Velma Review - Episodes 3 & 4: Velma Kai & Velma Makes a List
This week, the "hot girl" serial killer strikes again. The Crystal Cove high school administration and local police are ill suited to deal. And Velma teaches Fred about the female gaze. Or tries to.
When The Feminine Mystique was published in 1963, it was met with its share of cultural and critical distaste (even The New York Times, today’s paean for left-leaning, woke thinking proclaimed at the time in response to Friedan’s work “individuals, not culture, were to blame for their own dissatisfaction.” In other words, ”Stop your whining housewives. You are sowing the seeds of your discontent for which you, alone, are responsible.”) and yet here we are, over half a century later, post Friedan’s incendiary, call-to-action response to the civil rights era in the U.S., still in a similar place.
Friedan’s homage to white, middle-to-upper class housewives (with college educations) who were being shackled to the golden cuffs of domesticity and sold a bag of $$ lies reinforcing the message that kids and domestic chores should equal 100% fulfillment, translated to women’s purpose being inextricably tied to the needs of the other- kids, husband, etc. And in our times, women have the fortune of adding to the running list of the “other” with the average ecosystem of “needs to consider” for a working female professional also encompassing a boss, colleagues, not to mention other either professional affiliation or employee resource groups.
In recent years, Friedan has come under fire for not connecting her work to a more post-modern view of society that’s more in synch with our diverse world - including speaking for marginalized or underrepresented groups like black, hispanic, and LBGTQ in her work. In context though, Freidan was writing from her viewpoint - her socio-economic and cultural experience and those of her peers at Smith College, who served as the inspiration for the book and lent their words to the interviews. These were educated white women of a certain era being interviewed in the 1950s, 1960s. This context needs to be considered carefully.
In episode 4 (“Velma Makes a List”) of Velma, the misanthropic and confused Velma, gives Fred, the token white privilege male character, a copy of Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. [Note: This is after Fred spends time in prison in Episode 3 for being wrongly accused of being the “hot girl” killer, breaks out of jail, and starts to demonstrate some empathy for others.] Cue the jokes for which Fred, thinking that Friedan’s seminal, feminist book published in the 60s is actually about a character from the X-Men franchise movies from the 2000s, makes reference to who is the hotter X-Men Mystique actress, Rebecca Romijn or Jennifer Lawrence.
The irony and growth narrative is a) Fred is serious in thinking this book is about an X-Men character and b) Fred ends up experiencing a transformative event in reading the novel which yields him more aware of the female gaze, more sensitive to the their challenges, and ups his attraction to Velma who ultimately rejects him for it even though she was initially very attracted to Fred and had been for a long time. So the very thing that repels Velma (surface level looks + institutionalized patriarchy) is the thing that she desires, sexually.
One of the du jour complaints circulating on the net about this show is how it over-sexualizes teenagers. So first off, let’s set the record straight: This show doesn’t shy away from nude bodies, sexuality, sexually explicit narrative around making out, drug use, parental abandonment, institutionalized norms around feminine hygiene and what constitutes beauty and horny teenagers. But can we just take a step back and say that to continually fault the show because it’s not a Kaling slam dunk (KSD) or that somehow Kaling should only be projecting surface level, purely perfect representation of South Asians also feels unjust. Just Google “Velma” and you’ll see what I mean. Coincidentally, it’s trending for being the 3rd lowest reviewed show in all of IMDB history. And I think we were all there for the first 5 minutes of the first episode of the 8 seasons’ long run of The Ranch on Netflix starring That 70s Show Ashton Kutcher and the other wise-ass guy. Enough said.
There’s an expression that says, “don’t kick a dog when its down” to which I scoff at because Family Guy is on Season 21 and still going strong (yes, I can’t believe it either) features a storyline where Brian, the family dog, and part of Meg’s family, becomes obsessed with Meg, an awkward and precocious teenager (not unlike Velma, and voiced coincidentally by Kutcher’s wife and former That 70s Show actress, Mila Kunis) and her friends’ boobs, and perhaps equally lecherous, another story where a middle-age perv dude, Quagmire, stalks Meg’s boobs. Meg is a teenager too. Isn’t this over-sexualization? At the very least, the dynamic it sets up is quite problematic in the case of the dog and borderline criminal, in the case of Quagmire. And don’t even get me started on my dislike of Seth McFarlane, but sufficed to say this 2013 article from Vulture doesn’t leave much on the table and this is all pre-MeToo. But ok, he also has a pretty spectacular voice as seen in the fantastic Sing clip below.
