Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to use the word “hate.” I was thus forced to create an alternative phrase and came up with “I dislike [it] to the utmost of my abilities.” So let me say this clearly: I dislike Betty and Veronica to the utmost of my abilities. I feel guilty admitting it; Archie and the gang are just so wholesome, so American, and in recent years I’ve even heard that Archie has developed a decidedly liberal bent, but when I was a child Archie’s main girls Betty and Veronica were the bane of my existence. I think most of us have guilty pleasures—embarrassing pastimes or pursuits that give us a tingly, happy feeling, but reading about the catfights and hijinks of Betty and Veronica was a guilty obsession that brought me no pleasure; instead these “best friends, worst enemies” only made this girl feel much, much worse. This is, of course, a very personal reaction, and I’m looking forward to reading Craig Yoe’s upcoming The Art of Betty and Veronica after abandoning the comic in high school. Perhaps I will be able to gain some distance and a better perspective on the iconic role the pair has played in American culture.
However, when leafing through some old issues of Betty and Veronica from the 1980s, I was immediately overcome with that same strong, repellent feeling from the past as I remembered that, in fact, Betty and Veronica are horrible. In saying this I mean no disrespect to Dan DeCarlo, an artist long associated with updating the look of Betty and Veronica, and well known for his stylized, sexy, and strangely wholesome female characters. Rather, it is the stories, the lives, and the characters of B & V that cause immediate distress. While others might praise the fact that Betty and Veronica remain best friends despite fighting over Archie continuously, I cannot help despising the triangle and the participants in the first place.
Teen magazines frequently asked the question: Are you a Betty or a Veronica? It was a question that I imagine led many girls to despair. I, myself, was certainly no Veronica. Oh yes, she’s gained a cult-like status as a take-charge, empowered female radiating self-confidence and verve, and the comic got a great deal of mileage gently mocking Veronica’s exorbitant wealth and privilege and her lack of real-world knowledge, yet in this playful teasing the stories also served to affirm the great gifts and pleasures of privilege. I had little of Veronica’s sass and grew up in a distinctly middle-class household, examining the riches of the Lodge mansion with a critical eye, all while feeling a sickening jealousy for the girl who had everything, well, except for the feckless Archie. Over and over, Veronica’s slapstick romantic battles with Betty brought out the worst in both, and I couldn’t help but wonder—this is all over Archie? The goofy redhead with the curious, pockmark freckles and crosshatched hair?
If Veronica represented the unattainable dream of confidence, poise, and affluence, Betty acted as I knew I should. As a fellow helpful tomboy who got good grades and tried to please my parents, Betty was more relatable to me. Still (and this likely says something about me), I disliked Betty even more than Veronica: her namby pambiness, her awful subservience, her generic prettiness, and that relentless good cheer. In her upbeat, serviceable wardrobe, Betty was unceasing resourceful, always lending a hand when Archie’s car broke down or Veronica needed help covering for one of her misdeeds. Yuck.
Veronica was downright mean, and Betty, well, she was a doormat. What was there for a little girl to emulate? What kept me dissecting the pages? I believe, if anything, it was Dan DeCarlo’s artistic style that kept me returning to the comic throughout my tween years, despite the queasy feeling the comics gave me. I scrutinized the two female leads intently, studying the perfect hourglass figures, the cutting edge fashions, the upturned noses and wide, perennially surprised eyes as templates for perfection in dark and light. Yet as time went on I slowly gave up the “realistic” teens, gravitating to the superheroes that seemed somehow more real than Betty and Veronica. Spiderman, Batman, Rogue, and Wolverine lived with fear and pain and shame, and yet there was a spark of greatness within them. Somehow, watching these troubled characters make their way, swinging and clawing and punching, felt much more comforting than viewing Betty and Veronica lounge and play on the manicured lawns of Riverdale. Thanks anyway, Archie, but I’ll take the X-Men any day. I guess I really do hate Betty and Veronica.
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Click here for the Anniversary Index of Hate.
“Thanks anyway, Archie, but I’ll take the X-Men any day. I guess I really do hate Betty and Veronica”
Ouch!
Yeah, AND the two provide the best example of the sort of drawing from templates that so many (male) artists indulge in: female characters who are visually virtually identical except for hair color and sometimes wardrobe.
i’ve always been a betty
I think Neil Gaiman had the right idea when he wrote angel/devil lesbian erotica and based the character designs off Betty and Veronica. Just get rid of Archie already!
Arguably Jamie Hernandez did something similar….though he went further and gave the women different body types too, of course….
That swimsuit gag is pretty good though.
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Slappy likes Midge best…then Slappy likes Big Ethel!
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I love !!!!!!!! Betty and Veronica. When I was little, I used to love to see their clothes, and they did cool things, and had fun. Good memories for me. I also read dc super hero comics.
