The Fridging of Velma Dinkley
Now that Mystery Incorporated has ended it's American TV run, I feel the need to post this essay. I know I've ranted about this subject excessively already. But this write up is my attempt to calmly explain why the way this show went down bothers me so much. I hope you all will take the time to read it and let me know what you think. Even if you're not a Scooby Doo fan and never watched Mystery Incorporated, I'm interested in hearing your opinions on the issue of feminism and what's appropriate in a franchise that's marketed toward children.
The Fridging of Velma Dinkley
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Gail Simone’s “Women in Refrigerators” theory, I’ll give you a summary. When one says that a female character was “stuffed in the fridge” (or “fridged” for short), it means that a female character (typically one that is a central character and/or the loved one of a male protagonist) was physically assaulted, sexually assaulted, and/or killed off for the sole purpose of adding “drama” to a plot and/or getting a reaction out of the characters around her. The name is derived from a famous issue of Green Lantern where Kyle Rainer comes home to the apartment he shares with his girlfriend only to discover that his arch nemesis has murdered said girlfriend and stuffed her remains in the refrigerator for him to find.
And in case you’re interested, here’s a top ten list of some of the worst examples of fridging in comic books.
Now, Velma was never sexually assaulted or severely beaten in Mystery Incorporated (however, the show was green lit for another season; so I wouldn’t put it past them just yet...); but I still feel confident saying she got the fridge treatment. Emotionally, this show put her through the ringer. Velma was reduced from the vibrant, positive, and intelligent person she’s been for 40+ years and mutated into a soulless plot device that does things because the plot says so and serves as an emotional punching bag in order to add needless melodrama to the show. Here are some examples…
Character assassination
In every Scooby Doo incarnation previous to this one, Velma's defining character trait was her intelligence. Everybody knows her as "the smart one". But, in Mystery Incorporated, her defining character trait/motivation is her ill-fated crush on Shaggy. Most of what she thinks, says, and does centers on her relationship with Shaggy and NOTHING else. And she's willing to sacrifice her dignity and self-respect in order to win the affections of a guy who spends most of the series treating her like dirt.
You think I'm exaggerating? I swear, the viewer doesn’t get to see Velma express an interest in anything besides Shaggy’s penis until the Hex Girls episode. In that episode, we get to see Velma geek out over her favorite band for a few seconds before the plot of the episode becomes “Fred realizes that he loves Daphne after watching her dress up like a goth prostitute and sing about traps”.
Even after Shaggy dumped her, every once in a while the show tried to remind us that Velma is smart by having her squee over Harlan Ellison or fix a computer or whatever. But that was just a cheap way for the lazy writers to avoid developing her outside of the context of her screwed up love life!
Body image issues.
Why did she have to have them? She never had them before. On the contrary; I think the fact that she saunters around in a red mini-skirt is a sign that she’s fairly confident about her appearance (at least where her legs are concerned) and doesn’t care that she’s not “conventionally attractive”. Before Mystery Incorporated, she was never shown lamenting about her appearance or wishing she could be pretty like Daphne. And this was one of the things that I always loved and found refreshing about her character.
However, in Mystery Incorporated, Velma's appearance was regularly the butt of jokes (for example: Fred teasing her about her ugly, pale skin) despite the fact that Mystery Incorporated's Velma design is by far the slimmest and cutest one to date. The show made it very clear that Velma has severe body image issues (i.e. confirming that she wears her trademark turtleneck to cover up her "neck waddle"). And then it all but confirmed Velma's belief that she's a hideous she-beast by making her this show's butt-monkey while Daphne obtained the perfect, Twilight-style love life she always wanted simply by wearing slutty outfits in front of Fred until he fell in love with her (and her skinny, Asian friend Mai-Lee won Shaggy away from Scooby by virtue of being....skinny and Asian, I guess).
Now, I’m not saying that a story about Velma having issues with her body/general appearance should be off limits and can’t be done well. But Mystery Incorporated treated it like a cruel joke. I can remember at least four instances off the top of my head where Velma’s appearance was insulted; but I can’t remember a single instance where she or the audience was reassured that she looked OK or that looks aren’t everything.
My point here is this: Mystery Incorporated shouldn’t have heavily implied at Velma having such a serious problem if they weren’t going to tactfully address it. The shoddy way they handled that plotline only lead to the implication that Velma deserved to be put through the ringer because she’s not as pretty and skinny as Daphne or Mai-Lee.
