“Just how depraved is this town?”: An intersectional interrogation of feminist snaps, slut shaming, and sometimes sisterhood in Riverdale’s rape culture

ABSTRACT

This paper interrogates how rape culture is represented in “Chapter Three: Body Double” of Riverdale through an examination of how it operates through issues of feminism and sisterhood. This case study illustrates the complex ways in which teen television addresses rape culture with increased attention to intersectionality by examining an episode depicting how girls respond to features of rape culture—namely, slut-shaming. Through an intersectional feminist close reading, as well as attending to conceptual frameworks including the “feminist snap” and understandings of sisterhood, I argue that while young women of colour do important work via their feminist snaps, Riverdale’s feminism and sometimes sisterhood are whitewashed, weakening resistance to the local rape culture. This episode represents how Riverdale—to some extent—problematizes understandings of rape culture but ultimately falls short. Furthermore, it gestures towards how popular media such as teen television both clumsily and critically wrangle with storying feminist politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Intersectional feminism
• killjoy
• rape culture
• Riverdale
• sisterhood
• slut shaming
• snap
• teen television

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Slut-shaming is “commonplace” (Sills 941) for young people online.

2. This is “queerbaiting,” “a term employed by media fans to criticize homoerotic suggestiveness in contemporary television when this suggestiveness is not actualized in the program narrative” (Brennan 2016, 189).

3. This hashtag represents resistance in response to rising attention to the pervasiveness of rape culture (see Nicholas and Agius 2018 and Zimmerman 2014, for example).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship; Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada; Donald & Ellen Poulter Scholarship; Mary Elizabeth Simpson Scholarship; LOMCIRA Harold Covell Memorial Scholarship; Killam Doctoral Fellowship; Four Year Fellowship, Language and Literacy Education Department, University of British Columbia.

Notes on contributors

Amber Moore

Amber Moore is a SSHRC-funded Ph.D. candidate and Killam Laureate at the University of British Columbia studying language and literacy education with the Faculty of Education. Her research interests include adolescent literacy, feminist pedagogies, teacher education, and trauma literature, particularly YA sexual assault narratives. E-mail ID: [email protected]