ARCHIE ANDREWS, MISOGYNIST?

It's my blog and I'll rant if I want to!

I usually comment on the featured topic before the article. This time, I'm leaving my less-than-restrained response until after. Read on, if you can take it, that is.

I used to love reading Archie comics as a kid, until I recognized the harm they’re doing
I was surprised that something I had been reading from such a young age was so offensive and I never even realized it.
By Mehvish Irshad | July 25, 2019 | The Tempest

I used to be a huge Archie Comics fan. I got it from my dad, who grew up reading a whole lot of comics about the Riverdale gang. There was a whole bunch of comics that he passed down to me and I devoured them. I read a lot of the content and didn’t think twice about much of it. Now though, I don’t read Archie Comics much anymore. The material feels dated to me.

The jokes in these comics are largely predictable. I’ve read Archie Comics dating back decades, thanks to my dad’s extensive collection. The sense of humor is by and large the same now as it was 50 years ago.

But something else has started bothering me in recent years. There seems to be a pattern of chauvinistic, sexist, toxic masculinity in them that’s being written off as funny. And I don’t know how that is still okay.

Some of the themes of Archie Comics leave me wanting to throw them out the window. Now I know this is a stronger reaction than a funny children’s comic is supposed to warrant, but I can’t believe these stories are still being written. Here are some of the themes that really need to stop:

1. Betty’s desperation to win Archie’s affection 
Something a lot of Betty’s stories revolve around is being a doormat for Archie. She’ll basically do anything it takes to get his attention. Fixing his car, helping him with homework, cooking for him, and helping him in any other way she possibly could, only to be casually thanked and then left behind for Veronica. And in the stories where Archie comes back to her in the end, it’s usually because Veronica rejected him. The only thing consistent is that she is never his first choice. And yet story after story we keep seeing her chasing after him.

2. Betty and Veronica are best friends, until Archie comes along
The competition between Betty and Veronica goes completely against the idea of them being best friends. There are stories where they are shown to be doing great things for each other, and then others where Veronica is being catty and putting Betty down and they’re having fights over Archie. And these are best friends? You can’t portray girls acting like this anymore. And there are often stories that will end with them declaring that no matter what either of them achieves, winning Archie’s affection is the only “real prize” that matters.

3. Archie lets two girls openly fight over him while still dating other girls
This main character is an open playboy. He knows that there are two girls who are best friends that are constantly fighting for him; he lets it happen without trying to stop it and still goes around drooling over any girl he can and dating anyone that would date him. And yet he is still supposed to be the adorable nice guy.

4. There are often sexist comments and these are sometimes the whole punchline
The male characters very often make sexist comments about girls, often insulting women who don’t look like Barbie dolls, and hold old-fashioned gender stereotypes and ideas. The story will rarely do anything to change this.

I honestly don’t see how this comic book series is still going and who is letting this go unchecked. This is a pretty famous series. They should use fame to educate, not insult. I promise you that your current readers are going to appreciate it, because I for one do not want to keep picking up comic books that I used to love and keep getting offended by sexist punchlines and chauvinistic attitudes that would do better to be left behind in the 40’s.

Comic books, especially iconic ones, need to do better. Spread healthy ideas about friendships and relationships. In this day and age they still write about fighting over boys, letting a guy use you or valuing a guy more than your friend, and continue to draw girls with one body type unless they’re being made fun of or being shown as unattractive.

A lot of their readers are teenagers and if you portray teenagers behaving this way without any hesitation, you will either raise a readership that grows up thinking these toxic behaviors are how things are supposed to be, or male chauvinists who chuckle at these jokes wishing that’s how things were.

Or in my case, you’ll lose faithful readers altogether.

[SOURCE CREDIT: TheTempest.co.]

Okay, where do I start?

Revisionists attempting to re-shape the fabric of society isn't anything new, and this blog post puts yet another thread on the needle. Frankly, I'm really getting tired of people attempting to tear down institutions (like Archie Comics) just because it doesn't quite fit their world view. 

So, doesn't the author think this is still going on in the "real world" -- two girls fighting for the same guy? All you have to do is listen in on any group of girls or boys (labels intended) and you'll see that it's the same old sex war that was going on back then. Do you have any idea of how boys still think of girls, or vice versa? Have you heard the popular term, "sexting"? The bottom line, if it weren't for all these non-PC situations, these comics would fall flat as a board and nobody'd read 'em, if you had your way.

How about Peter Parker -- are you going to go after him because he was brought up by his kindly and protective aunt? And how about his "father figure", J. Jonah Jameson -- is a cantankerous, loud-mouth, cigar-chomping stinkwad okay in your Utopian Comic World? Oh, sorry, the fatherless family is acceptable these days because, a) there are tens of thousands of family like this, and b) it has become socially acceptable when it wasn't 50 years ago. I might also add that Marvel introduced comic-reading children and young adults to the gender-bending story lines of a gay Rawhide Kid and the myth-destroying female Thor -- are these acceptable exceptions?

This original art by Dan DeCarlo for HUMORAMA in 1956  with a character that looks he he could be Archie's father shows that he was creating male chauvinist "good girl" art at the same time he was working for Archie. Shame on him! 

I'm surprised that the author didn't also assert that Dan DeCarlo, one of the early Archie cartoonists, was responsible for the tone of the comics because he was a notorious "good girl" pin-up artist!

I could go on, but you get the picture, so I won't. My best suggestion for the author is not to look to comic books for relationship guidance. Comics are not the platform for learning how to act socially, anyway; as a matter of fact, I can't remember a time when they were (anybody remember pre-code crime comics?).

In the meantime, I guess I'll just be one of those toxically masculine, male chauvinists still chuckling at the jokes in Archie Comics and wondering all the while what the hell has happened to the world.

Is it too late to pass out the barf bags?