representation or a lack thereof

Riverdale’s Jughead Won’t Be Asexual Like He Is in the Comics

Riverdale. Photo: The CW

In recent years, the CW has taken considerable strides in bringing diverse and complex representation to TV. But, look, it’s still the CW, the biggest proponent of people’s faces touching other people’s faces and bra-on sex. So it’s disappointing but not altogether surprising that Riverdale, better known as the hot and dark Archie show, isn’t following the comics in the matter of Jughead Jones’s canon asexuality. Cole Sprouse, who’s bringing Juggy to moody, atmospheric life, revealed the news to Hollywood Life. “Jughead will have romances with women … and burgers,” he said. The portrayal of Jughead as a voracious heterosexual is one that Sprouse was reluctant to undertake: “I come from an educational environment that really praises, as do I, the forms of representation that are otherwise lacking in our public media,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I still had to do my job.” Still, since it’s entirely plausible that a high-school sophomore hasn’t yet figured out his sexuality, Sprouse is “fighting … pretty heavily” for asexuality to come into play for Jughead later on. He explained, “If season one is one of those events or something like that needs to happen in season one for Jughead to eventually realize that kind of narrative, I’d love to play with that too.” While we’re talking the adaptation game, giving the kid a more realistic metabolism wouldn’t hurt; this isn’t Gilmore Girls, after all.

Jughead Won’t Be Asexual on Riverdale