Both the right and left are piling on HBO Max's new woke "Scooby-Doo" spinoff "Velma" for injecting graphic content in the classic children's show. In its most recent episode, the titular character, who is now a lesbian of South Asian descent, dances on a strip pole for her father.
While the show has been criticized for its gratuitous violence, gore and nudity, "Wired" hit the show for not spending more time on its controversial themes.
"Scooby-Doo" fans were upset because the cartoon character's race and sexuality weren't explored "in depth," writer Amos Barshad insisted.
"The biggest gripes about the show seem not to be that it’s addressing issues of diversity in the Mystery Inc. gang, but rather that the show is doing it in a flat, one-note manner. And when it comes to Velma’s sexuality—something that’s been a topic of discussion in Scooby-Doo discourse for years—any attempt to address the matter needs depth," he wrote for the tech and culture outlet.
Fox News Digital previously reported the show has been panned on film and television sites like IMDb, earning an aggregated score of 1.3 out of 10 stars by audiences. The Internet Movie Database even dubbed the series "the lowest-rated animated project of the 21st century."
Barshad suggested that the backlash could also be due to "racism and homophobia." Despite there being a long history of internet fans of the children's show clamoring for "queer-coded" Velma to be out of the closet, he claimed, "[m]aybe a lot of people weren’t ready for it."
"You couldn’t blame Velma Dinkley fans for feeling that, through sheer joy and encouragement, they’d helped make the character’s sexuality part of the Scooby story…she was finally what her online fanbase wanted her to be. And so when HBO Max’s Velma—snarky, petty, and full of righteous and not-so-righteous fury—showed up, maybe a lot of people weren’t ready for it. Furthermore, for better or for worse, they felt ownership," he wrote.
However, audience reviews on IMDb's website have blasted the show since it premiered on January 12 for reasons other than Wired listed. Users have criticized the show for being unfunny, offensive, and an insult to fans of the original television series.
This isn't the first "Scooby-Doo" series to add in adult themes. Last year, the animated Scooby-Doo film for kids "Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!" also portrayed Velma as a lesbian.
Fox News’ Gabriel Hays and Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.
