Since Riverdale’s release, there has seemed to be endless praise for it over social media, and it has created a whole lot of buzz. However, what you never seem to hear about is that fact that Riverdale is extremely problematic: think glorification of student-teacher affairs and statutory rape, queer-baiting to the extreme, and directors who refuse to acknowledge the problems they’ve created.
To begin with, Archie is only in high school: portrayed as a football player and talented musician, who is seemingly admired by an endless stream of girls. However, it is soon caught on that Miss Grundy – yes, one of the teachers at the school – has a thing for Archie. Grundy is a music teacher, and the storyline goes as follows: Archie needs help with his music, and, when one of his friends can’t help him, he turns to Miss Grundy for advice, and they begin a sexual relationship. As if this isn’t problematic enough, the show portrays this teacher-student relationship – which, by the way, is statutory rape – as a romantic affair. This isn’t some “forbidden” love, this is an inappropriate, and quite frankly disgusting, romanticization. Riverdale’s portrayal of this relationship as something “sexy” envelopes the major problem: rape is not romantic or something to be used as a ploy to draw in viewers, and should not be taken lightly.
In case this wasn’t enough, Riverdale has also decided to queer-bait. Betty and Veronica are shown in the trailers to be kissing, and naturally, people online were glad to have some form of queer representation. In order to shut down the rumors that were spiraling, Lili Reinhart (Betty) decided to speak out: but not in a good way. Lili said that “They’re soulmates but in a friends’ way. Our show is not meant to be fan fiction. We give them a taste of it when they kiss, but that’s all it is.” Understandably, people were outraged over the fact that queer representation was referred to as something only seen in fanfiction. Unfortunately, Lili didn’t stop there. She continued, saying “People love Beronica and they want to see them together, but that’s just not our show.” Maybe Lili could expand on what she means by ‘that’s just not our show,’ because, in combination with her previous comments, it doesn’t sound very pleasant. In fact, it sounds exactly like homophobic queer-baiting, in a sick attempt to rake in viewers.
Riverdale may be hyped up online at the moment for God knows what reason, but why support a show that romanticizes rape and queer-baits all in quick succession? Riverdale either needs to get its act together, or people need to realize that what they’re doing isn’t okay.
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