Even though I said I would write about video games in my next blog, however, I am sitting here watching Scooby-doo wondering, who did I like as a kid, and who I could not care less for. As a kid I really could not have cared less for Velma's existence. Now that I watch this again as an adult with some knowledge in media reading, I have come to the conclusion, that Velma is always dressed like a dork. In this particular episode she was all bundled up and looked like a great pumpkin while Fred and Daphene had on cute little snow suits that made them look like little models of what society thinks we should look like.
There I sat wondering where did this notion come from that smart girls have to be striped from all attractiveness to be seen as smart? In Scooby-doo it came from the 50's since this is when the show was made. Fred describes your typical jock and Daphene is a typical rich cheerleader type, so they stand as a couple. Scooby and Shaggy are portrayed as stoners, which makes them a couple in a sense.
This means that Velma is the odd one out; the one that no kid wants to be like. Who wants to be a single ugly little smart girl? Even pot-heads are placed above girls with brains and that is sad. Even in cartoons that are supposedly harmless, our children are being shown what is good and what is not. Even though Velma always solves the case we remember the Scooby snakes and the red hair of Daphene and the jockness of Fred and of Velma if we remember her name we remember she is wearing big glasses and that she was smart.
Since the 50's young girls have been told that either they are smart or pretty but never both. If they choose smart then they will vanish in the background, and no little kid wants that so they aspire to be pretty.
The ones who benefit are the white male world. How you must wonder? If we (women) spend our time getting pretty then we have less time to get smart. Everybody knows that knowledge is power so the less time we have for knowledge the more power the white male can keep.
The moral of the story is that even Scooby-doo is bad for equality. What does that say about our world?
I totally agree with you! I think that Velma and Daphne should be dressed some what the same. It's not fair that she gets all the looks. I mean does Velma's smarts count for anything. Another thing about that whole show is that its called "Scooby-Doo" but Scooby hardly ever cracks the case. IT's normally Velma who put's it all together. Scooby might actidentaly stumble over the answer but you never see him answer it alone. They say that they are a team but not everyone's pulling there weight... i wonder if Velma's back hurts from carrying here team....lol.... My point is that Scoooby spends most of his time eating and being scared, and Velma does 88 percent of the work the rest is divedsed over the "team".
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