# Controversy over “Velma” tv show? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [January 15, 2023, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244 "2023-01-15T00:54:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/41 "2023-01-27T05:09:48Z")
Well, you win. I’ve run out of things to argue about. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/42 "2023-01-27T05:27:57Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > I can’t muster any outrage for the joke but I think it fails to land because it connects two things that aren’t related. The #metoo movement was not about comedians being too edgy. It was about women being sexually assaulted. I honestly didn’t get the joke. If the punchline had been “like every comedian before Michael Richards used the N-word.” it still wouldn’t have been funny and it still would have been controversial but at least it would have made sense. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/43 "2023-01-27T14:16:15Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > perhaps could have gone through another round of editing, but the meaning was clear to me. In which case you, too 😁 are giving a pass on MeToo and PC being used interchangeably. But really the main thing IMO is not the specific wording but whether she’s stumbling on either or both of (a) the “some things you can’t joke about” attitude and/or (b) some in the audience just not liking what _Kaling_ does. (Then there’s (c) “can we be done with the reboots and the deconstructions already?” which has some merit, but we have seen good ones.) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/44 "2023-01-27T14:26:26Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > (Then there’s (c) “can we be done with the reboots and the deconstructions already?” which has some merit, but we have seen good ones.) I think reboots and wholly original content are both valuable. After all, we are still retelling stories from thousands of years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/45 "2023-01-27T22:51:50Z")
Both valuable, yes, but I can’t help but feel there’s been a preponderance of one lately, to the detriment of the other. I wonder if the Internet has made writers less creative. I’ve believed for a while now that boredom is critical to the creative process, and boredom happens so rarely these days. I can’t remember the last reboot/adaptation I’ve seen that really blew me away. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/46 "2023-01-27T23:42:35Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > That was the obvious intent but what some are bringing up is that what the standups complain about is **not** “MeToo” but PC/“cancel culture”. Adjacent and intersecting but not the same thing. I find it odd that people are seemingly hung up on this distinction. I mean, if you were talking to the kind of jackass comedian who would, unironically, claim that “you’re not allowed to be funny any more” due to societal changes in the past decade or so, and you said to them “hey, I bet you had to retire some of your jokes after #metoo, didn’t you?” don’t you think they would agree? Like, the people who would be making this sort of complaint in the first place wouldn’t recognize the distinction, so why should we? Not to say that it’s a good joke… partly because we all know for external reasons that Mindy Kaling is generally progressive in her attitudes, but we can’t seem to figure out what layer of satire the joke lives in. But I a think a reaction of "wait a second, what lazy writing that is, there’s no reason for #metoo to have changed jokes, really the reference should be to ‘cancel culture’ " is just… weird. Like, it requires you to be taking the joke literally but not seriously, or seriously but not literally, or something that I can’t quite parse out. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2023, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/47 "2023-01-28T19:59:04Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > But I a think a reaction of "wait a second, what lazy writing that is, there’s no reason for #metoo to have changed jokes, really the reference should be to ‘cancel culture’ " is just… weird. I don’t think it’s weird because the failure to recognize the distinction is what makes the joke unfunny. Or at least it makes it less funny. It’s possible it would have been unfunny if it made sense. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2023, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/48 "2023-01-28T20:19:55Z")
Observational humor becomes less funny the less rooted in reality it is. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2023, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/49 "2023-01-28T21:08:30Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > The entire show is just lazy, cruel, misogynistic, sexist, and dated. And yes, as one of the Executive Producers setting the direction of the show is indeed part of her job. Yes, well, I think the problem is Kaling. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2023, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/50 "2023-01-28T21:40:54Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, well, I think the problem is Kaling. …I think Kaling is part of the problem, but Charlie Grandy a long-time collaborator with Kaling, the actual showrunner, and deserves the lion’s-share ot the blame. