if you told me in the year of our lord 2017 that i would find myself defending a fictional character’s heterosexuality, i would’ve laughed at you.
and yet, somehow, here i am. please, just listen.
if i thought asexuality was a core principle of the character of jughead jones, the way being gay is a core principle of character of kevin keller, i would be right there with you in your outrage. there has never been a version of kevin keller that isn’t gay, and there never should be. kevin keller was created to represent gay people. that’s one of his core principles, one of the pillars that he was built around. to remove that would be to violate the character, to change them irrevocably.
jughead jones was not created to represent asexual people. there have been multiple versions of jughead portrayed as straight or interested in girls. in the late 80s, there was a storyline portraying jughead’s love of food and dislike for romance as the result of a past heartbreak from a girl he had a crush on. in the 1990s alone, jughead had three girlfriends, one of which was one of archie’s descendents from the future (it was a weird time). as recently as 2014, jughead has been portrayed as married. one version has him married to ethel muggs, the other, to midge klump. in the (admittedly terrible) TV movie To Riverdale And Back Again, he was divorced and had a son. asexuality is not a core principle of his character.
that’s not to say that heterosexuality is. it isn’t. the core principle of jughead’s character, the reason he exists, is simply this: to contrast archie. that’s it. whatever a given version of archie is, the corresponding jughead must in some way be the opposite. digest!archie is girl-crazy, digest!jughead is girl-free. digest!archie rides the struggle bus, digest!jughead breezes through life on the easy-mode moped. digest!archie is a bit of an idiot, digest!jughead has high scores in both WIS and INT.
same with the more recent comics. comics!archie is a singularity of incompetence, a human-shaped whirlwind of chaos who does things so wrong that he sometimes breaks the rules of reality. comics!jughead, by constrast, seems to glide through everything with almost supernatural ease. once, while he was talking to archie outside during a rainstorm, archie asked him why he never gets wet or dirty.
in riverdale, things are a bit different, but in terms of jughead’s position in relation to archie, they are ever the same. rivderdale!archie is sweet and earnest, riverdale!jughead is sharp and sardonic. riverdale!archie is oblivious, riverdale!jughead is keen and observant. riverdale!archie is very much a lost boy, not knowing what he wants. riverdale!jughead has already found a strong sense of purpose–writing and investigating. their romantic relationships are an extension of those aspects; in the first season alone, riverdale!archie made out with three different girls, not counting grundy. riverdale!jughead, on the other hand, has only had eyes for one. the primary difference with these versions versus their print counterparts is a reversal of fortune; in riverdale, it’s archie who has it easy, whereas riverdale!jughead is constantly beset with struggles and setbacks.
riverdale!jughead is very much true to jughead’s core principle. so i think that asking for riverdale!jughead to be asexual, or getting upset and angry over the fact that he isn’t– both of these are missing the point. they are asking for too little. asexuality was tacked on as a footnote to the 2015 comic version of jughead, and tacked-on footnotes, as we have already seen, are easily removed.
what you should be asking for is a new character. a character for whom asexuality is a core principle. someone created just for you, to represent you. not a footnote on someone else’s history.
I love this analysis. It’s fair and well researched.