Velma Is Officially Confirmed as a Lesbian
Film/TV

Velma Is Officially Confirmed as a Lesbian

In a huge win for queer Scooby-Doo fans, Velma has been officially confirmed as a lesbian.

In a new clip from the upcoming Halloween special, Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!, the bespectacled member of the Mystery Inc. crew can be seen being falling head over heels for costume designer Coco Diablo, going immediately speechless and blushing hard upon meeting her.

While official trailers for the movie didn't previously include any allusions to the relationship, Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! marks the first time Velma's sexuality has been shown on-screen. Both James Gunn, who directed those early 2000s live-action movies (that famously turned Scrappy Doo into the stuff of nightmare fuel), and Tony Cervone, who was a supervising producer on the Mystery Incorporated series, have previously confirmed that Velma is a lesbian. When they attempted to write it into their respective adaptations of the franchise, they were met with pushback.

“In 2001 Velma was explicitly gay in my initial script,” Gunn said in a now-deleted tweet. “But the studio just kept watering it down & watering it down, becoming ambiguous (the version shot), then nothing (the released version) & finally having a boyfriend (the sequel).”

During Pride Month in 2020, Cervone wrote on Instagram: “I’ve said this before, but Velma in ‘Mystery Incorporated’ is not bi. She’s gay. We always planned on Velma acting a little off and out of character when she was dating Shaggy because that relationship was wrong for her and she had unspoken difficulty with the why. There are hints about the why in that episode with the mermaid, and if you follow the entire Marcie arc it seems as clear as we could make it 10 years ago. I don’t think Marcie and Velma had time to act on their feelings during the main timeline, but post reset, they are a couple. You can not like it, but this was our intention.”

The news was met with almost universal praise from fans who were delighted to see Velma finally get the proper on-screen representation she deserves. Hayley Kiyoko, who played Velma in 2009's Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins, was perhaps one of the most excited people to hear the news, tweeting "I feel alive and seen" and quote tweeting photos of her in the made-for-TV movie with the caption "Baby gay."

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Animation