🐱 Mindy Kaling’s Velma Will Be Asian and White People Are NOT Okay

Mindy Kaling's Velma Is Asian, White People Are NOT Okay | The Mary Sue

Mindy Kaling announced that Velma will be East Asian in the upcoming HBO Max series, and white people are melting down.

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In February, HBO Max announced new additions to their adult animation line-up. Among them was Velma, an original series based on Scooby Doo alum and O.G. Mary Sue Velma Dinkley, with Mindy Kaling voicing the title character. Today at The TV Kids Summer Festival, Tom Ascheim, president of Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics, revealed new details about the upcoming series.

Ascheim said, “We have a not for children, Mindy Kaling project called Velma because she was excited to reimagine what Scooby-Doo would be like if Velma were of East Asian descent and lived in a different world. And in that version, which is going on HBO Max first, there’s no dog and no van but we have our 4 key characters through a different lens and I think it’s great. Allowing our creators to play with our IP is super powerful.”

Naturally, news of the historically white Velma being East Asian rankled a certain racist subset of internet trolls who lose their damn minds every time a white cartoon character becomes a person of color. We saw it in the racist backlashagainst singer-actress Halle Bailey when she was cast in Disney’s upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid. And we saw it when Zendaya was cast as Mary Jane in the Spider-Man films.

It’s the same group of trolls who whine about She-Ra not being “hot” anymore. Because privilege is the voice of a thousand angry incels screaming “this cartoon character isn’t white and isn’t giving me a boner!” into the vast cavern of the internet.

In addition to Velma not being white anymore, folks online are upset that Velmawill set aside Scooby and the mystery van for a completely different plot. Many question whether it’s even still Velma if she’s not solving mysteries and palling around with the iconic Great Dane. To which I say: who cares? It’s adult animation, there are no rules. No one was bothered by Harvey Birdman being a lawyer. No one was upset about Space Ghost hosting his own talk show. Adult animation is ALL about flipping the script on cartoon tropes and clichés and finding the humor in making fun of our childhood faves. So maybe don’t be so precious with interpretations of your favorite cartoons. After all, there is still plenty of Scooby Doo content out there for diehards of the original line-up.

For that matter, this isn’t the first time Velma has been played by a person of Asian descent. Singer Hayley Kiyoko portrayed Velma in the made for TV movies Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins and Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster. So everyone can take SEVERAL seats.

Honestly, the real question we have is whether or not the series will address Velma’s status as a queer girl icon. Let Velma kiss girls, you cowards!

 

[AnotherPleb]

Why bother using the Scooby-Doo name then? Are viewers unwilling to watch new content? Or are producers too afraid and lacking in confidence to try something new?

Have you not seen the past ten years at all? Hollywood's remake and sequel central, they are absolutely risk-averse right now.

 

[RandomTwitterGuy]

I only have two questions.

Dose she still have massive tits and wears a sweater that tries to hide it, but we all know. The 13 year old in me needs to know, if not i dont care.

 

[The handsome tard]

That's two more than Fred and the redhead, to be fair. The show was always about the stoner and his dog, and Velma is the most memorable of the remainder. The other two… frankly I'm surprised I even remembered one of their names.

Fred is the pretty boy "leader" of the group and to play Devil's Advocate with Fred, he is the one that always comes up with the suggestion of helping out with the mystery and the trap (in fact, further interpretations show he is kind obssessed with solving mysteries and traps, which is a bit sad but shows Fred is well intended).

Daphine is the pretty girl and she ocassionally helps out...but most of the times got kidnapped by the ghost/monster/etc. Tho when she helps out, it usually includes using her makeup or something. Yeah, she is well intended too but she is the most bland of an already somewhat bland bunch. Further interpretations try having her in an more active role like in Scooby and the 13 ghosts. Im glad that they at least tried to make her more than a pretty face.

I guess what Im trying to say, besides flexing my useless scooby doo knowledge, is that the individual members are decent characters but the whole point of Scooby Doo is the team dynamic and interactions...it doesnt always work but when it does, like in Zombie Island, it works really well. But they cant hold a series of their own, not at all...especially since that isnt their whole point like I said.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

The Scooby Doo franchise itself is baffling. It's a show that everyone acknowledges has bad, cheap animation even for its time, bland stock characters, tacked-on car chases, and recycled gags. How the fuck is this franchise more relevant to pop culture than The Flintstones?!

 

[Coldgrip]

The Scooby Doo franchise itself is baffling. It's a show that everyone acknowledges has bad, cheap animation even for its time, bland stock characters, tacked-on car chases, and recycled gags. How the fuck is this franchise more relevant to pop culture than The Flintstones?!

