Why it matters that Velma has come out, and how it’s different from Dumbledore
Happy National Coming Out Day! Velma Dinkley was a few days early.
Velma, the bespectacled, orange-turtleneck-wearing smarty of the Scooby-Doo gang, is apparently queer, at least in the new, direct-to-digital and DVD film “Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!” But creators of Scooby-Doo stories have long wanted the character to be openly queer, and wrote her as implicitly so for years. Why does it matter that Velma is gay, and how is this different from late gay characters such as Dumbledore of “Harry Potter”?
Allegedly, Scooby-Doo was developed in response to excessively violent Saturday morning action cartoons. “Scooby-Doo, Where are You!” premiered on TV in 1969, a Hanna-Barbera cartoon about four teens and a dog named Scooby-Doo who solve mysteries, many of them of the paranormal variety, at least initially. So many times, ghosts on the show are unmasked as a ruse, so much so, I really thought fake ghosts would be a larger part of adulthood.
In keeping with the times, the kids drive around in a van, turquoise and bright green with flower spots, called the Mystery Machine; one of the characters, Shaggy, is a hippie always jonesing, like Great Dane Scooby himself, for Scooby snacks. Oh, to have a snack named after you, one you can share, if you’re a dog.
She’s the Paris Geller of unmasking pirate ghosts.
From the beginning, there was Velma. The smartest of the meddling kids, Velma is frequently the first to solve the mystery. Her signature phrase is “Jinkies!” She often loses her thick glasses. In the 2002 movie version, which stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Linda Cardellini (“Dead to Me”) portrays Velma with a snort laugh. Her pageboy haircut is Dorothy Hamill tight and her uniform is a shapeless orange sweater, a pleated or A-line skirt and knee socks. Velma is well-read, interested in the sciences and has specific, encyclopedic knowledge — of Norse, for example — which always comes in handy. She’s the Paris Geller of unmasking pirate ghosts, and as Variety wrote, “It’s long been an open secret among fans and ‘Scooby-Doo’ creatives that Velma is gay.”
“Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!” (Warner Bros.)James Gunn, the writer of the 2002 “Scooby-Doo” film and its 2004 sequel, responded to a fan in a now-deleted Twitter post, reported by Indiewire and others, “In 2001 Velma was explicitly gay in my initial script. But the studio just kept watering it down and watering it down, becoming ambiguous (the version shot), then nothing (the released version), and finally having a boyfriend (the sequel).”
That boyfriend would be the character of Patrick, played by none other than Seth Green. Velma also has an uneasy, romantic relationship with Shaggy in the series “Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated” which ran from 2010-13. And Scooby does not approve. Maybe he knows something we don’t?
Tony Cervone, who served as supervising producer on the “Mystery Incorporated” series, also expressed his public support of and belief in Velma’s character being queer. He posted an image on Instagram of Velma standing smiling with another character in front of a rainbow, labeled PRIDE, with this caption: “I obviously don’t represent every version of Velma Dinkley, but I am one of the key people that represents this one. We made our intentions as clear as we could ten years ago. Most of our fans got it. To those that didn’t, I suggest you look closer. There’s no new news here.”
In the new “Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!” Velma appears to physically swoon over the smart and glamorous female character Coco Diablo. She’s a super villain, of course, with glasses and a cat. Velma’s famous glasses fog over, and she says, breathlessly, when she meets Coco, “Jinkies.”
Velma also goes googly-eyed when Coco calls her “the cute one” with a lingering hand on Velma’s shoulder.
How is this different from the retconning of Dumbledore’s character, for instance, when writer J.K. Rowling famously said, well after the publication of the “Harry Potter” series, that Dumbledore was gay?
Over the years, Velma set gaydars buzzing with her characterization.
There isn’t much evidence of the wizard being gay in the actual texts themselves. Given the outspoken transphobic stance of the writer, it’s hard not to view Dumbledore’s latent sexuality as a marketing ploy, meant to appease the masses without supporting any real queer people.
But over the years, Velma set gaydars buzzing with her characterization and actions throughout various portrayals. She’s the smartest of the group, but she also has her own interests. She’s not concerned with dating like Daphne is, though she does consistently worry about Daphne’s safety. She doesn’t care about boys. She doesn’t check off any of the heteronormative boxes.
When word of Velma’s attraction to the female character of Coco in “Trick or Treat Scooby Doo!” came out, the messaging was that Velma was explicitly gay, not bisexual. This has understandably led some fans to call out bisexual erasure. Velma did date men before and now seems to be attracted to a woman. Whether this is simply being bisexual or conforming to the standards of the time, when you can’t be who you truly are in order to stay safe, remains to be seen. But at least in some portrayals, according to Cervone, “I’ve said this before, but Velma in ‘Mystery Incorporated’ is not bi. She’s gay.”
“Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!” (Warner Bros.)Audie Harrison, the director of “Trick or Treat, Scooby Doo!” did not explicitly confirm whether Velma’s bi or gay in the new film, just that she’s attracted to Coco. And although he’s proud to be bringing queerness openly to the franchise, “It honestly did not occur to [me] that we were doing something so groundbreaking until right now,” he told NPR. “I actually thought it was a bigger deal for Velma’s character that she is in love with the villain of the movie. The fact that she is a girl is just . . . well, a fact.”
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Everything is coming up Scooby-Doo, as another, different adaptation is in the works, a series from HBO Max. But as The Gamer wrote, in the HBO Max show, “Velma has a ‘secret crush’ on Fred – not Daphne. This has fans mourning the short life of Velma’s canonical lesbian identity, as it seems that the new show won’t be interested in exploring this side of her.” The only one worse for smart Velma to date than Shaggy might be the decidedly unintellectual, conspiracy theory-believing Fred.
Bi or gay, just please don’t put Velma back in the closet. Jinkies, it’s dark in there.
“Trick or Treat, Scooby Do!” is now streaming on Amazon Prime and other digital platforms. Watch a trailer via YouTube below.
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