In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies and faux pas in pop culture… and all that it affects.
Boomer or not, every generation has been exposed in one way or another to the kooky, mystery-solving stylings of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (the original in the oft-revived Scooby-Doo franchise that first aired in 1969). A pop cultural tour de force that has remained so relevant, it’s essentially been repurposed as Only Murders in the Building. An overt nod that Tina Fey as Cinda Canning plays up in the finale of season two, wherein she’s cornered by “the gang” and forced to sit in a chair and hear them tell her all the reasons why she’s the murderer this time around. A spiel to which she replies, “Really enjoyed the spelling it all out. Very end of a Scooby-Doo episode. Very cute.”
But what is not very cute at all is the consistent need of mass media to underscore the trope about lesbians being, let’s call it: “bookish.” A “polite” turn of phrase for being unkempt and frumpy. Which is why the truly “upsetting” thing about “making” Velma Dinkley a lesbian (as many, including James Gunn, have tried to do more explicitly in the past) in Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! isn’t the tired conservative argument about “sexualizing” characters contained within content aimed at kids (who are the biggest sexual pervs of all), but that they’ve chosen to further iterate the garden-variety stereotype about lesbians in general. That is to say, that the “average” lesbian is, in a word, “dowdy.” That she doesn’t have to be concerned with her appearance since she has “brains” and isn’t trying to attract a man, who would easily be drawn to the prominent shapes (or what Shakira would call “mountains”) beneath Velma’s sweater anyway (Velma herself being inspired by the “sweater girl,” Zelda Gilroy [Sheila Kuehl], on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis).
And no, before one gets “up in arms,” none of this is meant to “throw shade” at lesbians and their supposed “standard-issue” aesthetic choices, so much as the constant (and apparently only) representation of those with said orientation as being frowzy and ill-dressed. Which is precisely why, in decades of yore (you know, like the 1950s and shit), men’s go-to insult for any woman who didn’t “take the time” to “look pretty” would be that she was a “dyke.” The assumption being that if she didn’t slap on some maquillage and a dress to at least “try” not to look “ugly,” then she must prefer women. As if women don’t have far higher aesthetic standards than men. As frequently evidenced by the “butter face” phenomenon.
This is precisely why the more genuinely progressive and “avant-garde” thing Warner Bros. (who now owns the rights to the Scooby-Doo crew) could have done would be “turning” Daphne into a lesbian instead. Or, even more progressive still, “making” her one in addition to Velma. At least, that way, the so-called “lipstick lesbian” (an affronting term in and of itself in that it assumes lesbians looking “femme” is a rarity) trope could be accounted for as well. Because Velma’s own love interest, Coco Diablo (Myrna Velasco), merely offers a “glow-up” version—complete with more pronounced curves—of Velma’s dweebo aesthetic.
Voiced by Kate Micucci (herself a straight woman married to music producer Jake Sinclair), Velma’s “established role” as the geek is made overt from the outset. Along with the personae of each of the other characters being immediately re-emphasized within the first two minutes of Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! Starting with the daffy, perpetually stoned Shaggy (Matthew Lillard, who clearly loves the part) and his bestie, Scooby (voiced by Frank Welker), being chased by a cat in, where else, Kathmandu. The stalwart and calm Fred (also voiced by Welker) then appears in the Mystery Machine to come to the rescue, with Velma serving as competent backup on the ground while Daphne (voiced by Grey DeLisle, now Grey Griffin) literally sits pretty on a chairlift and primps in her compact mirror (with, incidentally, some lipstick). Something she later uses to help unveil the latest villain, whose costume is once again ruined by those “meddling kids.”
Which brings us back to Coco Diablo, the “mastermind” behind all of these villains… by way of designing their scary, often very functional costumes. With her trusty cat, Esteban, she runs Diablo Costumes as a front for selling honest-to-goodness, high-quality Halloween getups. But the truth is, the reason behind inventing her greatest costume yet is to ensure that the next villain who comes along will “get rid of those meddling kids who’ve been destroying all of my brilliant costumes.” Riffing off The Wizard of Oz, she adds, “And their dumb dog, too.” This said as she strokes her pussy (some over-the-top symbolism, but then, isn’t it always in cartoons?).
In a reversal of (or perhaps, continued persecution of) the average hetero female, a line delivered by Daphne after the gang apprehends Coco provides the undercutting coup de grâce on how non-LGBTQIA+ folks really see straight white females: “Come to think of it, I’m not really sure what I did, or what I ever do.” Nonetheless, after catching Coco at the beginning of the movie, a different theme song proceeds—one that paints a dreary portrait of life without any villains to catch now that Coco is locked up and can’t make innovative costumes anymore. The entire costume-centric angle of Scooby-Doo being one of the gayest things about it. For, drag element aside, it also speaks to the notion of how those in the LGBTQIA+ community once had to hide in plain sight with much greater concern about being “exposed.” On a deeper level still, the conservative cabal would be nothing without having homos as their go-to antagonist in life, hence their utter disdain for normalizing in lieu of othering that which they still deem as “unnatural.” Luckily, they’re “spared” any girl-on-girl physical displays of affection, with Coco merely offering at the end, “Do you know how rare it is for me to like someone other than myself?” (so, once again, Velma gets no play).
And maybe, on some level, the sudden “outness” of Velma has even taken away from the joy of an “open secret” that fans of Scooby-Doo once shared (the way Swifties thought they once shared an open secret about the supposed queer Betty/Inez/James love triangle). Even if, of course, as somebody (user)named @PinkAtHart1 said, “Representation is so important, and why shouldn’t queer kids be able to see themselves in characters they love?… Velma was pretty queer-coded to begin with.”
Yet she was “coded” at a time when boomer-oriented stereotypes about what it “meant” to be gay were actually far more rigid and confining than what heterosexuality was/is “supposed to” entail, i.e. settling down in suburbia with a house and a mortgage and propagating a nuclear family that includes a dog far more vanilla than Scooby. Whereas lesbians must fit into the box of being “boyish,” “bedraggled” and generally unconcerned with the “girly” aspects of grooming. So it is that the “Daphne angle” would have been a much more profound choice for Scooby-Doo commenting on lesbianism. That, and it would have pissed off Republicans even more to have the “hot one” “ruined.”