Thought you might enjoy this read…
The new book, So Long Betty and Veronica, on Amazon. Or view, http://www.louferreri.com
While I agree that the dichotomous relationship of these two friends hinges on one being nasty and the other being a relative doormat, I don’t think I put too much stock into wanting to emulate either one of them when I was reading these comics as a child in the 1980s. Considering that I look more like Valerie of Josie fame than either of these girls, it may have created a distance that allowed for me to ignore their relationship in favor of enjoying these stories (as tepid as they were). This may be also why I enjoyed “The New Archies” from the 1980s where they introduced an African American female character (Nancy, who was not really appearing in the main Archie comics with the regularity with which she appears today), and I was just happy to have someone who looked like me appear in anything. It is a matter of finding something to hook into when popular culture left females, and females of color, decidedly absent. I gravitated towards as many female characters as possible, drawing me towards the females in G.I. Joe and Jem as something, anything that I could relate to as a child. Maybe it is because of my childhood lens that I have an appreciation of these characters that is decidedly different from the esteemed author’s opinion.
I would think that a more interesting source of conflict about B&V is to look at how Betty was treated like garbage in the 1960s. It was less a love triangle than it was a lesson in torture. Betty was punished for being too independent. She would fix Archie’s car, know exactly what the problem is, only to see him go off with Veronica, mocking Betty along the way. It is in these moments where my blood boils. Being stock characters is less of a problem when one considers how terribly Betty was treated, which is why I rejoiced when Betty not only got her own titled comic book, but she broke things off with Archie (albeit a bit temporarily; but now Betty has two alternatives to Archie, including Valerie’s younger brother).
While some had the luxury of reading superhero comics as an alternative, for those of us who only had Archie comics and newspaper strips to read as children I think that maybe the hatred of these characters may not be something that is shared by a lot of people. I still read Archie, and the girls are archetypes, but I think there are more substantial reasons to not like them than being the characters that they are.
Since this has been revived, I’ll note that Betty is not a doormat – that she is so utterly not a doormat that I doubt it’s possible to think she is unless you’ve decided to think so in advance – and refer any interested parties to the canonical text on the character: http://mightygodking.com/2009/06/03/it-puts-the-lotion-on-its-skin/
And this gloss on the same: http://zvbxrpl.blogspot.com/2009/07/update-betty-cooper-and-veronica-lodge.html
Oops! That first piece contains only half the story. Here’s the rest: http://mightygodking.com/2009/06/09/update-betty-cooper-still-insane/
If we are going with the argument that Betty is insane, we have to lay some of the blame on how Archie treats her. As I previously stated, there was a period where Betty could do nothing right. For example, there was a comic where Archie hired a guy to scare Veronica so that she would scream for help and he would rescue her (getting her to forget that she was upset with him over something). And because Betty overheard this plan after it was done, she assumed (wrongly) that Archie had hired a guy to do the same thing to her. She throws him to the ground, and Archie (who had just agreed to go out with her because she was going to tell Veronica about his scheme) dumps her for being a he-man. The comic ends with the unwitting guy asking what happened, with Betty saying “I jumped to conclusions and landed on you with both feet.” [And this happened a lot in the same spate of time where Betty is less crazy and more punished for being a self reliant girl who was, by extension, considered to not be feminine, predating the “Women’s Lib” period of Archie where anything that the girls did was dismissed with that pejorative term]
If Betty is insane (and there are moments where it very well may be the truth), then Archie helped to make her that way.
…and we are also forgetting that Veronica is far more violent, and has beaten Archie with books and attacks him whenever he does anything wrong. Betty is insane, but Veronica could have gotten arrested repeatedly for assault (as well as her father and the butler who have literally thrown Archie out on his ass whenever possible). One needs mental health, and the other needs to be in jail.
Blame? What’s to blame? Her insanity is glorious.
(re Veronica being maybe even crazier, that’s the point made in the second of the pieces to which I’ve linked.)
Just read So Long, Betty and Veronica. It brings the issue home, among other things. Best, the author.
Why do I feel like I’m missing something in this conversation? Other than making the point that I don’t think Betty is insane based on the number of volumes I’ve read where there are more examples of her being the dupe (or sweet, or smart, or whatever) than being crazy, I’m not sure what else to say. Once I read Lou Ferreri’s book, maybe I’ll understand what I am not getting here.
Kay, the concept of Betty and Veronica and crew, for me as a kid, become an evolution into feminest concerns. The slow evolution, and a wife who read the Second Sex aloud, insisting that I listen to every word, killed at long last, my Brooklyn learning about boy/girl relationships and who should sit in the front seat during dates. Clearly more complicated, but So Long, Betty and Veronica was written as a way of coming to terms with change and also to celebrate change. I’d love to hear from you should you read it. Thanks, Lou
Betty’s craziness was short lived and is just cute cartoon schtick for laughs. Veronica seems genuinely crazy.
Hey L. I’ve deleted that; this isn’t a place to periodically encourage folks to read your book, and not really a place for a conversation on it either.
The premise of the book is centered around a narrative of growing up under the influence of Betty and Veronica teen culture. Then growing past it. Nevertheless, you’re probably right to cut my crass promotional posts. Thanks, Lou