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2023, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/51 "2023-01-28T21:57:00Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > I think Kaling is part of the problem, but Charlie Grandy a long-time collaborator with Kaling, the actual showrunner, and deserves the lion’s-share ot the blame. You seem to know more about this than I do, so I concede you are likely correct. Still Kaling is a piece of work. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2023, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/52 "2023-01-28T21:58:25Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I don’t think it’s weird because the failure to recognize the distinction is what makes the joke unfunny. Or at least it makes it less funny. It’s possible it would have been unfunny if it made sense. But it could be a deliberate attempt to make the joke MORE funny… because the kind of person who would complain about it would also not recognize the distinction Or it could be a conscious decision to make the dialog flow more clearly because “metoo” is two syllables while “cancel culture” is four syllables. Or it could be that the writers generally think the terms are more interchangeable than you do (and I think I would agree with them) so weighted things differently. Or else it’s ultra-lazy. That’s certainly possible… it’s just not the only possibility, and I don’t think in a billion years it would have occurred to me, while watching the show, to even notice the distinction and have that influence whether or not I found the joke funny… particularly given how subjective and opaque “is it funny” is. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2023, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/53 "2023-01-28T22:45:04Z")
Well, in my defense, I wasn’t watching the show. The joke was printed in an article, and as described, it’s both unfunny and doesn’t make sense. I suspect if this joke appeared in a show I was watching, I’d say, “What?” And that would be that. But since we’re analyzing it, I expected the joke everyone was upset about to be controversial and perhaps even piss me off a little. But as reported it’s just an unfunny stupid joke I can’t work up any outrage about. This then makes one ponder: Why, exactly, is this unfunny rather than offensive? So the attention naturally turns to working out the joke’s meaning. And it’s not clear to me if it’s making fun of woke culture or making fun of people who make fun of woke culture, which I would consider a point against it. So the fact that we are now trying to figure out if it was intentionally not making a distinction between cancel culture and #metoo just kicks it further and further into unfunny territory, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2023, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/54 "2023-01-28T22:47:47Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > But it could be a deliberate attempt to make the joke MORE funny… because the kind of person who would complain about it would also not recognize the distinction Yes, this. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2023, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/55 "2023-01-29T01:17:38Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > And it’s not clear to me if it’s making fun of woke culture or making fun of people who make fun of woke culture, which I would consider a point against it. Precisely. And without knowing what the intent of the joke was, it seems weird to try to evaluate its precise phrasing. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2023, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/56 "2023-01-29T01:26:05Z")
Those of you who are wondering regarding the intent of the joke—have you seen the show? It was clear to me while watching the show that it’s not “woke culture” that’s the target of the joke. The targets are (1) comedians who complain that woke kids are ruining their art and (2) the Velma character herself, who has a lot of negative character traits, primarily extreme self-centeredness. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2023, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/57 "2023-01-29T07:24:23Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > One good show makes it all worthwhile. It’s not like creating a bad show is a deficit that needs to be made up. Especially for a subscription service like HBO. all that counts is finding something you like. Something you don’t like is irrelevant. I consider this a corollary to Sturgeon’s Law: if 90% of everything is crap, then 10% of everything _isn’t_ crap - and because there is so much of everything, 10% of it is more than enough for anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2023, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/58 "2023-01-29T10:47:28Z")
The thing that annoys me about this show is the righties are saying “Go woke go broke” and the lefties are saying “OMG, won’t someone please think of the children”! First off, the show isn’t “woke” it’s just stupid. And secondly, the show is clearly rated “MA”. Maybe don’t let your kids watch adult programing. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2023, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/59 "2023-01-29T17:23:40Z")
Is anyone actually saying “Think of the children?” None of the complaints I’ve seen - and I’ve seen a lot - have been about it not being appropriate for kids. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2023, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244/60 "2023-01-29T20:57:35Z")
On TikTok. A lot of young parents on there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversy-over-velma-tv-show/978244.md?page=4)