Veronica Lodge, Riverdale's Male Gothic

corruption and conflict

Veronica Lodge, in her Riverdale comic universe, is an easy to anger, spoiled, competitive, ‘daddy’s girl.’ Many Archie comic stories feature her wealthy lifestyle, showing her shopping compulsively or buying her way to success. Her wealth comes through her father, and she does not hesitate to use her charms to get material possessions or access to privilege. In her depiction in the show Riverdale, this dependency on her father forces her to operate within his criminal world. Repeatedly, she attempts to use her understanding of the corrupt world to thwart her father. This cycle can be seen in the manipulations she performs to gain control of businesses such as Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe and La Bonne Nuit.

Veronica’s father, Hiram, is an ambitious criminal. Using his money, connections with the local government, and his ties to the mafia, he strives to control Riverdale. His ultimate goal is to monopolize the entire town by purchasing and closing key businesses, such as Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe. Even while using the underhanded tactics she learned from him to force him to pass ownership of the popular afterschool hangout to her, Veronica strives to define herself as different from her father, thus clarifying her own identity as someone who helps rather than hurts. Despite being female, Veronica’s character embodies the common male Gothic struggle which Punter notes, “primarily focuses on questions of identity, and on the…protagonist’s transgression of social taboos. It involves the confrontation of some isolated overreacher with various social institutions, including the law, the church and the family”. She continually takes action to prevent her ambitious and well-connected father from taking over the town and controlling all the local institutions.

After coercing her father into granting her ownership of Pop’s, Veronica embraces her criminal family history by reopening the speakeasy in the basement of the diner. Although she sees the establishment as a positive, a place where the quarrelling Northsiders and Southsiders can enjoy themselves, it is nonetheless an establishment that glorifies criminal activity of the past, the very lifestyle Veronica claims to reject. Toward the conclusion of Season 3, after discovering her father lied to her and that his name is still on the property deed of Pop’s, she intentionally sets up an illegal boxing match in the club, lets the authorities know, and gets her father arrested. Consistent with her characterization carried over from the comic series, Veronica is assertive and goal-oriented, struggling to distinguish herself. Corruption and conflict, elements created by the Gothic setting of Riverdale and evident in the plotlines involving Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe and La Bonne Nuit, pull her away from her friend Betty.