Donna Pinciotti - Character & Personality

Character & Personality

Donna resides in the fictional Wisconsin town of Point Place, where she lives with her parents, Midge and Bob Pinciotti. Early in the series, her younger sister, 14-year-old Tina (played by Amanda Fuller), appears in the episode "Eric's Burger Job" but is never seen again, nor do other characters mention her after the first season. At the end of the season 2 episode "Vanstock," this is made fun of when a narrator asks "Whatever happened to Midge's other daughter, Tina?" Donna also had an older sister, Valerie Pinciotti ("Eric's Birthday"). She apparently was in college as revealed by Midge. As Eric is turning 17, Midge shows Kitty a book of poems that helped her "when Valerie went off to school". These are examples of "Chuck Cunningham Syndrome" (see Happy Days). Donna also mentions having an uncle Carmine in Hoboken, New Jersey, who she hints is in the Mafia.

An intelligent, witty teenager with feminist ideals, Donna is outwardly confident and strong, at times to the point of coming across as arrogant, self-righteous, and overconfident. She calls upon these personal qualities to deal with her personal issues, such as her parents' shaky relationship, and the revelation that they conceived her while in high school. She believes that she's had it the hardest out of the gang until Hyde is revealed to have faced most of these problems and not once complained. The characteristics and physical appearance of Donna Pinciotti were actually based on a girl who grew up in the same neighborhood as one of the writers in Miami, Florida named Dana Brown.

Though despite her overly confident attitude, she herself has her own insecurities such as her big feet, her parents' screwed up marriage, and her trust in her relationship with Eric. A prime example of this is in the episode "Eric's Panties." Eric has an attractive girl as his lab partner who has a reputation of being a slut. At first, Donna doesn't really care but she finds panties in his car and genuinely believes that Eric cheated on her. She shows a completely insecure side of herself and is more than prepared to hurt him. They are later revealed to be Midge's panties from when she and Bob had sex in Eric's car.

She has some difficulty expressing her feminine side, because she views traditional feminine traits as restraining and outdated. She dislikes skirts, makeup, and dresses, and insists on wearing jeans at all times, but she will dress nice for special occasions and tried "being pretty" for her prom and for a trip to a nightclub, where the bouncer judged her "foxy". As another exception, after her wedding with Eric was called off, she decided to change her looks and dyed her hair blonde. Jackie Burkhart repeatedly calls Donna a "lumberjack" and a "giant", due to her penchant for plaid shirts and her tall stature. She even described Donna by saying " nice and all, but she kinda dresses like a trucker". She also teases Donna for her gargantuan feet, calling her "bigfoot" and saying things like Donna's shoes are big enough for Jackie to fit her own shoes into.

Nonetheless, Donna still considers herself feminine, at times becoming insulted when people overlook it. When Kitty Forman needed two people with a "feminine touch" to decorate for Hyde's birthday party, she chose Jackie and Fez. An angry Donna wanted to "kick her ass" for that, insisting "What the hell? I'm feminine! Damnit, why can't anybody freakin see that?!" This suggests that while Donna takes pride in her feminist beliefs, she still considers herself feminine, and simply doesn't want to restrict herself to "girly" activities. In several episodes, she is flattered at being perceived as an object of desire, especially when she becomes "Hot Donna" at a radio station.

Jackie appoints herself as Donna's best friend in the early seasons, often giving her advice that sounds superficial and useless, but often turns out to be unnervingly true. For example, in the Battle of the Sexists episode, Jackie states to Donna that "Eric would never want her to be his girlfriend if she kept beating him at everything, especially sports". Jackie genuinely thinks that she's better looking than Donna, ever since their first meeting in junior high, and that Donna is generally not attractive or interesting, yet still thinks Donna could do better than Eric. When angry or annoyed at Donna, Jackie will often refer to her as a "giant" or "Amazon"; when Donna goes blonde, she calls her "blonde tardo". Despite their differences, Donna eventually accepts Jackie and decides to keep an eye on her and keep her out of trouble, since Jackie doesn't always show the best common sense, and on more than one occasion, Donna has ridiculed Jackie for her stupidity and small stature, calling her a "midget" or "mosquito".

All five of the boys have harbored sexual feelings toward the attractive Donna. In addition to Eric, three of the others attempted to sleep with her (Kelso attempted to seduce her after a roller disco, Hyde at Jackie's ski-cabin, and Fez impersonating Eric in a Stormtrooper outfit—none of these attempts were successful) and four having romantic interest in her (Eric, Hyde, Casey, and Randy).

Despite many of the guys' obvious attraction to her, she only dated two of the main characters, with Jackie having the most boyfriends within the primary cast. Donna was with Eric for six seasons, and she was hoping they could been together, but as she says herself: "It was all Eric's fault for taking that stupid job".

In the episode "Good Company", it is revealed through context that Donna's birthday is sometime in January.