What Is It About Velma That Has Angered People So Much?

Mindy Kaling’s newest venture, Velma, is an adult reboot of the beloved Scooby-Doo series. Whilst it remains animated, the show is full of sex and blood. It’s crude and rude and ‘edgy.’ It’s not innocent and fun. The jokes are mean. It talks about drugs and #MeToo. This isn’t the usual story of the gang solving mysteries involving people in masks. It’s an edgy high school drama for adults.

It’s also been widely panned.

Reviews have been absolutely savage. At the time of writing, it has a 1.4 audience score on IMDB and 9% on Rotten Tomatoes (critics are kinder at 55%). The complaints are endless- character assassination, sexualisation of high school students, being unfunny, too crude, stereotypical, poorly written and just generally unfunny. The race-swapping and LGBT content are the least controversial things, indeed many have actually welcomed it, but some still accuse it of stereotyping Indian-Americans.

Had it been an original tv show with original characters, then perhaps Velma would just be a plain dud. Instead, its twisting of beloved characters had just made it worse. Velma is rude and mean-spirited. Fred is extremely stupid and a stereotypical ‘white male.’ Daphne is a Regina George knock-off who sells drugs. Shaggy is not Shaggy- he’s Norville, a kid obsessed with Velma.

It’s not even got Scooby-Doo in the show. Reportedly, they wouldn’t allow it.

More adult versions of original media are popular. The Harley Quinn series is well-liked, but one supposes it’s easier to turn that into something a little darker. It’s also apparently good. Archie Comics got a teen makeover with Riverdale. Sabrina the Teenage Witch joined the party, helped by the writers of the aforementioned show.

Velma is not one of those.

What is it about Velma that has angered people so much? It’s down to one simple thing: a love of the Scooby-Doo franchise.

The Scooby Love

The release of the Velma trailer and subsequently the first two episodes of it sent Twitter into a frenzy. The vast majority of reactions were less than positive. Before the release, the main complaint was that it was crapping on the legacy of the beloved series. Post-release, that complaint was amplified.

Twitter has proclaimed its love for Scooby-Doo. For many users, it was part of their childhood. It’s run from 1969 onward in various incarnations, so even older folk will know it from their kids or grandkids. Everybody knows the characters.

Why is it so loved? Really, it’s quite a simple concept. Group of teens and their cowardly dog road trip across the country. They arrive at an allegedly haunted castle/museum/other place and search for clues. Shenanigans happen. The ghost or ghosts are revealed. They would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids. Happy days.

Sure it’s formulaic but it’s just a nice show. You know what’s going to happen yet you enjoy it. It’s twee. It’s silly. It’s comedic. The creators brought it to life after concerns the TV shows of the 60s were too violent for kids. That concept still works.

Whilst the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? is still usually considered the best, its later incarnations remain beloved. What’s New Scooby-Doo? was my generation and I adored it. The two live action movies of the 00s remain camp classics. I of course must mention Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, the 1998 direct-to-video classic. It’s a rare Scooby outing with real stakes and real monsters. It’s a lot darker and scarier than its predecessors and successors, but it still has the charm and is genuinely good.

Scooby-Doo is intergenerational. One of the best examples of this is in a 2018 episode of Supernatural, in which main characters Sam, Dean and Castiel are sucked into an episode of the show. It starts off formulaic, but then the Supernatural characters realise the threat is actually paranormal. Dean is elated to be on the show, as he loved it growing up on the road. Sam is less enthused, whilst pop culture clueless Castiel is confused. The character Dean was born twenty years before me, yet we both have the same memories of the show. It’s my favourite episode of Supernatural because it captures the best element of both shows.

The characters of Scooby-Doo are equally as beloved, hence the anger at how they’re made out in Velma. In Velma, Shaggy is a lovestruck idiot, Daphne is a classic Queen Bee, Fred is a dumb jock, and the titular character is a mean nerd who calls other girls ‘sluts.’ That is caving into the traditional fictional narrative of the popular kids being mean, especially my hated not-like-other-girls trope. The traditionally feminine Daphne is awful. The Indian-American Velma is a stereotypical nerd. Velma is friends with Shaggy/Norville (though he has an unrequited crush on her), former friends with Daphne and not even on Fred’s radar.

The beauty of the original is that the characters are so different but work well together. Fred isn’t book smart, but he’s the leader, great at traps and good hearted. Daphne is a fashion obsessed rich girl, but savvy, a fighter and bankroller. Velma’s a bit of a nerd, but she’s super smart and the voice of reason. Shaggy and Scooby are portrayed as the cowards, but show true bravery and are extremely loyal friends. Velma and Daphne don’t compete with one another, instead being an example of a strong female friendship.

Velma isn’t really showing any of that.

Over the fifty years it’s been on, Scooby-Doo has enjoyed a variety of famous guests. The illustrious list includes Dick Van Dyke, Steve Urkel, Kiss, Sonny and Cher, Simple Plan and the Harlem Globetrotters. Its supporting characters have remained popular too, perhaps with the exception of Scrappy-Doo. ‘The Scrappy’ has entered the pop culture lexicon as a name for an unpopular and disliked character.

Solving mysteries, hanging at the malt shop, exploring ‘haunted’ castles and getting into wacky hijinks seem to be a thing of the Scooby-Doo past as far as Velma is concerned. Unfortunately for Velma, the show will never get past the love of the source material it clearly despises.