Life with Archie

A dramatization of Archie comics, in which scenes from the comic books are juxtaposed with commentary and a backdrop of slides. The performers take on the comic book roles, and then comment upon them. The performance then becomes an analysis of the way women are objectified in popular culture.

“Although it is true that all the comic book characters are flat and banal, their set of behaviors define a power relationship in which men form an elevated class, and to whose company the women aspire to belong. The men exercise their superior status in countless subtle ways, but above all in their freedom to look, to be possessors of the act of looking. In this way, they control public space, and colonize interior (womens’) space.

Veronica and Betty are never possessors of the look, but rather are objects of it; and their energies are invested in being central to the male gaze. Thus, in public space, they are never long without men.; they pose; they watch themselves being looked at. In private space – their homes – they are frequently visited by Archie and Reggie, as by a parent who comes to take control. This leads inevitably to scenes which are little more than soft pornography, in which women are reduced to the status of pleasurable objects. By working on the level of fantasy, and infantile gratification, these relationships permeate our minds, and form a model for oppressive human relations.”