Today on ComicsAlliance, I use the upcoming Archie #608 to launch into a brief discussion of the history of interracial dating and non-white characters in Archie Comics.
It’s entirely possible that this is only of interest to me (and that I am, in fact, the only one who thinks about Archie this much), but there’s one thing that ended up being left out of the finished article, and that’s the double standard between boys and girls when it comes to interracial dating. Though there’ll never be a story where Archie marries anyone but Betty or Veronica, which I think has less to do with the fact that they’re white than with their status as the Classic Love Interests, he’s always seen hitting on other girls. He certainly had an interest in Kimiko, his new Japanese-American classmate, after all.
The boys, however–and as I said in the article, this plays into the classic racist fears of miscegenation leading to the dilution of racial purity–tend to “stick with their own kind,” as the old saying goes. I’m sure there are probably a few exceptions, but in the majority of the stories, it’s like an unspoken agreement at Riverdale High that Chuck needs to be with Nancy, Frankie Valdez needs to be paired with Maria, and… Well, other than Raj Patel, that’s pretty much all the male minority population, and he hasn’t had time to garner a love interest yet.
It’s a clear double-standard that sets up women as objects that need to be protected and men as conquerors, but the minute I start writing that, it becomes a Whole Big Thing, and Laura told me I’d already hit my mandatory Treatment of Women in Comics quota for this month. So please, enjoy the article, and I’ll keep obsessing over the comics that they keep next to Nutter Butters at Bi-Lo.
I know I shouldn’t be asking this at this point, but after reading the essay, I can’t help but wonder…
What kind of insane, time-traveling Moon People are producing Archie Comics? Or are they all just 265 years old? They still can’t wrap their brains around the idea of racial equality? Black men kissing white women is still taboo in their universe?
Of course, that begs the question: what kind of insane, time-traveling, possibly 265 year old Moon People are they producing Archie Comics for?
(Mr. Sims is obviously not included in this group, for his love of Archie is clearly anthropological only. I think. Dear god, I hope it is.)
Update: I decided to do a little sleuthing to find out just who exactly is in charge of Archie Comics, mostly to confirm that they are not in fact alien robots of some kind. My first stop, naturally, was Archiecomics.com.
Suffice it to say, the term “baby’s first website” doesn’t do the Comic Sans justice. Numerous links don’t work at all, and many of them lead to pages that have nothing to do with what they’re supposed to be about.
So I can’t tell if the people who produce Archie are not human. But…probably not.
Ferro Lad happened in the 60s and I always thought it was shameful that a “whitewashing” incident happened that recently.
It’s been well established for several years now that the Archie newspaper strip is produced by the Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000, or AJGLU 3000 for short. And the Manga Sabrina was authentically awesome to the point I have no idea how the hell it came from Archie Comics. I have no idea what’s going on with the rest of their comics, though.
I struggle to see how McDuffie could have possibly created a believable new character, one whom doesn’t benefit from years of established in character incompetence, who wasn’t more accomplished than Archie. I mean Archie’s pretty much crap at everything except picking up, right? (granted, that’s a vitally important skill but still). I mean, there’s only so much a writer can do within a property.
But, in all seriousness, the racism required for the editor to then had no problem with the character once he was `white-washed’ is too hard to comprehend. My Grandfather was mix-raced (which means I am too, but with a much higher % of various `whiteness’ to the point where I’ve never experienced any such prejudice from the white society I live in) and I’ve heard some stories from other family members, but every-time I think I’ve got a handle on what life can be like for a member of a minority I hear a story like that and just go, `what the fuck? Really?’.
So it’s great to see some sign of improvement on the cover of one of the worlds most prominently displayed comic books.
Eric: The guy who writes the Sonic comics is a Verified Internet Denizen, so those are pretty sweet at the moment as well.
