HBO Max’s newest entry into the Scooby-Doo canon, Velma, has the form of pedigree that normally alerts hit. Executive produced by veteran TV auteur Mindy Kaling, who additionally voices the animated collection’ title character, it’s a present about one of popular culture’s most beloved nerds. Like Riverdale earlier than it, Velma additionally takes a youngsters’ leisure staple and provides it a brand new, winkingly grownup twist. Yet, with all of that going for it, the present has nonetheless change into the web’s new favourite punching bag.

Tweets knock the present’s makes an attempt at edgy humor mocking the tradition wars. Parodies take aim at its plot strains. Forbes has made a beat of dramatically chronicling the backlash: Showrunner Charlie Grandy, “a frequent collaborator of Kaling’s” and “the son of a former Love Boat star,” has apparently “been accused of being a ‘nepotism’ case,” one post declared. As one other put it, succinctly sufficient, “Everyone Hates Velma.” 

The full reality behind this fallout, as typical, is difficult. Despite the vitriol, persons are watching the present; based on HBO Max, Velma was its biggest animated series premiere ever. Problem is, they’re watching it by the lens of your complete historical past of Velma and the Scooby-Doo franchise as a complete. 

For one, Velma opted for color-blind casting, with its title character now being a South Asian lady. For one other, this Velma is portrayed as extra overtly queer. But whereas it may be simple to chalk up backlash towards the present to the standard racism and/or homophobia that tends to accompany this type of factor—and there’s probably nonetheless a little bit of that in play right here—what’s occurring with Velma runs deeper than that.

The largest gripes in regards to the present appear to not be that it’s addressing problems with variety within the Mystery Inc. gang, however slightly that the present is doing it in a flat, one-note method. And in the case of Velma’s sexuality—one thing that’s been a subject of debate in Scooby-Doo discourse for years—any try to handle the matter wants depth.

For a long time, by varied Scooby-Doo properties, the writers behind the character have hinted that Velma is homosexual. In her earliest iterations, she was undoubtedly queer-coded, and James Gunn, who wrote two Scooby-Doo live-action motion pictures within the early 2000s, claimed just a few years again that Velma was “explicitly gay” in his preliminary script in 2001. “But the studio just kept watering it down and watering it down, becoming ambiguous (the version shot), then nothing (the released version), and finally having a boyfriend (the sequel).” During Pride month in 2020, Tony Cervone, who was a supervising producer on the animated collection Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, made a publish on Instagram saying his Velma was “not bi. She’s gay.”

But Velma’s sexuality in Mystery Incorporated, which aired from 2010 to 2013, was solely ever hinted at. Then, late final yr, within the animated film Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!, the subtext turned textual content: Velma had a crush on a feminine villain, and the web beloved it. As The Washington Post reported, a young person from Ontario was one of many first to identify the affirmation, and her gushing tweet promptly went viral: “OMG LESBIAN VELMA FINALLY CANON CANON IN THE MOVIES LETS GOOOOOO.”