The cat is finally out of the bag. After years of fan speculation and suggestions from previous stewards of the Scooby Doo franchise, a new movie has confirmed that Velma Dinkley, the cerebral mystery solver with the signature orange turtleneck, red skirt, knee-length socks and thick glasses is canonically a lesbian. To many of the fans who have always treated her as a lesbian icon, it was not a startling revelation but her appearance in Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! Which was released on Tuesday on several digital services was the first time her sexuality was acknowledged, making her fans jump up-and-down with joy.
While the show had always been vocal about the sexuality of its other characters, Velma’s preference was always shrouded in mystery. The Warner Bros release showed Velma having a crush on a new character named Coco Diablo, who’s also the villain in the film. Scooby-Doo was created by Hanna-Barbera Productions and first appeared as Saturday morning cartoon in 1969 and has been frequently reinvented in TV shows, films and comics. It follows a group of teenage detectives that consist of Velma, Daphne Blake, Fred Jones and Norville “Shaggy” Rogers along with their mischievous and perennially hungry Great Dane, Scooby-Doo.
Daphne Blake is a true supportive best friend to Velma Dinkley. #ScoobyDoo pic.twitter.com/8E7Pqnbtt5
— Avery Merrick (@averydmerrick) October 4, 2022
In the new film directed by Audie Harrison, a blushing Velma, voiced by Kate Micucci, develops a crush on Coco Diablo, who mirrored Velma’s fashion sense with a turtleneck and glasses. Velma tells Daphne, “I’m crushing big time, Daphne. What do I do? What do I say?”
#velma loves Coco Diablo #ScoobyDoo pic.twitter.com/KpXdaRkGKz
— Kaidragon (@kaidragon77) October 4, 2022
Previous Scooby-Doo writers and producers have said that Velma was a lesbian but they could not depict it onscreen due to pushback from the studios. Responding to a fan on Twitter, writer-director James Gunn, who wrote the screenplay for Scooby-Doo (2002) live-action film wrote, “Velma was explicitly gay in my initial script.”
Google has also paid tribute to the character finally owning her sexuality. Following the announcement, Google designed an animation based on the LGBTQ+ theme, which plays when a user enters the terms "Velma Dinkley," "Velma Scooby-Doo", "Velma," or "Dinkley" in the search bar. The animation is like fireworks of LGBTQ+ flags that burst all over the search result page.
On the other hand, Mindy Kaling’s HBO Max series titled Velma has also released its first teaser. The HBO Max animated series centered on the Scooby-Doo character — has landed a star-packed voice cast that also includes Glenn Howerton (Fred Jones), Sam Richardson (Norville aka Shaggy) and Constance Wu (Daphne Blake) while Mindy will voice Velma. The cast also includes Jane Lynch, Wanda Sykes, Russell Peters, Melissa Fumero, Stephen Root, Gary Cole, Ken Leung, Cherry Jones, Frank Welker, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Fortune Feimster, Yvonne Orji, Sarayu Blue, Nicole Byer, Ming-Na Wen, Shay Mitchell, Debby Ryan, Kulap Vilaysak and NBA All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns. Here the makers have made Velma a South Asian with brown skin tone.
Honestly, nothing will prepare you for #VelmaTheSeries, but this teaser is a good start… pic.twitter.com/g9YuAJJMSc
— HBO Max (@hbomax) October 6, 2022
However, Whether Velma is a lesbian — as she apparently is in the latest Scooby-Doo animated movie — remains to be seen.
(Source: Twitter/Google)