That McDuffie story is interesting, not just for the insight into Archie Comics editorial, but because McDuffie more or less directly addressed that “What is he, Super-Negro?” sentiment on his run on FF, when Susan asks why people feel so threatened by Black Panther’s accomplishments. Now, I stopped following Black Panther when Priest introduced that idiotic Poochie-with-dialogue-by-Tarantino sidekick, so the first thing I knew about any of this was when T’Challa threw Silver Surfer into an armbar and I have to admit, that seemed stupid at the time. But as I pieced the backstory together, a lot of the actual criticisms that were being made about the character had the distinct flavor of “it’s impossible for a black guy to become that accomplished.” Or that the fact that they had stopped writing him as a low-rent Captain America and started writing him as a heroic Dr. Doom was some kind of affirmative action scheme.
I think the Silver Surfer thing is hilarious now, because I’m pretty sure McDuffie was just trying to piss his detractors off, a la Garth Ennis’s usual treatment of superheros. But the parallels to that Archie anecdote are really interesting.
Getting back on track talking about Archie, I’ve gotta think that if that issue doesn’t see a bump in sales, someone’s going to use it as an excuse to keep things the way they’ve always been.
The Archie double standard you mention (interracial dating being more acceptable if the “non-white” member is the female) was of course the *real-life* American double standard until a few decades ago.
Not at all. I am all about miscegenation, and reading about racial politics in popular media.
I always thought Archie comics were all written sometime in the 1950s and ‘new issues’ are simply retrieved from buried time capsules, then inked and colored.
Good one, Alan.
Jonathan Badger: You’re right, but even “white guy/non-white woman” was controversial not too long ago. If I recall my Trek lore correctly, when Kirk and Uhura had the first interracial kiss on TV, some redneck wrote in saying he’d have had a problem with it if it had been anyone other than James T. Kirk making out with her.
Let’s see… It’s 2010 and Archie comics are still working through the matter of interracial dating…
So, if my calculations are correct, it’ll be the August, 2062 issue that features Betty kissing Veronica on the cover (with the story inside being that they FINALLY got tired of waiting for Archie to make up his mind).
Actually, correction: it’ll be Veronica kissing Betty.
You’re not alone in thinking there’s a double standard, Chris, but the difficulty in bringing it to light is that you automatically open yourself up to accusations of specific readings/viewings of the material. I remember they made a big deal of Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager being the first black Vulcan – who was coincidentally married to the ONLY OTHER black vulcan we’d ever seen. Before that, DS9 had a black lead actor who not only wasn’t allowed to cut his hair because audiences might find his look ‘threatening’, but he also played a character who, despite living in an infinite universe of women coloured green, red, purple etc only ever seemed to hook up with those who lived near their planet’s equator, which is an oddly specific statistical blip. There were exceptions to his dating habits, of course, but it was probably not helpful that the white chicks he hooked up with were either evil and their miscegenation – like their bisexuality – was portrayed as part of their immoral character, or they were under the influence of space-hypnosis that made them do things they normally wouldn’t – like consider dating a decent, honest, hard-working and heroic guy because of the color of his skin.
Of course, this is Voyager and DS9 we’re talking about and nobody actually watched those, so the damage they were doing was negligible.
And it will be 3062 by the time the cover features Archie kissing Jughead.
I love the discreetly placed Chastity Guitars.
Good article, Chris. I agree that there’s a double standard in place, and we won’t be seeing Clayton kissing Betty or Melody on any Archie covers any time soon, but every little step forward still counts.
By the way, you really need to do an “In the Core Archie Universe…” article some time. ;-)
Er, I think you’ll find most people watched DS9 and loved it.
Yeah, DS9 was easily the best Trek series. Hands down, leaps and bounds, etc.
“I struggle to see how McDuffie could have possibly created a believable new character, one whom doesn’t benefit from years of established in character incompetence, who wasn’t more accomplished than Archie”
Ah, mild correction, it wasn’t McDuffie working on the book, he just related the story. Matt Wayne wrote it.
