The hate-watchers are giving it better ratings than "The Last Of Us". Good job, CHUDs! You made Anita Sarkeesian a millionaire too! What a bunch of heroes! https://www.darkhorizons.com/velma-backlash-draws-major-eyeballs/
Reviews don't pay the bills, viewers do. Howard Stern made it to the top of the ratings thanks to all the people that hated his show but still tuned in every day.
True, but one week doesn't a trend make. Controversies like this tend to not translate into anything other than a short term boost.
I’m sure the reviewers use terms like CHUD, incel, Nazi and racist and think that by using those terms, they are immune to criticism. I bet they even bring up Matt Walsh multiple times if you disagree with them. Hell, they probably even make shit up out of whole cloth on a daily basis then have the nerve to talk about George Santos being a liar. Why reviewers would go into such detail I don’t know.
It's too bad Google searches are gasoline powered, and use an old rusty ripcord starter that's crippling to wrestle with. Otherwise, you could check.
Hate watching only gets you so far. Everyone loves a good train wreck, but at some point you have to move on.
King Of The Hill was bland as fuck, and it hung on for 11 years. I see this limping along to at least 3.
I dunno... this was the most relevant review I've read so far. On “Velma,” Mindy Kaling, and Whether Brown Girls Can Ever Like Ourselves on TV Who made us feel this way? Who benefits from endless jokes about brown women having “hairy gorilla arms”? BY JANUARY 23, 2023 COURTESY OF HBO MAX In this op-ed, writer Sakeina Syed unpacks HBO’s new show Velma and the trend of appearance-based jokes about brown girls on TV. One of the many changes to Mystery Inc. in HBO’s adult horror-comedy reboot Velma is the titular character’s ethnicity; Velma Dinkley (voiced by Mindy Kaling) is now South Asian. At face value, it might seem like an innocuous, or even distinctly positive change. But in tandem with the release of the first two episodes came scenes that spoke otherwise. So far, the only material Velma's newfound brown skin has brought to the series are punchlines about her appearance. The character is an unwelcome successor to a tired pop culture legacy of relentlessly deriding brown girls for their appearance. Minutes in, the show is littered with quips about Velma’s appearance — in an early scene, two cops joke about her “hairy gorilla arms” and her weight. Later on, Velma struts into school with a makeover. For a split-second, her classmates respect her. “You’re not a total dog anymore,” says one character. It might be funny in an alternate universe where this hasn’t been done to death in dozens of shows and movies. But in the world of South Asian Velma, somehow, the jab is still expected to land. Perhaps at this point it seems like a given: the joke about the ugly brown girl never gets old. Growing up as a young brown girl in the early 2000s, I was no stranger to feelings of insecurity. It’s funny now, but when I was ten years old I took a pair of kitchen scissors to my eyebrows, snipping away haphazardly. I was desperate to do something about an ethnic feature that every piece of media seemed to equate with ugliness. Shockingly, it didn’t work. But this wouldn’t be the last time I was made to feel as though my natural features, from my skin to my hair and beyond, were inherently wrong — and I wasn’t alone. Velma is the newest member of a seemingly infinite roster of brown girl characters whose presence is inextricable from revulsion for their ethnic features. Before Velma, we had clips of Bela from The Sex Lives of College Girls triumphantly announcing her transformation from the "Indian loser with cystic acne, sweaty armpits, and glasses." Or Devi in Never Have Ever praying to thin out her Indian "barbershop floor" arm hair in the first few seconds of the show. I’m not discounting the importance of messy storylines, imperfect characters, and complex arcs. Not all representation should be positive or aspirational. It would be juvenile to expect that every brown character on screen loves themselves and is viewed glowingly by those around them. But it’s a little absurd that we’re still being spoon-fed monologues and lists explicitly detailing the ugliness of South Asian features. Regardless of how the same scenes are being couched as “edgy” comedy, with flawed heroines or arcs of internal growth, they just aren’t landing. The only thing they’re telegraphing loud and clear is internalized racism. Hours after Velma’s release, the internet was ablaze. Clips quickly circulated, and it became clear that the South Asian community is unimpressed with this recurring joke. But it also seemed like people universally disliked the show. Critique of the racist trope was quickly subsumed by discourse about the show’s writing and a pile-on of backlash solely directed at Mindy Kaling, who executive produced the show and plays Velma (though, notably, she’s not the showrunner and didn’t write any episodes that have aired so far). It’s undeniable that Kaling is an integral part of the conversation surrounding portrayals of brown women onscreen: Writing for The Office, creating The Mindy Project, writing and starring in Late Night, co-creating and writing for both Never Have I Ever and The Sex Lives of College Girls, and executive producing and starring in Velma. She’s played a massive role in advancing representation of brown women in Hollywood, and credit needs to be given where it’s due. We might not have the luxury of the current brown girl renaissance without the steps she took. Her current work, like Never Have I Ever, often provides nuanced and positive portrayals of South Asian women too, platforming many brown women in varied roles. Many of these women, like Devi and Bela, also often show outright confidence. (rest at link) TLR-in its attempt to reclaim them, the show gets taken to task for reinforcing "brown girl" stereotypes for a white audience
