Season 4. Finding herself without a boyfriend (due to the graduation of Brick Flagg), Bonnie now belittles Kim's relationship with Ron at every turn, starting by attempting to convince Kim that, as a cheerleader, she should only date jocks. Oddly, this statement had a more predominate affect on Ron, and caused him to try out for the football team.

As part of their rivalry, Bonnie has used a variety of negative nicknames to refer to Kim, including "Tin Teeth" (during the time she wore braces) and "Miss Perfect". When speaking to Kim face to face, she typically calls her "K". (Similarly, Kim refers to Bonnie as "B".)[8]

Family

Sisters

File:Bonniesisters.jpg
Connie and Lonnie Rockwaller

Bonnie first mentions having older siblings in season 2, when she describes them as having won the Middleton High talent contest four years in a row, and having to live up to this family record. Her older sisters, Connie and Lonnie, were introduced in season 3. Both have personalities similar to Bonnie, and both constantly bully and belittle her, publicly questioning her worth and putting her down as being unintelligent and unattractive. Remarking to Kim (in turn) "I got all the brains... I got all the looks... and Bonnie got the rest!"[6] Bonnie shows a pained reaction to this - the only time she has shown any emotion other than contempt or contempt-victory - but then reacts to Kim's sympathy with anger immediately afterward.

Mother

File:Bonnie plus mother.png
Bonnie Rockwaller and Mrs. Rockwaller.

Bonnie's mother (voiced by Jo Anne Worley) was introduced in season 1. She was shown to have a very different personality from all her daughters, in that she lacked Bonnie's abrasive edge, and seemed genuinely friendly and gregarious.

Mrs. Rockwaller was also shown to be talkative and slightly over-protective of her daughter, and to seemingly be unaware of her Bonnie's cold attitude towards others.[14]

Bonnie's mother's nickname for her is "Bon-Bon".[14]

Alternate versions

Several alternate versions of Bonnie have been shown during the course of the series, including a clone version that was generically engineered to fight Kim, a younger version who tried to sabotage Kim's cheer squad tryouts by assigning her what she thought was an impossible routine, and a future version who worked as one of Shego's underlings. This future version was voiced by Kelly Ripa.

The Killer Bebe also nominally became versions of Bonnie when she was briefly used as the core of their Hive mind. Under Bonnie's influence, the Killer Bebe criticized Kim's wardrobe, and belittled her fashion sense, just like the real Bonnie.[4]

Trivia

  • Bonnie is an accomplished dancer, having had 12 years of high intensity ballet training.[12]
  • A deleted scene included in the DVD of So the Drama has Ron asking Kim why she doesn't physically fight back against Bonnie, since she always fights against evil. Kim replies that Bonnie wasn't sufficiently threatening to use force against, because she was only "high school evil", and because doing so might hurt her Permanent Record. [2]

References

  1. ^ Kim Possible, episode 1, Crush (7 June 2002)
  2. ^ a b c Kim Possible, episode 63-65, So the Drama (8 April 2005)
  3. ^ Kim Possible, episode 66, Ill-Suited (10 February 2007)
  4. ^ a b c Kim Possible, episode 35, Queen Bebe (19 December 2003)
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kim Possible, episode 7, Number One (12 July 2002)
  6. ^ a b c d Kim Possible, episode 54, Bonding (22 October 2004)
  7. ^ a b Kim Possible, episode 16, Kimitation Nation (15 November 2002)
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Kim Possible, A Sitch in Time (parts 1-3) (28 November 2003)
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Kim Possible, episode 40, Return to Camp Wannaweep (16 January 2004)
  10. ^ Kim Possible, episode 6, Bueno Nacho (28 June 2002)
  11. ^ Kim Possible, episode 2, Sink or Swim (7 June 2002)
  12. ^ a b Kim Possible, episode 36, Hidden Talent (2 January 2004)
  13. ^ Kim Possible, episode 43, The Truth Hurts (23 April 2004)
  14. ^ a b c d Kim Possible, episode 5, Downhill (21 June 2002) Cite error: The named reference "ep5" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  15. ^ Kim Possible, episode 28, Job Unfair (29 August 2003)
  16. ^ Kim Possible, episode 67, Car Alarm (17 February 2007)
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