Reader, as you may be aware, I recently rewatched all four seasons of the best T.V. show ever made, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Every time I rewatch this show, I get new things out of it, but on this particular rewatch, I was drawn to how well the character of Paula develops and grows, from something fairly stereotypical, into something quite new and beautifully feminist. And thinking about this made me think, why not do a feminist spotlight on Paula?
I’ve visited Crazy Ex-Girlfriend for these spotlights a few times before. We’ve previously talked about both Rebecca and Valencia, two very different but equally feminist characters, and today, we’re going to talk about what is arguably the second lead character of the show, one Paula Proctor, and the way she grows from someone pretty unhealthy, to someone inspiring. I think Paula’s arc in particular is incredibly well-written, because it doesn’t follow the traditional journey for women in her age group on T.V., or the traditional arc for the best friend character (which is, no arc, usually). Paula defies those tropes, but to discuss how I’m going to need to put a spoiler warning in effect, and we’re going to go through, season by season, and discuss Paula’s journey, from the singing animal sidekick in Rebecca’s fantasy world, to a woman with a purpose and identity of her own.
If you haven’t seen Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, you should go watch it now, because spoilers are incoming 3, 2, 1…
“You’re My Best Friend (And I Know I’m Not Yours)”: Overcoming Unhealthy Tendencies in Season 1
When we first meet Paula, she’s a woman who is stuck and dissatisfied with her life in a myriad of ways. She’s working at a firm that, shall we say, lacks prestige, as a paralegal, rather than as a lawyer like she truly wants, with coworkers who are sublimely idiotic. Her marriage is stagnant, and her kids, well, as she says, her best hope for them is that “they get into a really good gang!” Although she’s a very intelligent woman, she doesn’t really believe it, and nothing in her life is giving her any satisfaction. In this context, it makes sense that she latches onto Rebecca, and in particular, Rebecca’s love life, as something that brings her joy. She is able to live out her romcom fantasies vicariously through Rebecca, and their friendship is initially based on this need to live through Rebecca. And if that’s the way that it remained, Paula would not be a very feminist character at all.
But, this being Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, things are a lot more nuanced than that, and this relationship is developed in two very important ways. First, the show is very aware from the beginning that the initial relationship Paula and Rebecca form is unhealthy. Paula is using it to avoid dealing with any of the real problems in her life, it’s incredibly one-sided, and Paula’s enabling and encouraging deeply unhealthy behaviour in Rebecca (who, frankly, didn’t need that much encouragement to begin with). Secondly, after acknowledging that this relationship started out unhealthily, the show begins to grow and develop it to something more real.
The fact is, both Rebecca and Paula need each other. For Rebecca, Paula offers the sort of supportive maternal love she’s never experienced, and for Paula, Rebecca offers a friendship that values Paula for the intelligent woman she is, not as a wife or a mother, but just as Paula. Eventually, that is. They need to realize that their collective obsession with Josh Chan is holding them back from a truly valuable relationship, and although there are some bumps along the way, the growth in their relationship coincides with growth in Paula’s character, as she starts to recognize that she needs to make changes in her life to be happy.
The first changes she makes are in her marriage. With Rebecca’s encouragement to face her problems head on, Paula and Scott embark on marriage counseling, which in turn leads Paula to realize that her husband is capable of being supportive of her if she’s willing to let him in. Once again, it’s Rebecca who’s the catalyst for this revelation, as Paula enlists Scott’s help in the great textmergency (textastrophe?) caper, and they start to grow closer again because of it.
The second change Paula needs to make (and it’s one she only begins to make in the first season), is realizing that Rebecca’s life isn’t there for her entertainment, and that she needs to step back and stop meddling if they’re going to have a true friendship. This is definitely something that takes a lot of time, but it’s realizing this that allows Paula to make her first major step in her character development, moving her out of the best friend trope, and into the role of a true best friend. There’s a reason the first season ends with Paula and Rebecca finding each other across a dance floor, and reaffirming how important they are to each other. From the beginning, their love story is the heart of the show, and it’s the growth of their relationship into a healthier place that starts Paula’s journey into becoming a better version of herself.
“Maybe This Dream”: Finding Purpose and Identity in Season 2
However, realizing that her obsession with Rebecca’s love life isn’t healthy is only the first step for Paula. The second step is finding something that gives her that amount of joy that is healthy, and that is the journey that she embarks on in season two when she applies to law school. This is a significant and important step for Paula’s development, as a person, and as a feminist character. This notion of finding something that brings you joy, that fulfills you (and that isn’t based on stalking), is somewhat central to the ethos of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and while it takes Rebecca four seasons to figure this out, Paula gets it in season two. She starts taking active steps to making her dreams come true, and moves from the passive state she was in when we first met her, to someone who’s actually trying to be happy.
