Is a jerk. Although, here's the reason I think she's a jerk: Project Runway needed a scapegoat. Wendy Pepper, being 20 years older than the rest of the contestants was the perfect "sickly sheep" and thus the contestants and the producers zeroed in on her to be the show's pariah.
Is she really a jerk? I don't think so. She doesn't seem to be that much of an ass. She's a relatively normal mother from Virginia, who probably owns some KoKopeli-esque store for middle-aged Virginia mothers that are in the mom-jeans stage, too old for miniskirts, too young for perma-press polyester pants - mothers who like their stores to smell like patchouli and their clothes to be baggy enough in the middle to hide those embarrassing bulges. Lots of batik designs and turquoise jewelry on leather cords.
Anyhoo, Wendy Pepper is boring. That's all she is. Yes, her hair stylist should be fired for giving her the Pepe Le Pew dyejob, and hacking her thin, brittle, and badly dyed hair into what I can only describe as a sad pile of dirty straw. Yes, she usually looks like she's eating an ear-wax shishkebab while standing in a sewage treatment plant. And yes, her designs are "dowdy." Dowdy, dowdy, dowdy, boring and crappy.
But those aren't reasons to hate her, really. In fact, I have this knee-jerk reaction to her, but I don't know what it's based on. She can't be
that bad. Shavonda? Huge bitch. Really annoying. That bad. Karamo? Angry black man. Crazy. Homophobic Homosexual. That bad. Wendy Pepper? Who cares.
Wendy Pepper is just reacting to the fact that everyone else hates her. They all talk about her "STRATEGY!" and that she "STEALS OTHER PEOPLE'S DESIGNS!" Eh. Whatever. So, one time her and Kara Saun made a dress that was basically the same color... it happens. Other than that, what's the big strategy? Being a freak and having everyone else hate you? Okay, so if her strategy was to become the pariah and make it to the final three because she knew the producers wouldn't let her be kicked off, then that's BRILLIANT! But c'mon. I doubt that was her strategy. Yes, undoubtedly, she should have been kicked off long ago. And yes, there's a large generational (and cultural) gap between her and the rest of the contestants. But poor Wendy Pepper. We all hate her but our reasons for hating her are thus: She's a bitch. But we can't articulate anything else that she does. Just that she's a bitch. With a really cute little daughter. Who is now sporting a Hitler moustache in her picture.
Kara Saun will win Project Runway, Jay McCarroll will still get contracts to become a big designer, and Wendy Pepper will have had her 20 minutes of fame, and will make a living of 60 grand per year (which I'm sure goes VERY far in Southern Virginia!) and will put this whole ordeal behind her. The end.