Exhibit A: Frank Sinatra level goosebumps
So I guess two conflicting things can be true at the same time, or 2x2. Macfarlane can be misogynistic and antisemitic and also a talented singer and a smart business person.
Exhibit B: Macfarlane’s infamous and insidious Oscars Boob song which had a bunch of A-list actresses being body-shamed and for which they either are acting the part of “mock” disgust or are actually disgusted. You be the judge.
So back to two conflicting things being true at the same time…Velma can be romantically attracted to Daphne and nearly say that she’s “ga-ga-ga” in Episode 3 and then be longing for the male gaze a character like Fred/McFarlane represents and very much desiring him, physically. Regarding jokes, this show has a pass/fail of 30/70. I also did a counter as I was watching for how many white male/patriarchy jokes were present in Episodes 3 and 4 and generally is upwards of 4 per episode.
So where are we after episodes 3 and 4?
The school’s response to the serial killer striking again. Our murder count is up to 3 girls. Shaggy’s/Norville’s dad, the school guidance counselor, is featured pretty prominently in the episode where he tries to coach the high schoolers through the loss of their classmate, with a banner in the gymnasium which reads, “Because talk is cheap. Medication is not.” He also tells Norville that people will talk to him (including Fred and his inmates at the prison) and take him seriously as mental health professional if he wears the “magic sweater” which is a cardigan that makes everyone immediately divulge their deepest insecurities. That was pretty funny. It’s a Mr. Rogers sweater.
Sweater: Courtesy of L.L Bean. Effect: Courtesy of Velma Best lines in Episode 3 when the girls are told by the female detectives played by Wanda Skyes and Jane Lynch (also Daphnes’ moms) that they are being mandated to participate in an involuntary self-defense class to protect themselves from the serial killer: Why don't the boys have to take a “Don’t murder girls” class. To which Velma says later on, “How will fighting girls help us protect ourselves from guys? Is first prize a gun?”
The subplot mystery with Daphne looking for her birth parents and Norville (Shaggy) along for the ride, literally driving out to the Crystal Cove mines, was one of the few elements in Episode 4 that felt unforced. I like this pairing. They are both smart and perceptive about each other. Then again it might just be flashback of positive memories from one of the episodes from the best incarnation in the last 30 years of the Scooby Doo franchise, Scooby Doo, Mystery Incorporated which is also on HBO Max (aired from 2010-2013).
The entire episode 4 is dedicated to Velma being relegated to making hot girls “uggos” but then again, equally as ludicrous is the police instituting a program called “Hotties Only, Pukefaces Excluded” and asking Velma to create a list of the 5 hottest girls at the school as only they will get police detail protection to ensure they don’t get killed by the serial killer. Velma has trouble knowing how to define hot and of course, enlists Fred in this and he nails it.
Velma idealizes how coaching the hotties to be more aware of their inner beauty will result in more positive results for these women and they will experience a metamorphosis. She goes to great lengths to teach about dressing down, not styling their hair (leaving it wet and putting it back), or doing makeup and adding patches of hair to their arms. “Where’s the hair I glued to your arm?” In the end, one of the hotties calls Velma out on her brand of “uggo” being even more restrictive than theirs. This makes Velma think…
I think the business card for the Crystal Cove Insane Asylum that fell out of Lamont’s magic sweater pocket is a clue into the disappearance of Velma’s mom. Hopefully Norville and Daphne go on another hunt together.
Wild guess: Anyone else think that Daphne’s birth parents story and her back flash memory to being a baby in the cave intersects with one of the two main mysteries? (Either Velma’s mom or the hot girl killer?) especially since we saw a dark shadow watching her and Norville ominously as they drove away.
The hot girl killer storyline feels like a subplot kinda in the mold of White Lotus, where your focus is less on the killer (and crime) and more on the rest of the developments of the story and its characters.