Velma: The Plot Device
Like I said before, Velma was treated as this show’s emotional punching bag. Shaggy breaks her heart multiple times. Her break up with Shaggy negatively impacts her relationships with her other friends. She becomes the team’s fifth wheel once Fred and Daphne get serious. She makes two friends outside the gang (Mai-Lee and Amy) only to have them immediately betray her. She has a creepy stalker. She hates her body (and thanks to Fred’s teasing, she probably hates her skin and freckles, too). And, when the crap hits the fan in the final episode, Daphne blames VELMA for everything that went wrong.
And, last but not least, the whole Shaggy/Scooby/Velma love triangle that caused most of Velma’s grief in this series was ENTIRELY POINTLESS to the main plot in the end. Let me elaborate…
Back in the Renaissance Faire episode (and in other episodes, too), it was heavily implied that Shaggy, Scooby, and Velma's bizarre relationship issues were integral to the overarching plot because they mirrored Ricky, Pericles, and Cassidy's issues. And it was also implied that said issues played a role in dooming the original Mystery Inc. Well, the show is over now. And aside from that old diary full of bad poetry, we never see any signs that Cassidy and Ricky (aka Angel and Mr E) ever liked each other at all! We don't see them show affection to each other in the modern day scenes nor the flashbacks to their youth. And we also find out that the old gang disappearing was all Mayor Jones' doing anyway.
Sure, you could theorize that Pericles decided to screw his friends over because Ricky chose Cassidy over him. But that's just a theory because the show itself doesn't tell us squat!
The way I see it, the show could have kept Velma and Shaggy platonic friends throughout the entire series, and it wouldn’t have impacted the major plotline all that much. Let me provide an example:
Velma’s alienation from the group could have stemmed from feeling left out once her best gal pal Daphne became all about Fred. And her decision to keep Angel’s secret could have been born from resentment caused by feeling like the gang is using her for her intelligence and doesn’t really appreciate her as a friend. I could also see her thinking “Why is a meat head like Fred the team leader when I’m clearly the smartest one here!?”. That resentment could have been developed, hinted at, and built on early on in the series and would have made for a great character arc for her. And it would have provided a believable reason for her to keep crucial information from her friends.
There! I just re-wrote the story so that Velma’s motivations make sense instead of causing her to come across as a bi-polar feminist nightmare who is primarily motivated by a desire to get a stupid hippie’s penis in her.
So, basically, Velma's character was dragged through the dirt (and, to a lesser extent, so were Shaggy and Scooby's) and she was transformed into an unrecognizable shrew, stripped of the character traits that made her lovable and unique lo these 40 years (i.e. her intelligence, confidence, and sweet demeanor), and used as this show's token emotional punching bag just so the writers for this show could amp up the angst and the drama on a whim. The main plot would have been COMPLETELY unaffected if Velma and Shaggy had remained platonic friends for the duration of the series. So why did the writers bother changing this beloved character so drastically in a way that all but guaranteed the audience would hate her? Do they hate this character because they can’t fap to her the way they can with Daphne? Did Mindy Cohn do something to piss them off and this show was just an elaborate attempt to punish her?
The thing that gets to me the most - both as a feminist and a person who grew up loving and relating to Velma's "classic" characterization - is the fact that her character was twisted and warped into a looney, vindictive, boy-crazy, bunny-boiler twit who tolerated being treated like dirt by a boy she was crushing on in the hopes that said boy would make her life complete by sticking his penis in her. We very rarely got to see her acting smart (and, no, typing on a computer while vomiting up exposition doesn't count. Even Shaggy was able to do that!) or showing an interest in things that weren't connected to Shaggy's crotch. Even after he broke up with her; she constantly whined about how not having a date on Saturdays made her a loser. As if a girl is NOTHING without a boyfriend on her arm! The “having a boyfriend is EVERYTHING” message of this show is especially disturbing once you remember that the target audience for all things Scooby Doo is children. VERY young children!
The Sexualization of Daphne
Part of my issue with how Velma was handled is connected with how Daphne was handled. The EXTREME sexualization of Daphne combined with the relentless way this show tore Velma down for being fat, ugly, nerdy, and pale combines to create a very disturbing message for all the young kids who are watching this mess because they want to see the cute talking dog.
Basically, Daphne got hosed in this show, too. Her treatment wasn’t quite as horrifying as Velma’s because, let’s face it, up until the 90s Daphne was little more than the token bimbo of the franchise. But, like Velma, the focus of her character and her primary motivation in Mystery Incorporated is a guy she’s crushing on. Even the opening credits feature her snuggling a photo of Fred instead of a featuring a hobby like the others.
