Velma Was Always LGBT, Stop Pretending She's Not

When I called out a wave of cancellations of shows that featured massive amounts of representation of marginalized communities, one of the many things I said at that time was that there were two shows that I was the most fearful for: Chucky and Velma. I wish I could be wrong about something for a change. Sure enough, both shows had been cancelled since I wrote that piece. While the Chucky cancellation angered me more, I want to focus on Velma, because I've been sitting on this for many months.

There have been many versions of shows and movies from the Scooby-Doo universe since the franchise began in 1969, and Velma was one of the more recent incarnations. I remember learning about this show in 2022, and it finally hit HBO Max in early 2023. The series focused on Mystery Inc's most intellectual member, and the representation was immense. Regarding Velma Dinkley, she was of South Asian descent and bisexual, and was voiced by the woman who created this masterpiece, Mindy Kaling. The series had a lot of representation, but a lot of it was LGBT. Not only was Velma bisexual, so was Daphne Blake (who was of East Asian descent and voiced by the always amazing Constance Wu). On the show, Daphne was portrayed as being adopted by a lesbian couple who were voiced by a pair of LGBT comedic icons: Jane Lynch and Wanda Sykes. Cherry Jones, Sara Ramirez, and Fortune Feimster were also part of the voice cast.

The show was amazing as hell. I loved the hell out of HBO Max's Velma; it was my Thursday jam, I watched habitually every week. The show was gritty, it was comedic, and the representation was immense. It was absolutely perfect. Yet way too many clowns just couldn't accept the fact that Velma's LGBT. Notice I said "fact." That's because it's not only a fact, it's been known for years. We finally saw Velma's coming out in one of the many animated films, Trick or Treat, Scooby-Doo!, which came out months before the series. Yet jackanapes were moaning and groaning about that, too.

I have no bloody clue why people have a hair up their keister about Velma being LGBT, and are acting like this is new. This is not new. All that movie and the show did was reveal the truth--reveal Velma's truth. Velma Dinkley has always been LGBT. I remember hearing theories about that since I was in junior high school. I think that the franchise's original creators, Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, knew as well. So did Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. It took 53 years for Velma's truth to come out, 53 years for Velma's reality to emerge, yet it was met with unreasonable hatred, bigotry, and all sorts of unnecessary vitriol.

I have to mention this. I have to. Remember Scooby-Doo!: Mystery, Incorporated? I do. I wish I could forget it, though. 15 years ago, Warner Bros. decided, "You know, let's make a darker and more dramatic version of Scooby-Doo." Great! I was in. And then I saw it. There are a number of reasons why I haven't bothered to binge the entire incarnation again, but the main one is Velma's portrayal in this version. In the show, they paired up Fred and Daphne, because of course, but even then, they pulled that "Will they, won't they?" crap, which annoyed the hell out of me. Regarding Velma, she was paired with Shaggy. Yeah. They were a thing. Now I love Shaggy, I do. But I swear, when I first saw this, a small part of me thought, "They are really trying to keep this girl in the closet by pairing her with Shaggy."

It's been 15 years, and I still believe that the pairing of Velma and Shaggy was done to keep Velma closeted. Even worse was how Velma acted on the show. Velma was immensely controlling towards Shaggy. She was an emotional and (to a smaller extent) physical abuser. One moment that stands out with me is an episode that features one of Velma's many ways that she tried to change Shaggy. As we diehards know, Shaggy does say "like," like, a lot. Velma wants to change that habit, so what does she do? She places rubber bands on Shaggy's wrists, and for every time Shaggy says "like," Velma snaps the rubber band on the wrist. That hurts! That's abuse!

But to the clowns who are so hateful towards HBO Max's version of Velma Dinkley, they're fine with Velma being an abuser to Shaggy in Mystery, Incorporated because, hey, at least that version was straight! That's what those homophobes are saying every time they acted triggered and clutched their pearls over Velma being LGBT. They would rather see a version of Velma who is narcissistic and--for all intents and purposes--a domestic abuser, than the HBO Max version who is carefree and living her best life, all because the Mystery Incorporated version is dating a guy.

Even now, when it comes to Velma's true orientation, the denial is so immense. I have many reasons for writing about this. For one, I'm a Scooby-Doo diehard ever since Cartoon Network became part of my viewing life in 1997. Secondly, I take any form of representation very, very seriously. I watched Trick or Treat, Scooby-Doo!, and I was very elated to see Velma finally... finally... out and proud and expressing her true self. One of the many reasons why I loved Velma on HBO Max: the show was a doubling and tripling down on Velma being out and proud and immensely unapologetic. That version of Velma was happy, she was comfortable in her own skin. Yet backwards-thinking idiots wanted to live in denial and get all worked up over the concept... the concept (let alone the reality) of Velma not being straight. Those same morons actually celebrated Velma's cancellation, forgetting the fact that the cancellation put a lot of people out of work. But hey, you don't have to deal with a Velma who's not White and straight, right?

Velma Dinkley is an LGBT icon. I will repeat that, because it bears repeating, and also because I like making the "old guard" squirm. Velma Dinkley is an LGBT icon. Let's acknowledge that epic fact, shall we?