Daphne from Scooby Doo—whose salient personality trait has always been “pretty”—wasn’t exactly a progressive character to begin with, but Warner Bros. has really outdone themselves with the new straight-to-video Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy. In it, Daphne gets on the wrong side of some ghoul or warlock and is transformed from regular-Daphne into—HORRORS—fat-Daphne.
First of all, I thought the whole POINT of Scooby Doo was that the ghouls and warlocks weren’t real—they were just greedy dildos trying to hoard pirate treasure by dressing up like witches. So how the fuck did one of them turn Daphne into an instant fat lady?
And second of all, to paraphrase Rob Lowe as Shaggy from this SNL cable news parody that isn’t available online (CURSE YOU, SNL, AND YOUR MEDDLING “POLICIES”), I don’t want to live in an America where four hippies and a talking dog don’t have the freedom to catch fake ghosts with the occasional help of Phyllis Diller and the Harlem Globetrotters WITHOUT disseminating the message that simply existing in a fat body qualifies as a curse!!!!!
Via Yahoo!:
…when Daphne comes face to face with the bad guy, she is “cursed” with losing the thing that she holds most dear: her small frame. With a simple hex, the cartoon character instantaneously balloons from size 2 to (cover your eyes!) size 8.
…Warner Bros., the production company behind the animation, said in a statement to the Huffington Post that it is always sensitive to displaying themes of obesity and self-image, especially when the franchise’s target audience is children and families. “The loss of Daphne’s regular appearance is proven to be a superficial thing, and not what actually matters the most to her.”
The statement also notes that Daphne’s longtime love, Fred, “didn’t even notice a change and that she always looks great to him.” That message could be the worst of all — that a woman’s self-esteem and acceptance of her body and looks comes from a man’s approval, not from within.
As one person on Twitter succinctly put it: “Scooby Doo taught us that the real monsters are humans and if that is not deep, I don’t know what is.”
That message certainly isn’t lost here.
Keep this shit away from my kids.
Image via Warner Bros.