There Are Things Wrong With ‘Velma’ but It’s Obviously Not the Race-swapping

'Velma' follows the origin story of the Scooby-Doo gang.

Mindy Kaling's Velma has received a lot of flak since its release.

(Photo Courtesy: The Quint/ Pratikshya Mishra)

When HBO announced its animated series Velma, backlash was expected. The audience, especially those that band around franchises, have rarely been kind to things like colour-blind casting (case in point: The Little Mermaid or even Bridgerton).

The idea that such casting (in fictional characters, to that) challenges the predominance of White, male characters as protagonists is lost on many. 

Norville (Shaggy), Daphne, and Fred in Velma.

For decades, people of colour and other marginalised communities were sidelined from mainstream showbiz which often led to inaccurate and harmful representations of characters from said communities.

It also explains why protagonists were often male, white, heterosexual, and cis-gendered. The same mindset propels people to resist any change calling it “too woke”.

Naturally, Velma, executive produced (and voiced) by Mindy Kaling received massive flak for choosing to make the titular character South Asian. Even Daphne and Norville (Shaggy) are voiced by Constance Wu and Sam Richardson.

Then there were the die-hard Scooby-Doo fans who didn’t like the show’s concept or the fact that their IP was being tampered with. Again, a trend seen before in franchises - innovation is rarely easily accepted. 

A still from Velma.

Many have urged people to remember that Velma is a ‘fictional character’ who ironically has been voiced by people of colour before.

Hayley Kiyoko as Velma. 

Hayley Kiyoko and Gina Rodriguez have both portrayed the character (in the live-action films Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins and Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster, and the animated Scoob! respectively).

However, the show soon landed in murky waters even with its early supporters.

One of the major critiques about the show extended to all desi characters written or created by Mindy Kaling.

Viewers noticed a pattern emerging: Bela Malhotra from The Sex Lives of College Girls, Mindy Lahiri from The Mindy Project and Devi Vishwakumar from Never Have I Ever all tend to pursue White men (not counting Paxton Hall-Yoshida for the latter). Velma, too, for the majority of the show has eyes for Fred Jones.

Devi and Ben in a still from Never Have I Ever.

This leads several viewers to believe that most of Kaling’s South-Asian characters seem to be performing for the White gaze. 

Arguably, the onus of proper South-Asian representation shouldn’t fall on Kaling’s shoulders. While holding creators accountable for the content they put out is crucial, one must not lose sight of the bigger picture.

There is a need for widespread systemic change, especially in spaces that do not address racism, transphobia, misogyny, casteism, and other forms of oppression.

Kaling has also earlier been criticised for setting her stories in predominantly rich and/or oppressor caste families which does leave out a large part of the Indian population and often contributes to the idea of the ‘exotic’ Indian.

To her credit, though, Kaling has contributed to the rise of the ‘sexy’ South-Asian. Shows like Bridgerton (not created by Kaling) and Sex Lives of College Girls introduced South-Asian characters who weren’t just a sum of stereotypes but were actually desirable, sex-positive characters. 

A still from Sex Lives of College Girls.

On the other hand, the creator has been called out for the way she writes young South-Asian women. Like Velma, her characters often ridicule their own appearance in a casual racist self-hatred.

In Velma, two cops make fun of the lead for her ‘hairy gorilla arms’ and her weight. Even Devi often complains about her arms being ‘too hairy’, courtesy her ethnicity. Bela, who is arguably one of Kaling’s most self-assured characters, also calls herself an ‘Indian loser’ in the show. 

A still from Velma.

Young women having insecurities is natural, especially since they’re surrounded by patriarchal and Eurocentric notions of beauty no matter where they go.

However, a possible exploration of internalised racism and sexism isn’t nearly as nuanced as it should be in these shows and that leaves viewers wondering why these young Indian women are undermined and mocked in their own shows. 

Talking about Velma again, the show’s representation of the queer community too, suffers from the same issue - a lack of nuance and understanding. Making a lesbian couple some of the major characters of a show is representation but making the couple foolish cops who are bad at their job and soon shoot a minor (especially in the light of the Black Lives Matter movement) is, albeit misguided, tokenism.

A still from Velma.

Later in the show, Fred Jones is seen in exaggerated make-up in an attempt to prove that he is too ‘childish’.

This plays into a precedent of any characteristics existing outside a masculine hegemony being seen as comical, inferior, or infantilised.

Fred, in this scene, is made into a spectacle both on the show and beyond. 

Another glaring issue with Velma is the waste of the art of satire. The show’s attempt at satire is well summarised in a widely shared quote I read on Twitter (attribution unknown), “Satire requires a clarity of purpose and target lest it be mistaken for and contribute to that which it intends to criticise”.

In the first episode itself, Velma aims to satirise how women and especially young women are hypersexualised in pop culture to increase viewership or keep people hooked.

A still from Velma.

Velma ends up playing into its own criticism because the satire isn't well-structured. This is something that continues throughout the show - many opportunities of satire are squandered by one of the characters spelling out exactly what they’re trying to critique. 

When Fred Jones reads the The Feminine Mystique (I don’t even want to get into the lack of intersectionality in Betty Freidan’s book that has frequently been criticised by feminist scholars for classism and racism), he becomes what is essentially a ‘performative feminist’. We understand that; for a while the satire works…until the show spells it out. 

'Gore' and violence is not an issue with the show. The show was advertised as being a more mature reimagination and not being for kids from the very beginning. Courage the Cowardly Dog had almost as much gore as Velma if we're keeping score.

The main disservice when it comes to the criticism surrounding Velma is that the ‘anti-woke’ keyboard warriors are attempting to overshadow other valid criticism.

There are a lot of things wrong with Velma but the race-swapped casting is not one of them.