Who’s loving Riverdale? This Archie fangirl, that’s who.
My addiction with Archie comics started as a kid, probably around the 5th grade. My BFF was a new girl from Japan and her family kept a long row of Archie Comics on their basement bookshelves. I would spend hours at her house eating heaping bowls of sticky white rice and Ramen noodles while reading Laugh Digest and Betty and Veronica Double Issues up on her bed.
I was hooked for life.
Now I have my own long bookshelf of comics, many years old. My children read them and knowing my love for all things Archie bought me a hardback coffee table book for presentation. My oldest painted and decorated a chair with hundreds of cut out images (yes, I panicked for a moment thinking she had ruined my own comics. She promises she didn’t instead getting them used. *whew*) because again, in case you weren’t convinced; I love Archie.
Let’s get something straight: Even though I love these comics they aren’t without their flaws. In the modern world they’re certainly sexist. Chauvinistic. The girls can be petty and shallow. Greedy and gossipy. Veronica Lodge was a Mean Girl before Regina George was a blip on the screen of life. And Betty was a doormat who would drop everything for a boy who didn’t appreciate her.
The boys are horny little bastards with nothing but food, PG-Sex and sports on their minds. Reggie had the potential to be the football playing, star-quarterback date rapist we all fear and loathe. Moose was mocked publicly for his learning problem and used for nothing more than a win on the field. Jughead, in real life, would have been under the careful eye of school counselors, his lack of interest in anything but food and self-preservation a signal of narcissism.
And then there’s Archie.
Good old Archie.
You know what? I can’t bash him. I can’t because Archie is the bland popular kid no one can quite figure out why he’s popular. He’s nice. He’s clean. He doesn’t treat girls like dirt (although if he can get away with the two girls he can’t choose from, he’ll try it. He is after all, a boy.) He listens to his mother. He has a job. He’s well rounded in sports and activities. You do get the feeling though that conversation with him would be a downer unless you’re truly interested in hearing him talk about his music and the community college he’ll be attending after senior year.
Ouch.
Archie is simply average and we love him anyway because he’s the glue that binds the town and citizens of Riverdale together.
So what about this new show? Well, I admit it. I wasn’t that interested. I follow @archiecomics I’ve read their new stuff. I like it. I wanted to be hopeful but then again, I’ve been burned by book/comic adaptations before (*cough*twilight/shadowhunters/thefifthwaveblahblahblahblahblah) and I didn’t want them messing with my people in a way I couldn’t get past. But then, like all FanGirls it was important for me to at least give it a try. I mean, it’s basically my duty.
So what do I think?
I think I looooooove it. I mean, OHMYGOD I LOVE IT.
As a lover of good derivative fiction it’s perfection. Just perfection. It takes the newspaper thin characters we all love and digs a little deeper while placing them in an interesting, modern environment. All the good stuff is there: Pop’s. The Pussy Cats. The football team and Coach Clayton. But there’s enough of a twist to keep things interesting. Archie and Jughead are tense—their friendship having gone through some stress. Betty has an oppressive mother as well as a mentally unstable sister. Her love for Archie runs true but she doesn’t drop everything for him. In fact, she does the opposite, challenging him to be a better person. Veronic is the new girl and although she has a bit of bite, she doesn’t (so far) have the dark edge of mean girl they so easily could have given her. No, she’s a good friend to Betty, a champion of female empowerment and she’s not afraid to fight back against that sexist narrative that Archie writers know they need to destroy. They leave the backstabbing to Cheryl, with a complicated murder story making her power limited by a secret we all know she holds.
The women rule Riverdale…from the Mayor, to the illicit affair Ms. Grundy has with Archie, to Hermione Lodge furthering Lodge Industries while wearing a waitress uniform. Betty, Veronica and Cheryl dictate what is popular, trending and on the front page of the newspaper. The Pussy Cats have no time for Archie and his “music.”
And Archie?
Well he’s been given an upgrade (CW Style. I approve) and he’s no longer the bland redhead trying to earn enough money to impress Veronica or using Betty to fix his car so he can date another girl. He’s had a growth spurt (hella abs), a complicated romance (Taboo-Student/Teacher style), tension with his best friend and father, while proving early on he’s a liar, and a pretty good one at that.
For those of you who think it’s too different?
Good news! There’s seven million Archie Comics out there with flaws and all. Head to your local grocery store and pick one up! The rest of us will be over here gleefully watching this world get turned upside down.
Angel
