“White characters get killed off more!”
“Hiram and Veronica have lots of screen time!”
“They’re not main characters so they don’t need screen time anyway!”
“White characters are criminals/villains too!!”
“Josie got her own show!1!1″
Those aren’t the point. The point is that every single non white character has either been written as a stereotype, or been mistreated/had no care put into their character.
Even Veronica can’t have a storyline that doesn’t revolve around a man.
A woman of colour who is one of the MAIN protagonists is still not given a storyline outside of her boyfriend or fighting with her father.
Toni has been the white sidekick for both Jughead and Cheryl.
Cheryl as a white character has been used as a tool to contribute not 1, not 2, but 5 black characters being mistreated whether it’s the storyline that wrote them out of the show, she stalked, falsely blamed for her stalking, or became her shadow despite being her love interest.
Jughead being the leader of the serpents would have been fine, yeah sure he’s a main character. But the rest of the characters other than his father and girlfriend are not white. And they’re just used as background characters who could have given the gang more depth and a more impactful storyline. Yes Sweet Pea and Fangs aren’t main, but their only storyline’s outside of being Jughead’s side kicks have been Fangs being falsely accused of murder and joining a cult that harvested one of his organs, and Sweet Pea and him murdering a man.
Betty had a mental break and tried to boil Chuck when all of his white peers inn the football team were also being sexist dicks too.
Asha and Hayley were written out without any explanation and didn’t have any way of knowing how to answer fans questions as to why, or when they would come back Valerie and Melody disappeared for no reason and with no explanation other than laziness and lack of care on the show’s part.
Josie did not get her own show. Riverdale didn’t want to give her an actual storyline so they wrote her onto Katy Keene, another show where the main character is a white woman and yeah maybe Josie has more of a main role, but downplaying what Riverdale did to her because she “got her own show” isn’t accurate. They used her to launch a spin off. She was the familiar face to make people watch.
It doesn’t matter how bad or how many white characters are also given shit storylines or are the villains, when every non white character has been mistreated by the writing and the show as a whole. Every single one.
The show should be accountable for every shitty thing they’ve done to all characters/actors we all saw how petty the writers are to their white guest stars, but if your automatic response when people criticise/point out the shit the show does to POC is to defend the white actors and characters…you’re missing the actual point which is ALL the POC involved in this show have been treated shitty, especially the black cast members.
