Jerryโs glorification is one of the greatest scams Evan Dorkin slid into the comic like a Trojan horse.
Jerry Stokes is drawn with that sad little boyโs face, the one who stays quiet, the one who suffers in silenceโฆ therefore the readers can project their compassion onto it, avoiding seeing closely how -awful- the whole club is. (I personally don't like calling them that because I feel like I'm just repeating what everyone else in this fandom has been told to repeat, yeah, they're awful, who the fuck cares? They're fictional.) Moving on...
Jerry is an illusion of benevolence: Silence with a victimโs mask. But silence is also violence when it means to let others mistreat without intervening.
Jerry was not good. Heโs passive, but not innocent. He stayed when he couldโve left, he stared when he could shout, he played fool when his friends were cruel towards anyone and themselves. And when he finally explodes he does it in hoarded grudge and out of pace. He never had real redemption, he had a miserable catharsis.
With this said, not even him was safe from Evanโs wrath. He doesnโt stand up for anyone, not even himself, with dignity.
Despite anything he says NOW...
And yeah, the Eltingville fandom raises him as โthe only one who deserved to be savedโ, when he doesnโt even bother to really apologize but everyone else expects the punches thrown to Bill in the epilogue serve as such. How convenient!
A quiet guy with an โI didnโt do itโ face, thatโs never in the wayโฆ many love him because they can project on him anything they want him to represent, without taking responsibility for what he truly is: A sidekick, a coward, a guy whoโs as broken as the rest of his friends, but who wears a better mask.
Instead, Bill, Josh or Pete are confrontational, they burn, they steal, they fight, they scream. Thatโs why they get hanged: because theyโre not given the chance to turn the other cheek, and Jerry is the fandomโs moral placebo. If you want to behead them, be fair then, and let 4 heads roll instead of just 3.
And listen, I donโt hate Jerry, Iโm only starting to appreciate him in recent times but to me he has always been pretty indifferent. As a character Iโve never been able to connect with him as much as I do with the other three or two if we exclude Pete. But what I DO hate is that many people in the fandom are just like his worst traits; half-hearted and indulgent, unable to think for yourselves or to analyze this piece completely outside from Evan Dorkinโs words, as if it was a crime to think and respond with honesty over something that may, or may not, have made us feel like garbage.
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
janainaart
origamiaround
stormborns