There is a general thing about racism and prejudice. Not everyone who has these issues is a full on racist. Even MLK said that the biggest problem might be the lesser racists as they are the complicit masses who allow the more radical problems to do their work. That is all another discussion for the red room. Even whether or not Lanz in particular is ome is more fit for the red room. However, the Velma issue is a sign of a racist. It is particularly racist when you see the hatred. The original scooby doo was written without the main character's backstory. This is a distinct way of writing that allows their backstory to be anything, and allows the characters to be of any race without changing the story. For instance, if you changed a captain america to be a black person that would change dynamics of his origen story, his place inh the universe, and you could do it but it would involve introspection on race, time period, and character dynamics. The scooby universe and characters are much more fantastical and race free even though being all white. There is no location. There is no history. It was intentionally written that way because they could have put these dynamics into the mix by adding any sort of real world connection. There is no cannon reason Velma cannot be black, lesbian, or whatever. They did not have to alter anything about her personality, story, or the way the world treated her to make her black. Getting angry over using a browner color is the essence of racism. Someone who does that and thinks they do not have racism inside of them need to check themselves because there is something there. If your friends are doing that, there is something there. It does not change the story at all that velma is black, so you cannot even flip out because of woke changes. It is just the color palete. Would it make any difference if Velma was all of a sudden pink? Would there be any real outrage if that happened? Think about rick and morty. What if you changed rick's hair to dark brown? Would anyone care? Blue is not even a real haircolor. But what if you made rick's skin dark brown to indicate he was black. The same people would be having a fit. In the case of R&M it might make some sense given the universe seems to have certain white suburban dynamics as pert of it's cannon. It is a cartooin, and these idiots are complaining when no human naturally has dapne's color hair. I am just saying, if someone is actually worried about this and getting agry enough to spout off it is because there is something there.
So, I've seen clips of the show, and....meh. Not seeing where the "omigaawwwd!! It's the worst show in the wooooorld!!! " shit is coming from. MTV, Adult Swim, and Comedy Central made worse shows than this all the time. Now fucking "Brickleberry" that deserved all the crying and puking. This? Meh. I don't even buy the "deep emotional nostalgia investment in the Scooby Doo brand" shit. Do ya? Do ya really? Say it looking in my eyes, and make me buy it. *The CHUDs flinch away* Yeah.
Scooby Doo is the TNG of cartoons for me. I woke up every morning from elementary school all of the way through high school watching Scooby Doo and the Jetsons on TBS before going to school. It was a part of my childhood as much as Star Trek. Granted, after the second movie I lost interest, but Mystery Inc was good and the series before that was pretty good. So yeah, I’m getting tired of my childhood shows getting butchered because of network exclusives need revenue for their IPs and writers who want to “modernize” it or make it their own. No, you have a formula that’s been gifted to you, if you don’t like it create your own thing and let someone else who actually cares about the property do the writing.
Are you unable to watch the versions you grew up with? Did they cease to exist? Did Mindy Kaling take a Tardis into the old cartoons, and perform surgery on everyone? Far as I can tell, this is an Elseworlds. Like "Red Son". "Red Son" doesn't butcher the Christopher Reeve Superman movies.
At least Red Son was good. You see Dicky, people like things to be good, not bad. That’s why people are complaining. If it were good, less people would be complaining.
No shit, really? Y'know what movie I hate most in the world? "Gummo". Total shitpile. I wrote one blog meltdown about it, and got on with my life. I didn't make a social movement out of it. Just sayin.
I’m not making a social movement out of this either. This is a discussion board, we are discussing things.
None of that is the point. All of that is a series of red herrings you want to pretend allows you to evade responding to the actual point, which is untalented fucking hacks like Mindy whatsherass riding the popularity of existing IPs to peddle her shitty self-insert vanity project that would never get off the ground if she wasn't permitted to bastardize someone else's work.