It's not. Remember when they made those live-action movies? That was them pulling the same thing with the Flintstones, only it didn't really take like Scooby Doo did.

The first live-action Scooby Doo movie succeeded because it was a 'Just Enough' movie. It had just enough stoner innuendo to drag in all the 420smokeweederryday teenageers, it was just enough of a kids movie that parents could sit their kids down in front of it and not worry too much, it was just funny enough that audiences didn't hate it, and it made just enough money to warrant a sequel. When you have a movie like or similar to that you wind up with a franchise that by all means should of never gotten more than one movie, but instead has about three or more sequels.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Wow, yet another 'LEts turn this kids property into an adult cartonloolololl so edg'. Get fucked. I'll stick to anime while Hollywood continues to dig up franchises and putting their corpses on the throne and pretending they're alive.

 

[Atatata]

Wasn't Velma latina in the last movie?

 

[NJBear]

I want Pancho Villa played by a Black Tranny.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

The Scooby Doo franchise itself is baffling. It's a show that everyone acknowledges has bad, cheap animation even for its time, bland stock characters, tacked-on car chases, and recycled gags. How the fuck is this franchise more relevant to pop culture than The Flintstones?!

Flintstones has this confusion problem about whether it’s for kids or adults. Those live action movies in the 90s-2000 are kinda reminders that it was originally meant for adults. I’m more confused as to why this show never got the popularity or impact Flintstones got

I’m even more baffled Adult Swim never attempted to revive it to make it their Simpsons/Family Guy nor reference it in Sealab or Harvey Birdman.

 

[Return of the Freaker]

>White people are NOT okay

Why tf is The Root going on about Scooby Doo?

>The Mary Sue

Oh nvm

 

[Ebonic Tutor]

I’m even more baffled Adult Swim never attempted to revive it to make it their Simpsons/Family Guy nor reference it in Sealab or Harvey Birdman.

I was going to say something about it probably not being Hannah-Barbera but it totally is, so I assume it's just because it never really took off and wasn't really attached to any other characters. I grew up in the 80's and I've never even heard of it till you mentioned it, like I'd heard of Sealab 2020 but never actually watched it and all the characters on Harvey Birdman I remembered as well.

It just comes off really bland tbh even compared to something like The Flintstones.

 

[Quantum Diabetes]

It was based on a live action show that pre-dated what we know as Ghostbusters.

It's why the cartoon of the movie version is called The Real Ghostbusters, and that took some legal fighting to get to do that cause the filmation cartoon was made in response to the movie if I recall correctly.

There's no way this character isn't have every ounce of femininity and booba removed if they reboot it

 

[White Trash Motorsport]

Flintstones has this confusion problem about whether it’s for kids or adults. Those live action movies in the 90s-2000 are kinda reminders that it was originally meant for adults. I’m more confused as to why this show never got the popularity or impact Flintstones got

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ecQkZ_xIQJQ
I’m even more baffled Adult Swim never attempted to revive it to make it their Simpsons/Family Guy nor reference it in Sealab or Harvey Birdman.

Seth MacFarlane has made noises about wanting to reboot The Flintstones

 

[Sithis]

All of you ITT pondering on why they labeled an obvious pajeet as "asian" are underestimating how the effect of brain sleep that occurs for wokeoids, stacks on itself whenever you increase the victimhood factor. The author is getting paid to write a shitty fluff piece on a shitty show, so how to get the type of people who read this drivel unironically to become even more braindead, sans medical procedures? You ramp up the victimhood by proxy. "Anti asian/pacific islander hate" is still all the rage (at least when the perp is white) and by labeling the star as asian the author of this fluff can frame it as part of the current social commentary narrative that asians are victimized and any rejection of this show is rooted in racism. Not only will wokeoids brains go into hibernate at this mere mention of victimhood, they will probably go ahead and watch the dumbass show too out of guilt they've entirely projected upon themselves for someone else's imagined suffering, all based on the word salad of a grifter.

 

[OvercookedBacon]

Seth MacFarlane has made noises about wanting to reboot The Flintstones

So it'll probably end up being prehistoric Family Guy.

All of you ITT pondering on why they labeled an obvious pajeet as "asian" are underestimating how the effect of brain sleep that occurs for wokeoids, stacks on itself whenever you increase the victimhood factor. The author is getting paid to write a shitty fluff piece on a shitty show, so how to get the type of people who read this drivel unironically to become even more braindead, sans medical procedures? You ramp up the victimhood by proxy. "Anti asian/pacific islander hate" is still all the rage (at least when the perp is white) and by labeling the star as asian the author of this fluff can frame it as part of the current social commentary narrative that asians are victimized and any rejection of this show is rooted in racism. Not only will wokeoids brains go into hibernate at this mere mention of victimhood, they will probably go ahead and watch the dumbass show too out of guilt they've entirely projected upon themselves for someone else's imagined suffering, all based on the word salad of a grifter.

