Scooby Doo's Velma Was Meant to Be "Explicitly Gay"

We could have had a gay Velma Dinkly years ago, if it weren’t for a certain meddling studio.

Over the weekend, director James Gunn, who wrote the 2002 live-action Scooby Doo adaptation, tweeted that he wrote Velma’s character as “explicitly gay” in his initial script. Unfortunately, this was the early 2000s, and the world — or, rather, Warner Brothers — simply wasn’t ready to accept a gay cartoon character, despite the fact that Scooby Doo fans have been subjected to the boring details of Daphne and Fred’s heterosexuality for half a century.

According to Gunn, Velma’s sexuality was increasingly “watered down” by “the studio” until they finally just decided to solve that little inconvenience by sticking her with a boyfriend in the film’s 2004 sequel.

“I tried!” Gunn wrote in response to a tweet asking for the “live-action lesbian Velma” of our dreams. “In 2001 Velma was explicitly gay in my initial script. But the studio just kept watering it down & watering it down, becoming ambiguous (the version shot), then nothing (the released version) & finally having a boyfriend (the sequel).”

I tried! In 2001 Velma was explicitly gay in my initial script. But the studio just kept watering it down & watering it down, becoming ambiguous (the version shot), then nothing (the released version) & finally having a boyfriend (the sequel). 😐 https://t.co/Pxho6Ju1oQ

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) July 13, 2020

The creative minds behind other versions of Velma have also recently come forward to confirm that the character was intended to be gay. As Gizmodo noted, Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated producer and actor Tony Cervone recently took to Instagram to share that Velma was gay in the animated series as well.

“Velma in Mystery Incorporated is not bi. She’s gay,” Cervone wrote. “We always planned on Velma acting a little off and out of character while she was dating Shaggy because that relationship was wrong for her and she had unspoken difficultly with the why… I don’t think Marcie and Velma had time to act on their feelings during the main timeline, but post reset, they are a couple.”

VELMA IS CANONICALLY A LESBIAN THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME pic.twitter.com/l3f1wZLqIr

— alex (@loventhunders) July 12, 2020

Cervone also alluded to Velma’s LGBTQ+ identity in a Pride post he shared on Instagram last month.

View this post on Instagram

Marcie and Velma – Mystery Incorporated. I obviously don’t represent every version of Velma Dinkley, but I am one of the key people that represents this one. We made our intentions as clear as we could ten years ago. Most of our fans got it. To those that didn’t, I suggest you look closer. There’s no new news here.

A post shared by Tony Cervone (@tonycervone) on Jun 28, 2020 at 6:24pm PDT

“We made our intentions as clear as we could ten years ago,” he wrote in the caption. “Most of fans got it. To those that didn’t, I suggest you look closer. There’s no new news here.”

So there you go. Velma is gay and always has been.

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