Why Velma is the Internet’s new punching bag

The latest version of HBO Max. entrance to the Scooby-Doo canon, Velmahas a pedigree that usually signals hit. The executive producer is TV veteran Mindy Kaling, who also voices the series’ main character. This show is about one of pop culture’s most beloved nerds. Like riverdale before that, Velma also takes the main children’s entertainment and gives them a new, winking adult touch. Yet despite all this, the show has still become the internet’s new favorite punching bag.

The tweets confuse the show’s attempts to create biting humor that satirizes the culture wars. Parodies take aim on his storylines. Forbes painstakingly described the backlash: showrunner Charlie Grundy, “a frequent collaborator of Kaling” and “the son of a former boat of love the star” apparently “was charged with nepotism.” one position announced. As another put it, succinctly enough:Everyone hates Velma“.

The full truth behind these consequences is, as usual, complex. Despite the causticity, people watch the show; according to HBO Max, Velma was his premiere of the largest animated series Ever. The problem is they’re looking at it through the lens of Velma’s entire history and the Scooby-Doo franchise as a whole.

For one, Velma chose colorblind casting, and its main character is now a South Asian woman. On the other hand, this Velma is portrayed as more overtly weird. But while it can be easy to chalk up the show’s backlash to the usual racism and/or homophobia that tends to accompany this sort of thing – and there’s probably still a bit of it here – what’s going on with Velma runs deeper than that.

The show’s biggest complaints seem to be not that it tackles diversity issues within the Mystery Inc. gang, but that the show does so in a flat, monotonous manner. And when it comes to Velma’s sexuality – something that has been a topic of discussion in Scooby-Doo discourse for years – any attempt to address this issue requires depth.

For decades, through various properties of Scooby-Doo, the character’s writers have hinted that Velma is a lesbian. In her earliest iterations, she was definitely weird code, and James Gunn, who wrote two Scooby-Doo movies in the early 2000s, claimed a few years ago that Velma was “overtly lesbian” in her original script in 2001. “But the studio just kept diluting it and diluting it, getting ambiguous (cut version), then nothing (released version) and finally she had a boyfriend (cont’d).” During Pride Month in 2020, Tony Cervone, who was the Supervising Producer of the animated series Scooby Doo! Mystery Inc., posted a message on Instagram stating that his Velma is “not bisexual. She’s gay.”

But Velma’s sexuality Mystery Inc., which aired from 2010 to 2013, was only hinted at. Then, at the end of last year, in a cartoon Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!, the subtext became text: Velma was in love with a female villain, and the internet loved it. As Washington Post informeda teenager from Ontario was one of the first to notice the confirmation, and her enthusiastic tweet quickly went viral: “OMG LESBIAN VELMA FINALLY CANON CANON IN MOVIES LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO away”