Actress Mindy Kaling Claims Velma Is “An Icon for Young Gay Women” in Promotion of HBO Max’s “Velma” Animated Series
That HBO Max’s Velma The adaptation of Scooby-Doo by series is not consistent with the source material. However, the animated show’s star Mindy Kaling and her producers believe they are honoring the old Hanna-Barbera cartoon through the sundry changes they made to everything – to which viewers are saying, in a word, “Jinkies!”
Velma in HBO Max’s Velma Series Season 1 – Episode
A press conference at New York Comic-Con (via Popverse), Kaling explained first that the show is meant to be frightening and was aimed at adults. “This is a scary show with murders,” She said. “I think we’ve been inspired with a lot more scary teen shows of late, which is why the show is for adults.”
She also said that the show was inspired in part by Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, especially when it came to modernizing and race-swapping. She said that “Why not make the character Indian? We’ve been so inspired by Into the Spider-Verse and seeing these other characters that can embody the spirit of these iconic franchises. Why don’t we try that? We love Scooby-Doo so much, and we’re going to honor it.”
Velma in HBO Max’s Velma Series Season 1 – Episode 1
RELATED: Warner Bros. Retcon Velma As LGBT In New Halloween Movie ‘Trick or Treat, Scooby-Doo!’
Kaling explained why Velma Indian was her decision. “I love this opportunity I have now to be able to have representation of modern Indian American teens.”
She continued: “There is not a lot of representation of Indian American girls in 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s animation. And so what I loved about that character, she’s the closest to what I can see. Smart, A-student, thick glasses that are always falling off, and skeptical.”
“She has a lot of these amazing qualities, so as a kid watching the reruns of the original Scooby-Doo I felt like, ‘Man I really identify with this character.’ I love that she exists. She’s not like traditionally gorgeous or anything, she just helps the gang because she’s so smart,” Kaling explained.
Velma in HBO Max’s Velma Series Season 1 – Episode 3
Charlie Grandy, Velma showrunner, said that the show was also for adults. He revealed this at New York Comic-Con. “We always wanted to do it as adult animation. nd for me, I loved Scooby-Doo as a kid, but it also scared me. I was scared very easily, but I was interested in kind of taking the comedy and the humor of the original, and sort of adapting it for older audiences.”
Kaling also spoke out about the decision to make it an animated adult show. “We’ve loved what people have done with their own versions of it. We felt this was a really interesting and fun way to make a different choice. And it felt worth doing because that hadn’t been done before.”
Norville in HBO Max’s Velma Season 1 – Episode 2
Grandy specifically addressed all the race swapping that took place on the show. “The whiteness of the characters didn’t feel integral to them. Except Fred. Fred just felt like a very white person.”
Kaling was also added. “Fred had to be white. He’s the whitest character in the history of television.”
Velma in HBO Max’s Velma Series Season 1 – Episode 3
Grandy seemed to indicate that the race-swapping of Velma was done in order to self-insert Kaling to be the character. According to UPI, Grandy said that “When Mindy came to me and said she wanted to do it, it was because she connected to her because she was this girl who was the smart one who does all of the work and doesn’t get nearly enough credit.”
However, he would then claim they didn’t decide to race-swap character until later on in the production, “It wasn’t until we got much farther down the road where it looked like this [show] might happen that we really started to talk about how the character should look and should they be South Asian. At the time we were like, ‘Why wouldn’t they be in this day and age?’”
Mindy Kaling Responds to Criticism Around Her Role as Scooby Doo’s Velma, Late Night With Seth Meyers YouTube
Kaling indicated that the reason the show is being referred to as adult-oriented is because of the situations the show puts the teenager characters in. “It’s really just the situations that they’re in because it’s geared towards adults. We can be more like – teens who are 15, 16, or 17, what are those sorts of urges, which you couldn’t have in the show that was for younger kids.”
Kaling stated that Velma was an icon of gay women. “[Velma’s] self-discovery is a really big part of this series. We don’t want to ignore that she’s an icon for young gay women, and I think that’s really interesting. Her figuring it out is a big part of the show and why it’s really fun to do.”
They are. “homophobic” 😐
— Its Just Lag (@ItsJustLag1) January 14, 2023
Kaling went on to indicate she’s received significant support from Warner Brothers to push this on Velma, “Not everyone would necessarily feel comfortable doing this, and we feel so lucky that Warner Brothers animation was open to this.”
Grandy said that the show’s goal is to provide origin stories for a variety of famous phrases and the names of the characters. He stated, “The fun of the show has really been taking the iconic pieces either the sayings or the sweater and trying to give origins to all of those. Imbue them with meaning.”
He explained, “Why does Velma say ‘jinkies’? That’s a big thing that we wanted to lean into. Same with all the characters. We call him Norville in our series. Well, when does he become Shaggy? That’s one of the real appealing things of doing this project.”
Grandy and Kaling believed that they could take. Velma They go in their own directions. The problem is they aren’t connecting with a wide audience as everyone appears to be checking out after the first episode.
Velma in HBO Max’s Velma Series Season 1 – Episode 1
Poor writing and unfunny humor are major complaints.
It was put together by a Twitter user with context “I’m halfway through the second episode of #velma and I’m honestly not able to push-on. This writing is so exhaustingly meta, egregious and offensive to its target audience that I’m unsure how it was even green lit in the first place.”
I’m halfway through the second episode of #velma and I’m honestly not able to push-on. This writing is so exhaustingly meta, egregious and offensive to its target audience that I’m unsure how it was even green lit in the first place.
For context: pic.twitter.com/mp6bXe3VZY
— James Sismanes (@JamesSismanes) January 13, 2023
Even the most passionate content critics like Velma are giving up on it because they can’t power through a single episode. HeelvsBabyface is the creator of YouTube’s roasts. After watching just a few minutes, he was able write off the whole thing as more woke Hollywood rubbish.
NEXT: HBO Max Gives Season Orders To Mindy Kaling’s Race-Swapped Velma Dinkley Series, Clone High Reboot
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