Weekend WatchAlong: The Archies! 6pm Chicago Time! Some Nice Nostalgia for a December Evening

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Happy Saturday! Time for a nice watchalong with some nice nostalgia, for those of us who grew up reading Archie comics.

The Archies

On Netflix, beautiful looking, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy music, and Zoya direction, couldn’t be bettered.

At 6pm Chicago time, I will put up an “And PLAY” comment and we will all comment along from there!

339 thoughts on “Weekend WatchAlong: The Archies! 6pm Chicago Time! Some Nice Nostalgia for a December Evening”

  2. And this is the scene that culminated to me loving Reggie! I stared of by thinking he was a douche, then his conversation with his dad struck me, and then this! This guy had 3 pivotal scenes and he was incredible!!!

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    • On second watch I think what I liked most about the Dilly-Reggie scene ESP is that it makes a very meaningful point about being an ally to queer people: being one means that you respect their experience and their boundaries esp if they’re not ready to come out. Reggie not only values Dilly as a friend and is comfortable with his friend’s sexuality – he also understands and accepts that Dilly is still in the closet and that coming out to others is his choice without question. Reggie may not love Dilly the way Dilly would have initially wanted him to, but he sure as hell is going to make him feel safe. Both around others, and within himself 🥹

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      • Just occurred to me, it’s also a nice “shut up” to people wondering why Zoya and Reema are still in the closet themselves. They are on their own journey on their own time.

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        • Too true. And this reminds me of a line from a speech in Red, White and Royal Blue about coming out at your own pace and comfort:

          “The truth is every queer person has the right to come out on their own terms, and on their own timeline. They also have the right to choose not to come out at all. The forced conformity of the closet cannot be answered with the forced conformity in coming out of it.”

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  11. Interesting. The books had a very traditional view of the Lodges. They were rich, but somehow they never did anything “wrong” to be rich. Very “capitalism can be ethical”. That scene crossed the line, Mr. Lodge is just cold and doesn’t care, and that is what capitalism is.

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    • Or you could say believes business isn’t personal, so he will bribe and spend money where he will to make more, he will use what power he has. For A LOT of people there is nothing wrong with that.

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      • I vaguely recall it different from digests to digests. In some they played up more on the frenemies aspect, in others the fighting over Archie, but there were other stories where they got to hang out and have fun too. But these are all vague memories from whatever I read as a 90s kid so I could be wrong.

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  16. “It would be as if we never existed”. Powerful. Because that is sort of what has happened, and they did leave. So a statement to other minorities, don’t leave. Stay, prove you were here.

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  20. I keep coming back to the OG point Margaret made about how the film itself is an insight into the Anglo Indian community and their culture. And it’s deserved because often their representation is as degenerates, morally weighed against the “pure” Hindu.

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      • I have a bit of a peripheral knowledge of it, coz a lot of my friends were Anglo Indians, and you find a lot of those communities in certain spaces – most notably Goa, Mangalore and Mumbai. Kolkata also has a sizable Anglo Indian population I think.

        The influences are mixed – mostly Portuguese, Dutch and English…all places that had some colonial or trade link to India. So there are a lot of similarities between their places of origin in the cuisine and the culture, but it’s also informed by the local environment (Goa and Mumbai’s Christian/Anglo-Indian communities being influenced by the sea).

        Some of the larger discrimination is communal – in that they are largely Christian communities (and while they are not considered ‘threats’ in the exact sense Muslim communities are 😢), the communities are still often stereotyped as “having loose morals”. Often when you see Anglo Indian characters or even just Christian characters in Hindi film, they are depicted as such, sometimes as the “bewda” (alcoholic) who drinks a lot. Even Amar Akbar Anthony, which shows a largely positive depiction of Christians and Muslims, views the Hindu brother as the moral center of the film, with the Christian brother being the one who often gets into messes with the law and who sells alcohol – both viewed as big negatives by his father figure.

        I think what is special about The Archies is it gives the community itself centerstage, which allows us to see so many different SHADES of it through the characters and their lifestyle. And it’s a normal, regular life, not a glorified or a villainized picture of it.

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  21. One of things I really love about this movie is the MUSIC – it is a musical, in the AMerican style, but somewhat combined with the traditional Indian film style. It is like Zoya has blended film styles, and I love it. I suppose liike the ANglo Indian communtiy itself.

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  29. I like that we have all this sympathy for Betty, but in truth she did kiss the guy her best friend had been dating, and the guy her best friend went on a date with that very night. As a comic reader I’m primed to hate Veronica and love Betty, but then, but really, Ronnie has done nothing wrong.

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        • My folks don’t but that’s more coz they’re not very into pork 😂 In my home state, Kerala, it’s not too hard to get, but not many people have it much either.

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          • I wasn’t exposed to pork much until I came to the US. Even then, it’s the meat I still eat the least. For no other reason besides my parents just didn’t cook it so I had no idea. But then I dated two different Anglo Indians in a row and both their parents made amazing pork dishes!!! I’m going to one of the guy’s house this weekend for Christmas brunch with the family (we are all friends now) and trying to convince him to get his parents to make pork or oxtail because the Archies had me reminiscing and drooling! 😁

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          • I still remember this one Christmas while I was staying in college. I was staying in a hostel at the time and one of my Goan classmates gave me a tiffin of homemade sorpatel and sannas before the Christmas break. Sorpatel is a spicy, slightly greasy pork curry, and I thought sannas were basically a bit like bigger idlis 😄 Mmmm. I had quite a feast that day.

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          • Yes!!! Sorpotel is exactly what I was craving!!! I have tried making it at home but it just doesn’t come out the same. I have close friends who are in India right now and plan to go to Goa! I told them that they must have all the fish thalis, Sorpotel, cutlet pav, Ros omelette that they can have!

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  37. I like how Tilly gains a confidence in himself throughout the movie. There is a lot of character growth in most of the characters, but the way he acts it, in body language, makes his growth the most obvious, and unspoken.

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    • He’s a prick but when it comes to picking between the park and his daughter, he never hesitates to pick his daughter. The message of the movie is — this is not a hard decision!

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