Velma Dinkley, the turtleneck wearing resident genius from Scooby Doo, has finally come out as lesbian in a new movie titled Trick or Treat Scooby Doo!. This puts to rest decades of fan speculation about the character’s sexuality, as well as frustration about producers not acknowledging this on screen sooner.
In her appearance in Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!, which was released Tuesday on several digital services, Velma can be seen googly-eyed and blushing after seeing a female character, and repeating her catchphrase “Jinkies!”. A clip from the movie showing this has attracted wide attention.
OMG LESBIAN VELMA FINALLY CANON CANON IN THE MOVIES LETS GOOOOOO pic.twitter.com/0ilx2uid1q
— Trin 🎃 (@MythicalLlamaXO) October 3, 2022
Google has also joined the parade of celebration in its own way. Upon searching for “Velma” or “Velma Dinkley”, the resulting webpage becomes flooded with confetti and LGBTQ+ flags.
Scooby Doo originally aired in 1969 on US television and has had many spin-offs and reboots over the decades. However, this is the first time that Velma’s character has been officially depicted as gay.
In 2020, Tony Cervone, a supervising producer on the Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated animated series confirmed that Velma had long been intended to be lesbian rather than bisexual, as some people read her. “We made our intentions as clear as we could ten years ago,” Cervone wrote on Instagram. “Most of our fans got it. To those that didn’t, I suggest you look closer.”
Similarly, the screenwriter of the 2002 live-action film, James Gunn (who later went on to make Guardians of the Galaxy and Suicide Squad) has previously revealed that Velma was “explicitly gay” in his initial script, but that the studio watered it down heavily.
Feminist writer Julie Bindel has stated that she “definitely identified with Velma” when she was a child, even if she didn’t wonder at that age that Velma might be gay. “I loved the fact that she wore baggy jumpers and defied femininity. She also shared my view of the world: getting exasperated with the boys, being cleverer than them, and showing how girls do not have to adhere to stereotypes of femininity and passiveness.”
