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Not long ago, I read an article on "the perfect
mate" in which a guy described how he changed from chasing
Veronicas to being "a Betty man."
Now, I love old Archie comics as much as the next person, but
the over-simplified Freud-for-kids stereotypes of women as either
Veronica (foxy, but fiendishly fickle) or Betty (dependable,
but docile and dull) is a wee bit tired, to say the least. It's
the old Madonna/whore thing once again, where women are given
two options: exciting and evil—running off with whomever
makes the best offer at that moment—or saintly and stupid,
happy to wait eternally for a boy who spends his energies (emotional
as well as physical) chasing after someone else.
Which of those are you? I'll take neither of the above, thanks.
But surely, surely, pop-culture must have more to offer? Surely
there must be a retro-cool cartoon character for a 21st century
fox, such as my humble self, to relate to?
There is. Velma Dinkley.
Forget your Archie comics, and re-read the gospel according
to Scooby-Doo. The two females from that cartoon, Velma
and Daphne, once again fall into the categories of fox and non-fox,
but in this instance, they work together (sisterhood,
yeah!). There is no competition. There is no backbiting. There
is none of the bitchiness some men like to equate with femininity.
They even eschew the blonde/brunette dichotomy: each girl is
a redhead. One is strawberry, one chestnut, but nonetheless
the old stereotype is neatly avoided.
Daphne... those legs! That hair! She may not be the sharpest
knife in the drawer (although she is the most sharply-dressed),
but she has a good heart. She is loyal to Fred, but sees him
(and treats him) as her equal (which he is, being handsome but
not excessively bright).
But it's Velma we relate to. Velma is smarter than the lot of
them, but doesn't suffer the sin of pride. Or envy. She may
not be a supermodel, but she does have curves. She's the one
boys have secret crushes on (to quote John Likeglass, who has
spent thousands of hours researching Velma for his fan page,
"I saw this feisty girl with glasses ranting and raving. It
was Velma, and I've been hooked ever since!"). She's the one
you could look to as a kid and say, "Yeah, that's me, smarter
than the rest of them, smirking occasionally, but we can still
all work together."
That's the best thing about the show. Aside from proving that
you can be entertaining and ignore the usual stereotypes at
the same time, the characters built on each other's strengths
in an environment so non-competitive as to be almost communistic.
The fact that they always solved the mystery, working together
to foil their inevitably greedy foes, could almost be seen as
a comment on the ineffectiveness of capitalism versus, if not
communism, perhaps a milder version thereof.
Fourierism, anyone? As Emerson wrote: "society, concert, co-operation,
is the secret of the coming paradise. By reason of the isolation
of men at the present day, all work is drudgery. By concert,
and by allowing each laborer to choose his own work, it becomes
pleasure… The hyena, the jackal, the gnat, the bug, the flea,
were all beneficent parts of the system; the good Fourier knew
what those creatures should have been, had not the mould slipped,
through the bad state of the atmosphere, caused, no doubt, by
these same vicious imponderable fluids. All these shall be redressed
by human culture, and the useful... dog... shall take [his]
place." Could Scooby-Doo himself be this "useful dog" of whom
Emerson speaks?
But perhaps I'm reading too much into all of this.
At any rate, the triumph of Velma and Daphne over the one-dimensional
Betty and Veronica can be seen in the rise of the Scooby
aesthetic over the last five years. Look around you and count
how many young women you see wearing Velma's chunky glasses
and ubiquitous orange turtleneck. They've also thrown on Daphne's
foxy gogo boots. Hey, it's the 21st century—no
reason why we shouldn't have our Scooby-snacks and eat 'em
too.
Copyright © 2001 Jennifer Amey. All Rights
Reserved.
Jennifer Amey is a writer living in Toronto.
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