Bespectacled Velma from Scooby-Doo has long been assumed to be a lesbian even if the original show never addressed it.
But the new Amazon Prime movie Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! takes Velma's lesbianism from apocryphal to canonical giving her a female love interest and everything.
And, surprise!
Conservatives absolutely cannot deal. They've been taking to the internet and the television airwaves to decry this as some sort of civilization-ending affront.
Christian author Raymond Arroyo joined virulent homophobe Laura Ingraham on her Fox News show to cry about it.
Arroyo lamented:
“This is kind of really offensive on the level that we’re disrupting these beloved characters."
"I’m waiting for them to tell us that Scooby and Shaggy shared more than a Scooby Snack in that Mystery Mobile.”
Oh cute, a bestiality reference.
Anyway, Ingraham responded to this with...
“They shaggied up, or shacked up.”
Wow.
Good one, Laura.
Arroyo went on to muse “what other beloved characters are they going to sexualize next?” as if Looney Tunes cartoons from the mid-1900s didn't include a skunk trying to bed a cat, to name just one of myriad examples from cartoons from almost 100 years ago.
Meanwhile, over on YouTube, White nationalist Steven Crowder had a meltdown over Velma's lesbianism being—get this—cultural appropriation.
Gesticulating wildly, he told his followers:
"If we're going to b*tch about appropriation, why do you need to take a straight character and make her lesbian?"
"Just go make your own!"
On Twitter, people didn't know whether to laugh or bang their heads against the wall.
But as enervating as this nonsense was, it did nothing to dull the excitement over Velma's burgeoning romance with the character Coco Diablo.
Now if we can just get the Scooby-Doo powers that be to give up on the whole Freddy and Daphne romance, because a man who wears a cravat?
Come on...
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
@arianagrande/Instagram
@arianagrande/Instagram