In contrast to her stagnancy in the early days of the first season, Paula in this season is an active participant in her own destiny, making hard choices (such as the abortion storyline), calling Rebecca to task for her sometimes callous selfishness (see again, the abortion storyline), and making the decision to compromise and allow Scott back into her life after his brief fling with Tanya.
It’s at this point that Paula has taken the step from being an entertaining character, to being a feminist character. As I’ve repeated ad nauseum in this blog, a well-rounded character is a feminist character, and it’s the second season of that show that cements Paula’s status in that category. It’s not just that she’s become a complex woman, it’s that she’s become an active participant in her own life. Things happen because of choices she made, not because she’s sitting around, waiting for someone else to make decisions for her. This switch from passive to active is the arc of Paula in season two, and it’s the next step in her journey towards full empowerment.
“Face Your Fears”: Traveling from Codependency to Accountability to Season 3
In season three, Paula’s relationship with Rebecca once again takes centre stage. However, unlike in the first season, this time around, the growth is less about Paula learning to follow boundaries, and more about Rebecca learning to take accountability. Sure, there is the occasional episode where Paula backslides (another common theme on this show), and where her and Rebecca realize that their friendship needs to be more equal, and that Rebecca needs to support Paula, rather than Paula always supporting Rebecca; these moments aside, however, season three is less about Paula and more about Rebecca.
The fact is, after all the work that Paula has done on herself, moving away from unhealthy behaviours and becoming an active participant in her life, has meant that she has evolved past where Rebecca is, who, if you recall, hits absolute rock bottom midway through the season. So, the next step in Paula’s journey is learning that, as much as she may love Rebecca, she needs to set boundaries of her own, or otherwise, Rebecca will pull her back down to her level (which is exactly what happens in “Trent?!”). In some ways, this is one of the hardest things Paula has to do, because for all the stalking they engage in and all the many ways they are quite codependent, the relationship between Paula and Rebecca is extremely loving, and it is the beating heart of the show. So, as a viewer, and for them both, when they’re separated, it’s painful.
Nevertheless, Paula has to do what she has to do, and she stops engaging with Rebecca’s shenanigans, and when she finds out the depths that Rebecca has sunk to, she makes the excruciating choice to cut her off until Rebecca properly takes accountability. Which, of course, Rebecca finally does, and the season ends again with Rebecca and Paula reaffirming their relationship, having moved past their codependency into something far healthier, once again, because Paula evolved and learned to set boundaries.
“I’ve Always Never Believed In You”: Spending Season 4 achieving goals, gaining support, and putting it all together
And finally, we get season 4 and the culmination of Paula’s arc. At this point, Paula has evolved into a strong, active, feminist character, and she’s reached the point where her dreams are starting to come true. But there’s still a few things left that she needs to learn. The first is that she needs to learn to value her children and her family as independent and evolved individuals in their own right. After having spent so long seeing her children as “deadweight slowing down the minivan” (Paula is not the most attentive mother), Paula is finally able to see and appreciate them as they truly are, developing much stronger relationships with them both.
The second thing Paula needs to learn is faith in herself. Even after all the work she’s done on herself, all of the active choices to make herself healthier and to find happiness, Paula still can’t believe in herself. It takes some well-meant wake up calls from her husband, and from Josh, of all people, to make her realize this weakness and to keep her from self-sabotaging, which later gives her the confidence she needs to go out and get a job with a salary she deserves, and to advocate for herself and her pro bono work at that job.
And the final thing Paula needs to learn is that, despite the fact that she’s grown to be a strong and independent author of her own destiny, it’s okay to ask for help sometimes. Life doesn’t have to be that hard and she doesn’t have to walk around in pain. She has support all around her, from her husband, from Rebecca and her friends, even from her coworkers (even though they are still sublimely idiotic), she just has to know when to ask for it (preferably before you spent 48 hours walking around through a major heart attack).
And that’s where we leave Paula Proctor, Esquire. The bored bitter woman who hated everything about the life she’s passively sliding through has become a kick-ass lawyer, working for a prestigious firm and doing pro bono work that she loves, with a happy and fulfilling relationship with her husband, respect for her sons, and a loving and supportive girl group, with a surrogate daughter in Rebecca. Such a dramatic character arc only works with writers of the calibre of the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend creators, who are willing to make smart feminist choices that guide Paula along the journey of finding fulfillment and empowerment. Like Rebecca and Valencia before her, Paula is a feminist character through and through.
That’s all I’ve got for you today, you guys should let me know in the comments your thoughts on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, stay safe, and I’ll see you on Saturday.
Until the next time.
The Phantom of the Bookshelf 
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