However, even though they didn’t have a messy, melodramatic break up like Velma and Shaggy did, the Fred/Daphne relationship is disturbing in it’s own way. In later episodes, Fred exhibits behavior that, in real life, is a HUGE red flag for abuse (i.e. wanting to keep Daphne on a schedule and know where she is 24/7). The show plays it for laughs and blames it on Fred’s mommy issues; but that stuff isn’t funny. I hate to play moral crusader again, but KIDS WATCH THIS SHOW! If the writers just HAD to put that in there, they should have also added a scene where Fred is called out on how messed up that kind of behavior is. And, after a month long relationship where Daphne makes 99% of the compromises and sacrifices; Fred asks her to marry him and she says “Yes”!? Do I even need to point out how insane that is?
Daphne is now officially dumber than Bella Swan. Say what you will about how messed up the romance in Twilight is (and I’ll agree, cause Twilight is awful); but at least Bella had enough sense to play the field a little bit before she decided to marry her creepy stalker Vampire boyfriend. Daphne dated Fred officially for, at most, three or four months. He’s her first steady boyfriend. And she spent most of that relationship being pissed off at him because she had to make all the compromises. And she thinks committing to an engagement while they’re still in High School is a good idea!? Even Bella would slap her across the face and tell her that she’s an idiot.
Speaking of Twilight, one episode of Mystery Incorporated poked fun at Stephanie Meyer. And watching the Mystery Incorporated writers rip on Meyer felt like listening to OJ Simpson get indignant over the fact that Casey Anthony got let off the hook. Just sayin'
The series in general
Another thing this series screwed up was the sense of friendship that every previous Scooby show had. The characters all feel...isolated from one another. Velma spends the first half of the series trying to hump Shaggy’s leg and the latter half of the series sulking by herself and constantly alternating between loving Shaggy, hating Shaggy, and being somewhere in the middle. Daphne is CONSTANLY trying to hump Fred’s leg (and eventually succeeds after wearing him down for 20+ episodes). Fred just wants to trap things. Shaggy just wants to eat. And Scooby, judging by his behavior in episode 9, wants to make out with Shaggy.
BTW, THANKS FOR THAT MENTAL IMAGE, MYSTERY INCORPORATED WRITERS! I’m sure the furries love you for it. Now excuse me while I go throw up.
In Conclusion
The reason this issue has me so worked up is that Velma is a character that meant a lot to me growing up and still means a lot to me today. She was inspirational and relatable in a realistic way. And, while most female nerds in fiction have a tendency to look like hot actresses with some frumpy clothes and glasses slapped on (see: Linda Cardilinni), Velma actually looked offbeat and dorky in all of her animated appearances. And as far as I know, no Scooby canon ever implied that her looks had a negative impact on her ability to function, live her life, feel good about herself, and be loved by her friends (and her various doomed love-interests). Mystery Incorporated, on the other hand, makes it very clear that Velma sees herself as fat and ugly and that even her best friends think the same thing. Again, what kind of message does that send to all the little girls watching this who identify with Velma the same way I did as a child?
I realize that this write up may make me come across as a bra-burning, feminazi, moral-crusader who combs through innocent TV shows looking for stuff to rage about. So I want to conclude by saying this…
I am not accusing the writers of this show of being chauvinist pigs who are intent on turning back the Women’s Suffrage movement. I cannot make an accusation like that because I don’t know them and I can’t see into their hearts. I want to make it clear that I am NOT trying to get on a soapbox and demonize them. I don’t think that they’re horrible misogynist monsters; just lazy writers. VERY lazy writers.
However, I do feel safe saying that these writers are guilty of the same thing that the average 12-year-old fan fiction writer is guilty of. Just like the average pre-teen at Fanfiction.net, they are guilty of re-writing established characters to fit their desired narrative instead of creating a story that naturally fits the characters. And they either don’t realize or don't care that their desired narrative transforms the entire cast into a bunch of unlikeable, out-of-character jerks.
The way I see it, if they were so dead set on creating a teenage romantic melodrama, they should have just made Degrassi: The Animated Series and left the Scooby gang in the hands of writers who could do them justice and write a romance without turning everybody into crazy assholes. Stephanie Meyer could have done this reboot better than the Mystery Incorporated writers. Stephanie. F**KING. Meyer!
Or, better yet, these writers should have scrapped the romantic angle entirely and stuck to what they’re good at: creating atmosphere and writing comedy. The few episodes of this show that ignored the romance angle entirely were a lot of fun. And Mystery Incorporated could have been the best Scooby incarnation since the original if only these writers had stuck to what they were good at (or hired someone who actually knew how to write a romance without turning the females into textbook examples of why The Bechdel Test exists).
Needless to say, I don’t have much hope for the second season. And I don’t plan on watching it unless it begins with a Dallas-style “Patrick Duffy is in the shower and last season was just a bad dream” ret-con.