CW's much-anticipated series, Riverdale, based on the popular comics series Archies, will premiere on January 26 on CW and Netflix. And, the series actor Cole Sprouse who is playing the character of Archie's best friend Jughead Jones, wanted his character to be asexual.
Also read: New Riverdale trailer: Is there sexual tension between Betty and Veronica?
In February 2016, Jughead was described as asexual in Jughead No. 4, but there is nothing revealed about Jughead's sexuality in Riverdale.
Chip Zdarsky, the author of Jughead, spoke about the character's sexuality at New York Comic Con in 2015:
"My view of Jughead is, over the 75 years [of his existence] there have been sporadic moments where he has dabbled in the ladies, but historically he has been portrayed as asexual. They just didn't have a label for it, so they just called him a woman-hater.
But he's not a misogynist — he just watches his cohorts lose their minds with hormones. People have asked me if there is going to be a romance if I'm writing Jughead, because I'm very romantic, and the answer is no, because there is enough of that in Archie. I think something like asexuality is underrepresented, and since we have a character who was asexual before people had the word for it, I'm continuing to write him that way."
While the series represents a bunch of adolescent characters, so focusing on every character individually makes so much sense. Therefore, Jughead's sexuality created a buzz while later Cole Sprouse confirmed himself that "Jughead will have romances with women . . . and burgers."
The actor said: "I come from an educational environment that really praises, as do I, the forms of representation that are otherwise lacking in our public media. But at the end of the day, I still had to do my job."
But he wanted to keep on "fighting for this pretty heavily" because "Asexuality is not one of those things in my research that is so understood at face value and I think maybe the development of that narrative could also be something very interesting and very unique and still resonate with people, and not step on anyone's toes. I think sexuality especially is one of those fluid things where often times we find who we are through certain things that happen in our lives."
So, the fans have to wait to see what actually happens in Jughead's life until Riverdale season 1 premieres on CW.
