Why We Love Jughead Jones
Riverdale TV series fans are onto something
Why identify with a thin gangbanger weirdo teenage boy?
I’ve never in my life dressed up like a character in a movie to TV show, including childhood Halloweens. And I’ve never read any comic books, including the Archie comics that the series riffs off of. As a senior citizen, a curvy woman, no less, I now have the strangely haunting desire to wear a scalloped beanie like Cole Sprouse as Jughead wears on Riverdale. By wearing the iconic hat in public, I want to celebrate the fantastic show, which is as good as Twin Peaks, which it references, and honor the brilliance of Jughead in some tangible way. And I want to show my love.
That’s what we do. We fall in love with characters. Some married people have secret crushes on shows they watch with their spouses. Some people have no spouse, no boyfriend, and no delusion that that will occur. Instead of, or in addition to dates, wouldn’t you say that most of us are fond of characters and actors who seems like they would get us. And our choices often seem to make no sense. But somehow, to us, they do. Sometimes, those characters strangely become us.
We are made up of many things, including characters on screen who we’ve incorporated into our identity. They’re both out there…
