Ellen DeGeneres insists Velma from Scooby Doo is a lesbian: ‘She’s basically the Rachel Maddow of cartoons’
Velma was meant to be gay in the 2001 Scooby-Doo film
Ellen DeGeneres has joked that Velma from Scooby Doo is a lesbian, describing her as the “Rachel Maddow of cartoons”.
Fans have speculated for years that Velma, the bespectacled sleuth known for her undeniably queer aesthetic, is actually a lesbian – and DeGeneres weighed in on her talkshow on Monday (5 April).
During a monologue, Ellen DeGeneres said HBO Max is launching a new show focusing on Velma from Scooby Doo, meaning the debate about the character’s sexuality has started once again.
“People online are once again debating whether Velma is a lesbian, so here are my thoughts. First of all she’s a cartoon character so no one should really care about her sexuality,” DeGeneres said.
“Secondly, just cause she wears those clothes and has short hair, doesn’t mean she’s a lesbian, and third, obviously she’s a lesbian. Come on. Velma, she’s on our team, she does all the things that lesbians do.
“She has short hair, she has thick glasses, she solves mysteries. She’s basically the Rachel Maddow of cartoons. I heard that she’s trying to get the rest of the gang to trade in the mystery machine for the Subaru Outback.”
DeGeneres went on to offer her thoughts on the sexuality of other cartoon characters, including SpongeBob Squarepants and Elsa from Frozen.
Ellen DeGeneres offered her thoughts on other supposedly gay cartoon characters
“For some reason people seem very interested in sexual orientation of cartoon characters so as the nation’s leading expert on gay, I will take a look at some other characters people have speculated about,” she said, before declaring Peppermint Patty from the comic strip Peanuts to be gay because of her love of Birkenstocks.
Discussing SpongeBob’s sexuality, DeGeneres said: “He spends a lot of time with his friend Patrick, he has a pet snail. I don’t know if that’s gay, it just sounds like it is though – I mean, who has a pet snail?”
But the talkshow host disagreed with speculation that Bugs Bunny is gay, pointing out that “dressing in drag does not make you gay”.
“Bugs Bunny is just kinky,” she said.
Reflecting on the debate surrounding Frozen‘s Elsa, DeGeneres said: “I’m not sure why this rumour started in the first place. I guess as soon as a Disney princess doesn’t spend the entire movie pursuing a man, that makes her gay.”
The comedian closed out her monologue by declaring countless cartoon characters to be gay, including Ursula and Flounder from The Little Mermaid along with four of the seven dwarves and “the candlestick from Beauty and the Beast“, saying he is “French or gay, same thing”.
