Growing up, I would love reading comics lying around the house. One of the series I enjoyed most was Archie which is an American publication from the 1940's and its various spin offs such as Betty and Veronica and Jughead. I enjoyed the humorous characters present in the comics and looking back on it, I decided to reflect on some of the gender roles portrayed by them throughout.
Firstly the primary character is of course, Archie Andrews. He is a redheaded, freckly, lanky boy who manages to attract a variety of girls throughout the series despite the fact that he is not the bold, strong man that girls would stereotypically like. What is more is that he plays Rugby even with his less than fibrous physique and has a huge interest in cars that he cannot afford. His constant rival is Reggie Mantle; the boy who supposedly has got everything: athletic abilities, wealth and striking good looks. Reggie embodies the title of the perfect man and competes to win the affections of Veronica Lodge against Archie. There is always a sense of competition between the two but despite the fact that Reggie "has it all", he often loses to Archie when it comes to girls. This provides a different emerging insight regarding males that their physical attributes are not as important as their personality because while Archie is affectionate and sensitive, Reggie is arrogant and impervious automatically making Archie more favourable.
The two other main characters are Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge. Betty is the everyday girl who is willing to help whenever needed making Archie take her for granted as a result of that. This demonstrates that when a girl is too nice, men realize they will always have her around. She does all her work by herself and does not rely on anyone, however there is a dependency indicated by her struggle to find a boy and to impress Archie Andrews hence she is willing to do anything for him. In contrast, Veronica Lodge is the pampered, rich and beautiful girl who feels she can get anything she wants with money. She relies on her father Mr. Lodge to buy her everything she desires. She does not take responsibility and has hired people to do all her work for her unlike Betty Cooper. Veronica also strives to retain Archie's interest in her. As she is not very kind like Betty and has an unattainable aura about her, Archie clings on trying to "win" her. However her violent personality and desire to always be correct repels Archie frequently making him turn to Betty. Despite the girls' differing personalities, they develop a strong bond with each other and if it happens that Archie likes someone other than the both of them, they mutually gang up against her.The girls are also there for each other and act together as if they don't need a man, demonstrating a sort of feminism. In spite of that, they do contradict it when both of them are after Archie Andrews and have different schemes throughout the series to pursue him. Betty Cooper has a very polite tone to complement her personality whereas Veronica's language demonstrates vanity and complacence.
Another big character in the series is Jughead Jones. Although he is a male character, he has anti-masculine interests that men are not commonly associated with in society. For instance, he loves reading a bit too much, women don't draw his attention and he does not like sports unlike the other males in the series. Despite this, he is popular among both boys and girls. With his witty sense of humour, Jughead often outsmarts Reggie Mantle, the perfect boy.The writers may have used the character Jughead to open up the eyes of people in the 40's and to show that it is completely okay for men to not be restrained by typical male interests.
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