“Now, I stopped following Black Panther when Priest introduced that idiotic Poochie-with-dialogue-by-Tarantino sidekick”
You’re not talking about Everett K Ross, are you, the bloke who appeared in the first issue of Priest’s run, are you? Because it’d be odd if you stopped following T’Challa when he first became worth following.
Er, I think you’ll find most people watched DS9
Most people? Like, at least 51% of the population of Earth? Because I’m going to call that dubious statistics, kiddo.
I like the d-bag in the comments over there who questioned the relevancy of the article. My eight year old daughter reads Archie comics, making anything happening in the Archies a crapload more important in my life than anything else in comics.
Racial equality is all well and good, but my question is, when will we get an Archie cover with a little tongue action? Look at that so-called “kiss”. Plainly Archie and Valerie are both Eskimo, rendering any objections about interracial dating moot.
The Dwayne McDuffie story is kinda scary, since it was 1992! I mean, did people even stll say negro back then, or perhaps this was a very OLD racist editor?
No Spike Lee jokes thus far? I’m impressed
Peter Says:
And it will be 3062 by the time the cover features Archie kissing Jughead.
Well, duh: lesbianism is kind of sexy, but displays of male homosexuality are just gross.
Kidding! Kidding!
Actually, they’re both gross. THUNK! THUD!
Hmm. Last post cut off the punchline:
As he recovered from the concussion caused by being hit in the head by a One More Day tie-in Joe Quesada commemorative bust hurled with some velocity, Scott had time to rue at length his inability to avoid making really obvious wisecracks (as well as his inability to avoid One More Day tie-in Joe Quesada commemorative busts).
You’re not talking about Everett K Ross, are you, the bloke who appeared in the first issue of Priest’s run, are you?
I’m glad you recognized him from my description.
Because it’d be odd if you stopped following T’Challa when he first became worth following.
That’s what everyone tells me. What can I say? I bought it for a few months because I was excited about the prospect of a BP ongoing, but that guy was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, and they didn’t show any signs of getting rid of him.
@stogoe/GQ: After TOS, DS9 is my favorite Trek show – but I’m not blind to its shortcomings, nor that it (alongside TNG and everything that followed) represents a sanitised and conservative vision of the future.
TOS, on the other hand, had a certain bull-headed charm in its simple belief that given time we’d all just put aside our differences and go find green women to fuck.
You know who actually reads Archie Comics? Kids. I think that makes it pretty important.
And yeah, I love DS9 to death, but the whole “Sisko can only date black women and their first date will always be him cooking them jambalaya” thing was really… yeah.
I always thought that Sikso should have hooked up with Dax. Does saying that make me a shipper since this is the internet?
Sisko did, but in an alternate universe.
Yeah, I know.
Believe me, *I* think about Archie comics as much as you do. Maybe even more. I was handed a family addiction to Archie comics and proudly took it and ran with it.
Reading back over my ’60s and ’70s Archies, I’ve been surprised about how subtly (and even, at time, not-so-subtly) progressive they actually are. You have The Gang protesting nukes and talking about how great peace and love are, and standing up for environmental issues, and questioning their parents’ 1950s-era beliefs, and rockin’ out wearing hippie clothes. Even with the PSAs against drugs and lack of any true “non-straight” character (and I don’t mean gay…although that, too), they still had an air of social awareness about them.
The later ones, though, more often than not get it wrong. I still vividly remember a story from a few years ago about Archie and Betty worrying over Jughead getting into the “punk” crowd. And of course in the ’80s they had to suddenly make Jughead a womanizer, since a teenage boy who doesn’t like girls might be considered (*gasp*) homosexual.
So the Josie/Archie kiss cover *is* a huge step in the right direction for Archie, especially the “modern-day” Archie.
OK, now I officially think about Archie waaaay too much.
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Also, I didn’t mean for that to come off as snarky and defensive, haha. I’m not challenging how much you think about Archie. I’m just super-stoked that someone else shares the same interest in them.
I didn’t know that Dwayne McDuffie was black :O
He sounds black!
You and the guys at MGK should do an Archie-off. That sounds less disturbing in my head.