#also uhhhhhh convicts and homeless people get the same 'main character proximity' effect

[thedreadvampy]

also BOY HOWDY I love Riverdale but this show just truly hates sex workers and also. not gonna lie. kinda hates abuse survivors if they're not the main characters.

especially egregious in seasons 2, 4 and 5, all of which feature characters (Chic, Donna and Jess specifically, but also honorable mentions to Penelope and Polly) who are both a) canonically survivors of sexual abuse and/or intimate partner violence and b) Malicious Evil Lying Liars Who Lie About Abuse To Manipulate Others

and on the sex worker thing. in S2 everything with Chic is just. horrendous. like it's funny silly drama but also the implications are AWFUL. the evidence that he's evil is primarily that he's a sex worker and that he has been severely traumatised. In s2-3 also Penelope's Evil Acts are mostly. running a brothel legally and openly as an adult woman. right up until the point where she starts hunting teens for sport.

and like the whole Betty plot in S5 is fun as hell and we have taken half a step up from previous seasons bc sex work doesn't make you inherently and obviously evil. but it is also so weird about sex work. like it is fine and good for Betty to entrap and torture men, because they engaged in consensual paid sex with prostitutes, which makes them essentially and ontologically evil. and sex workers are treated as helpless victims who've fallen to the darkness (but main characters stripping or soliciting is fine bc they're Good and it's uhhhhh entrapment so it's morally fine actually. but they do make sure to mention they'll keep their clothes on so you know it's not Bad Stripping).