https://www.joblo.com/movie-news/ja...-wouldnt-let-him-make-velma-gay-in-scooby-doo Reading some comments online on how Velma has been perceived by many Scooby fans for years, I see where they're coming from. And it's refreshing to see someone trying this as early as 2001 when Gunn was writing this
I never got where he was coming from. I watched each iteration of Scooby Doo from the beginning in 1969, and it was always clear to me that Velma was Shaggy's girlfriend, and that they had a perhaps more intimate relationship than Fred and Daphne did. Indeed, Velma wasn't even a nerdgirl until after she was brought back from being banished in the late '80s. She was just a good girl type to play off Shaggy's counterculture hippie. Velma being anything other than Shaggy's girlfriend never entered the picture until after I stopped watching.
I wonder if it comes from some enlightened place or just that its classic easy dumb teenage humor, i.e. of course, Velma is a lesbian and Shaggy is a stoner. Like, was he thinking here's a moment for representation or this will be good for some yuks?
Funny, I never got that. Never was there a moment that I thought Shaggy and Velma were an item really. It probably all depends on our own interpretations.
The only time I ever saw Shaggy/Velma as a couple was DC's 'Scooby (Zombie) Apocalypse' comic book; I've heard (never saw it myself) they were also together in Season One of the Mystery Incorporated cartoon a decade ago, then in Season Two Velma jumped to a lesbian relationship with an unmasked villain (appropriately voiced by Movie Velma herself, Linda Cardellini).
Let's be clear about three things here: 1) James Gunn has not disclosed why he tried to make the live-action version of Velma queer, merely that he did and was shut down 2) If Gunn had not been shut down, only the live-action version of the character would have been coded queer 3) Because Gunn was unsuccessful, only the Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated iteration of Velma is coded queer
It's obvious why he would have. Anyone familiar with the show's fandom would have known as well. Nope. A later version, which they actually did, would have done it. Didn't you just claim "only the live-action version of the character would have been coded"?
Why would he need a reason? So she's queer in that version of Scooby Doo. People in real life don't have reasons to be queer. They are.
Just walk away and don't look at it. It's a Nevada test detonation and none of us gain anything by staring directly into it.
Never understood why people don't have a problem with this mentality. Insisting that someone must be gay because they don't conform to cliche hetrosexual standards should be highly offensive.
Do you have any awareness of how the fandom (even people causally aware of it) of Scooby Doo views Velma? Her being a lesbian is as well known as Shaggy being a pothead. She's literally inspired by an actual lesbian. She was designed to look like Sheila Kuehl, who played Zelda on the The Many Loves of Dobie GIllis. The rest of the characters were also inspired by the main characters of the show. All of them have been. You should really get out more.
That argument contains more Fail than Old Man McGillicuddy pretending to be a ghost to claim the rights to the gold mine. All it's missing is a cameo by the Harlem Globetrotters.
This just results in all characters being coded as heterosexual, which is worse. Characters have always been coded as queer since modern media began, mostly because they weren't allowed to be clearly described as being queer. In the past it tended to be more villains, mostly due to the Hayes Code and the lingering tropes it left behind, and you still see it with a lot of Disney villains. But nearly all of them have been adopted as a sort of fun representation by the LGBTQ community since until recently there was no representation. You don't really see as much coding today because even children's cartoons include openly queer characters (Steven Universe, She-Ra, Adventure Time) without even having to address that they're different, normalizing them. Now coding is mostly teasing the audience because someone running the show is afraid to make it clear for some reason or another, a prime example of this is Elsa in Frozen.