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Velma Comes Out

By Nate Parker | TV | October 5, 2022 |

By Nate Parker | TV | October 5, 2022 |

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My fellow straights,

I have shocking news. Clips from the new Scooby-Doo movie, “Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!, now out digitally, went viral yesterday as animators finally confirmed what most viewers knew all along; Velma is gay. In other startling developments, Santa Claus is a myth and trickle-down economics don’t work.

I’m honestly surprised this qualifies as news. Even as a kid in the 1980s Velma’s preference was as apparent as my 5th-grade teacher and her “roommate.” I assumed everyone knew. James Gunn tweeted in 2020 that he attempted to make Velma explicitly gay in his 2001 live-action feature, starring Linda Cardellini as our turtlenecked heroine. Yet another thing Warner Brothers took from us. It was obvious by 1978’s The Scooby-Doo show that Velma had no interest in men.

Despite all the obvious clues in her style, personality, and the fact that she was based on child actor and California’s first openly gay legislator Sheila Kuehl, some heteros were taken off-guard by the news. Comments about “groomers” and sin fill the Variety comment section — the irony of homophobes visiting Variety is apparently lost on them. The performative outrage is on point as the usual suspects switch gears from Lizzo’s flute playing to a 50-year-old cartoon. Not to mention every male upset by this has watched at least one Velma\Daphne themed porn video. Twitter seems equally torn between celebration and outrage. What else is new? There are also some bi-folks out there who see it as erasure, given Velma’s dating history and their own headcanon for a character with whom they feel connected, which is fair. But that’s the great thing about fictional characters; they can be whatever you want them to be, in your head if nowhere else. Regardless, “Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! looks like good family fun, is streaming now, and on Cartoon Network 10/14.