Hollywood continues to make well-known characters LGBT. with the latest being Velma Dinkley from the Scooby-Doo franchise, but one expert argues more progress could be made by "championing new creations... rather than retrofitting established franchises."
The brainiac Velma was revealed to be crushing hard on new character Coco Diablo, in a short clip released on Tuesday from the new film Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!.
Lorna Jowett, a professor of media and culture at the University of Northampton told Newsweek that, while more LGBT representation was a good thing, Hollywood still had a long way to go.
"This trend for late reveals of characters' sexuality is in line with general increases in representation within U.S. media. There is still a way to go, of course," Jowett said.
"The media industries certainly have more work to do to improve opportunities and pipelines for diversifying representation across the board, [such as] gender, race, disability."
Jowett said that one option to improve representation was to uplift new ideas and creators.
"I do wonder if more progress might be made by championing new creations and new creators, rather than retrofitting established franchises – but the latter is clearly more immediately profitable and less risky for the industry," Jowett said.
The internet rejoiced at the news that Velma was officially confirmed as a lesbian, and she joins a long list of beloved characters whose creators made them LGBT, long after their debuts.
this my fave scene of her !! pic.twitter.com/V07OfY1nsS
— Pia 🍃 (@soleildiddle) October 4, 2022
One of the most famous examples is Albus Dumbledore, the enigmatic headmaster at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter series of books and films.
Author J.K. Rowling outed Dumbledore as gay during a 2007 book tour in the U.S., just months after the final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was released globally.
In 2014, Nickelodeon character Korra was confirmed to be a lesbian in the final episode of The Legend of Korra, when she was shown to be in a relationship with Asami.
The indelible image of the pair holding hands while staring into each other's eyes was one of the first representations of a same-sex couple in a U.S. animated show.
Netflix's He-Man reboot, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, was LGBT-inclusive from the outset, thanks to producer Noelle (now N.D.) Stevenson's input.
On the planet Etheria where the show is based, the powerful princesses are just as likely to marry another woman as they would a man.
Everybody gets each other's pronouns right, and then the bombshell came in the final season, when the show centralized the love story of Adora and Catra.
The former star-crossed lovers admitted their love for each other and shared a kiss on screen, whereas, in previous incarnations, their sexuality was merely a subtext.
But updating canon to make a character LGBT is not just restricted to children's media.
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan once said that fans "wouldn't be wrong," if they presumed the shows' resident bad guy, Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), was gay.
Fring's entry into canon as a gay man was confirmed in July this year by Better Call Saul showrunner, Peter Gould.
"Gus is holding onto his rage, his desire for revenge, and maybe he's holding onto this romance that he had, with his boyfriend Max [his dead business partner from Breaking Bad]," Gould told The Ringer podcast.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, ... Read more
