WHAACK! POW! KA-BOOM!! Holy speech balloons Batman, today is National Comic Book day!
We preteen boomers were big consumers of comic books. And our parents seemed to view Superman, Captain America and the likes as appropriate and innocuous characters for us to befriend.
But were comic books innocuous?
I was about 10 when I began receiving a meager allowance. My parents probably thought it would teach me the value of a buck or in my case, the value of a quarter. It did not. On allowance day I ran to the drugstore to purchase candy cigarettes and an Archie comic book, quickly becoming addicted to both. My dentist ended my abuse of those sweet, chalky, red tipped candy cigarettes. Unfortunately my parents made no effort to thwart my comic book addiction.
Between the ages of 10 and 11 I must have read every issue of “Archie’s Girls: Betty and Veronica.” I examined every page and every bit of dialogue. I was kind of a Margaret Mead mini-me, the cultural anthropologist of Riverdale if you will. I knew the back story and psychological profile of every citizen in that town.
Now you may still think this is pretty innocent stuff. But it led this little 11 year old girl down a path of unnecessary bitch-dom. I was under the direct tutelage of Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, and Veronica Lodge and whatever weird cartoonist guy wrote the story lines and drawings in the series. And I will bet anyone $1,000 they were all guys!
Their teachings were basically, every girl must have a guy, and the bar can be pretty low. Archie didn’t have that much to offer other than the fact that he returned Betty and Veronica’s romantic interest.
They also taught every 11 year old fan that there were two fool proof methods to catch any guy. The Veronica Method used manipulation and sexual innuendo to capture a boy’s attention. The Betty Method embraced the notion that the best way to catch a guy was to master the art of over-nurturing and male ego stroking.
But the foundational message was that girls were at worst competitors and at best ‘frenemies.’ It was acceptable behavior for all girls to sabotage one another, render each other foolish, and bully any girl, friend or not, who might show the slightest interest in the same boy.
Maybe Archie comics should have had a parental rating scale or maybe I was too much of an innocent at 11 to understand the humor. By the time I quit reading comic books, around 12, the damage had been done. I did my best to adopt the Betty Method (usually) and Veronica Method (sometimes) through junior high and half of my high school years. (And I didn’t even have the benefit of their vast, fashionable wardrobe.)
Using either method, I became a bit of a mean girl to girls who could have become my friends, good friends, fun friends. My apologies ladies, and definitely my loss. Sometimes I won the guy, sometimes I didn’t. Regardless of the outcome, I felt a bit lonely and miserable.
As I rounded the corner of my 16th birthday…
…KAH-PLUHEY…I met a new friend who shifted my paradigms in big ways.
Her name was Gloria. She published a little magazine called Ms. I read every monthly issue cover to cover. In very quick order, all of the lessons I learned from Riverdale’s teen trio…
…POOF!…vanished into vapors.
I learned what most baby boomer-ettes learned at some point. I didn’t need a boyfriend to be happy. Most girls are extremely loyal and sisterhood is powerful. And I learned how to have a relationship with myself. As Ms. Steinem said,
“Self-esteem isn’t everything; it’s just that there’s nothing without it.”
What’s a boomer to do? Read what the young kids in your life are reading. It’s a great way to discover what they are thinking about.