Nope. It's not because people don't get the idea of a Scooby-Doo show that doesn't have Scooby-Doo, a hippie van or mystery solving. It must be because those evil white republicans dislike Mindy Kaling's skin color. That's it. /journalism

 

[Long Tongue Silver]

Getting kinda tired of talentless hacks latching onto famous franchises like remora because their woke bullshit wouldn't stand a chance otherwise.

 

[Iceland Heavy]

All of you ITT pondering on why they labeled an obvious pajeet as "asian" are underestimating how the effect of brain sleep that occurs for wokeoids, stacks on itself whenever you increase the victimhood factor. The author is getting paid to write a shitty fluff piece on a shitty show, so how to get the type of people who read this drivel unironically to become even more braindead, sans medical procedures? You ramp up the victimhood by proxy. "Anti asian/pacific islander hate" is still all the rage (at least when the perp is white) and by labeling the star as asian the author of this fluff can frame it as part of the current social commentary narrative that asians are victimized and any rejection of this show is rooted in racism. Not only will wokeoids brains go into hibernate at this mere mention of victimhood, they will probably go ahead and watch the dumbass show too out of guilt they've entirely projected upon themselves for someone else's imagined suffering, all based on the word salad of a grifter.

What I don't get is why they go out of their way to specify east asian instead of just saying asian. You can say that bongoids refer to Indians as asians sure, but east asians is just objectively geographically incorrect, Indians are south asians. It's not #stopeastasianhate (which sounds way too bizzaro Orwellian anyway), most wokeoids clearly don't bother to distinguish but I've seen multiple articles saying 'Velma's east asian now just like Mindy Kaling and ignorant white people are going to freak'.

 

[AnOminous]

The Scooby Doo franchise itself is baffling. It's a show that everyone acknowledges has bad, cheap animation even for its time, bland stock characters, tacked-on car chases, and recycled gags. How the fuck is this franchise more relevant to pop culture than The Flintstones?!

The animation was pretty average for HB and you didn't really watch it for the animation. The characters are mostly likable, the voice acting was pretty good (especially by Casey Kasem and the legendary Frank Welker), and the plots, while somewhat repetitive, actually taught some good messages about skepticism in a children's show. Almost everything that looked like some woo woo at the beginning turns out to be fake bullshit.

Velma, Shaggy & Scooby are the characters who could sustain a spinoff by themselves, and Velma's race literally doesn't matter. You could actually have a show where Velma is some kind of professional deboonker of woo a la James Randi. Or where she's an independent detective. And you'd seriously want the other characters to show up at least from time to time.

Meanwhile, Fred & Daphne got married and had 2.2 kids or whatever and are living some kind of normie life, and Shaggy & Scooby are still together. Maybe Shaggy got some kind of musical career or is now a middle aged Jeff Lebowski type. Or make him a countdown DJ on something like Sirius XM as a nod to Casey Kasem. You could actually make this interesting and still be Velma-centric.

But you just know they're going to fuck this up completely and turn it into wokeshit like every other dead franchise these maggots gnaw on.

 

[KiwiFuzz]

What I don't get is why they go out of their way to specify east asian instead of just saying asian. You can say that bongoids refer to Indians as asians sure, but east asians is just objectively geographically incorrect, Indians are south asians. It's not #stopeastasianhate (which sounds way too bizzaro Orwellian anyway), most wokeoids clearly don't bother to distinguish but I've seen multiple articles saying 'Velma's east asian now just like Mindy Kaling and ignorant white people are going to freak'.

It's one of the more bizarre progressoid things. For all their sperging about how race doesn't exist and is a social construct and blah blah blah, like...

If KiwiFuzz were to draw a map of the different races of the Old World, there would be Sub-Saharan Africans; North Africans and Middle Easterners; True and Honest Wypipo; Indians; East and Southeast Asians; Melanesians; Abbos; and Polynesians.

But no! According to wokethought there are only THREE races there and everyone has to be put into one of those categories!

So Mindy Kaling, whose ancestors were as close to France as they were to Japan, is Asian and all Asians are interchangeable.

Never mind the fact that the same wokeoids would flip their shit if you had a Turk playing an Israeli, or a Spaniard playing a Moroccan.

It's very reminiscent of the pinnacle of apartheid South Africa where they had four racial categories and then East Asians started showing up and they had literally no idea what to do with them so they named them "Honorary White People."

 

[Atatata]

Shaggy and Scoob got a spin-off once where they got rich of an inheritance and fought high tech crime, so its not the first to be out there.