HBO’s upcoming “Scooby Doo” Halloween movie will have one noticeable change since the franchise's launch.
On Tuesday, the Twitter account DiscussingFilm posted a clip from “Trick or Treat Scooby Doo!” that indicated that Velma will be a lesbian. The video shows the character with big glasses clearly blushing when she encounters CoCo Diablo, a new female character.
She says “Jinkies” while there is romantic music playing in the background. The caption reads: “Velma is finally confirmed to be part of the LGBTQ+ community in the latest Scooby-Doo film ‘TRICK OR TREAT.’”
Director Audie Harrison told NPR in an email that they didn’t think they were “doing something so groundbreaking until right now.”
“While writing and directing this, I just set out to have fun with the comedy of an awkward teenage crush,” he said, noting that the bigger deal was this character falling in love with the villain of the movie.
Director James Gunn has also admitted that in the past, he made the super-genius character “explicitly gay” for the live-action “Scooby-Doo” movie released in 2002.
“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),” he said, per CNN.
This time around, it seems that the studio has no qualms.
Harrison said in the interview that he felt supported since the start and there weren’t any concerns about how this decision would be perceived.
In 2020, Tony Cervone, who was a supervising producer on the “Scooby Doo” series “Mystery Incorporated,” posted a photo to Instagram of Velma.
“I obviously don’t represent every version of Velma Dinkley, but I am one of the key people that represents this one,” the caption read. “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.”