Scooby-Doo, What the Hell Is Wrong With You

Jessy Randall

I watched re-runs of Scooby-Doo in the 1980s. Who hasn't seen that show? I mean, if you were a kid in the 1970s or later, you are familiar with that show. Now my children watch the program, and sometimes I watch with them. This week, for example, we watched Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated Season 1, Episode 4, “Revenge of the Man Crab” (first aired August 9, 2010).

WTF, people. Scooby-Doo is no longer just a mystery show where villains would have gotten away with it if not for those meddling kids. It is now also an instructional program for heteronormativity. Boys and girls can learn from Scooby-Doo that girls only care about boys and romance, and boys don’t care about romance because they have their minds on other things, like solving mysteries.

Remember how, in the original show, it was usually Velma who figured stuff out and solved mysteries despite Shaggy and Scooby being obsessed with Scooby snacks? Well, now, instead, Velma is obsessed with Shaggy. In "Man Crab," Velma can’t seem to think or talk about anything but Shaggy. She sulks when he doesn’t respond to her advances. She looks different than the old Velma, too: her breasts are bigger, or maybe her sweater is just tighter. She also has a bow in her short hair – in case you weren’t sure if she was a girl or not. (I know these pictures don't look THAT different, but in the program you'd notice a change.)

Daphne’s main concern in "Man Crab" is whether or not Fred capital-L Likes her. When girls in bikinis play volleyball, the show calls our attention to the sexual side of things: Daphne thinks Fred is ogling the girls, so she puts on her own bikini to get his attention. She then, of course, has to spend a good chunk of the episode in the bikini. She’s wearing it when the Man Crab captures her and puts her in a hanging cage. (The Man Crab is only interested in females, by the way. After all, it's a man. Um ... and a crab.)

Thanks, Scooby-Doo, for going BACKWARD as far as sexism is concerned. If you’d just stayed the same, I could still plan to name my imaginary girl band The Velmas. But now I don’t want to any more. The Man Crab episode has made me crabby. (But at least it didn't give me crabs.) Scooby-Doo plots have always been repetitive, but now we also have dull, repetitive fake intrigue about ... romantic relationships? Really?

Luckily, Scooby fans still have their imaginations. When TV feeds us sexism and gender norms, we don’t swallow them whole. If you Google around you can find multiple interpretations of the Scooby gang, including a lesbian Velma and a gay Fred and, I’m sure, additional romantic combinations and crossovers, like Fred and George Weasley hitting on Daphne. So I will not despair: no matter how much heteronormative bullshit TV throws at us, at any age, we still remain our own whatevernormative selves and form our own diverse Scooby gangs of friendship and romance.

Comments

[Brian Mandabach]

I'm not sure about the "at any age" bit, but I hope you are right. Good job on this--you took just what I was thinking about this show and clarified it and expressed it. Right on.

[Jessy Randall]

A friend has emailed to inform me that there's already a band called The Velmas, so I guess that's the end of that daydream: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Velmas

[Jessy Randall]

Thanks, Brian!

[Mike]

What the? Is that picture of the two women kissing real? They allow this now on television? Wow things are changing.

[KC]

The Shaggy-Velma "relationship", as it were, didn't last a whole half-season, as I imagined it wouldn't.

The second season of this show also pretty much tosses the heteronormativity angle right out the window - that picture you found is fanart based on the second season's relationship between Velma and her new friend Marcie - and that relationship is as close to that picture as Cartoon Network will allow.

The show also makes fun of the predictability of the old "Scooby-Doo" formula not only by direct parody, but by introducing two season-long story arcs involving a complex mystery with life-or-death stakes that eventually takes the show into "Indiana Jones"/"LOST" territory.

[Jessy Randall]

No, not real. Sorry I took so long to answer -- somehow I didn't see this until now.

[Jessy Randall]

That ... is ... AWESOME. Thanks for telling me. Clearly my daughter and I haven't been watching the right season!

[An art student]

Uhh the art style for Mystery Incorporated is different I will give you that. But the part about Velma's breasts being bigger is debatable. There's this thing artists have and develop their entire lives called a STYLE and how that artist draws breasts is naturally going to be different. Also whats wrong with having a damn bow? I'm a woman and I have boobs that aren't flat and have worn bows before. What's so wrong with putting your own spin on it? Mystery Incorporated has way worse issues than its character design and art style that's for damn sure.

[Philip]

always great to see people that think Mystery Incorporated was a failure. If you follow Joe Ruby and Ken Spears (Yes. They're still alive and been working on the project since the original in 1969.) They have replied and said they hated Mystery Incorporated and how it turned out. Unfortunately, good luck telling some fanboy nerds aboiut it because they eat it up. Especially the anime fandom.