Shucks, why did they ginger up freckle face?
WHENEVER I have driven through the small Western Cape town of Riversdale in the past, I have chuckled fondly. It used to amuse me that its name was so similar to Riverdale, the idyllic American town where the Archie comics were set. But in future, when I motor through Riversdale, I shall hunch my shoulders and stare fixedly forward. For its fictional alter ego, turns out, is not what I thought at all.
My innocence has been shattered by the release of Riverdale, a new live-action US TV series loosely based on the Archie comics. Very loosely, as even a cursory viewing will reveal. For one thing, the series starts with the death of a Riverdale teenager. Death! In the Archie comics! It’s as if Garfield contracted feline Aids from hypodermic needle use. It’s as if Snoopy got rabies and had to be shot in the head on a dusty road.
I acknowledge that in the recent reboot of the Archie comics, the eponymous ginger hero himself dies — taking a bullet for his gay best friend. But I think we all know that fate is not remotely in keeping with the original 1940s spirit of the comic, and neither is the gay best friend.
Not much about the new TV version of Archie is recognisable from the comic’s early days. The main characters exist, but in much better-looking forms. They have experienced what the youth would call a “glow up”. The new Archie has abs the way the old Archie had freckles. Wholesome Betty has three piercings in each ear! Teacher Miss Grundy, previously an old battle-axe with a tight grey bun, is now a stone cold fox. Reader, I blush to type this, but honesty must prevail: Archie has had sexual congress with Miss Grundy! In a car! Steaming up the windows, Titanic-style!
It’s a bewildering new universe. The show has the feel of Gossip Girl meeting Gilmore Girls. Like the latter, it is peppered with cultural references — the first episode alone namedrops Toni Morrison, Truman Capote, Woody Allen, Mad Men and Beyoncé. Like the former, it is imbued with an atmosphere of lurking danger. Then again, so is high school, where most of the action is set.
The town of Riverdale, too, has moved with the times. It has Uber, which is probably more than you can say for the Western Cape version. It has white collar crime, too: brunette vixen Veronica’s father is in jail for fraud. With Archie’s parents separated too, happy families are thin on the ground. “Riverdale wasn’t the same town as before,” a tortured Jughead observes. “It was a town of shadows and secrets now.” I think I liked the old one better.