Jinkies! The long-running “Scooby Doo” cartoon is getting some negative attention for its newest movie storyline.
“Scooby Doo! Frankencreepy,” which was released direct to DVD on Tuesday, has some parents concerned for their kids over more than just a scary monster. The latest plot sees the famous crime-solving gang subject to each of their worst nightmares in the form of a curse by the Frankencreep monster. For Daphne, a “curse” means ballooning from her slender size 2 to a “size 8.”
The bloated cartoon depiction of the beloved character’s appearance as a size 8 is what has some social media users up in arms.
Many have noted that Daphne appears much bigger than what a size 8 woman would look like, but the larger issue is apparently that the Warner Bros. cartoon film chose to inflict a curse of fatness on a female character.
“It’s sad to think that my daughter can’t even watch a cartoon about a dog solving mysteries without negative body stereotypes being thrown in her face,” Tom Burns writes in a blog post for The Good Men Project.
But the studio behind “Scooby Doo” issued a statement defending its storyline for “Frankencreep,” saying the point of Daphne’s transformation was to show that appearance doesn’t matter.
“The message is actually a much more positive one,” Warner Bros. said in a statement to The Huffington Post.
“While Daphne is at first upset by the sudden change, there is a touching moment where Fred points out that he didn’t even notice a change and that she always looks great to him … The loss of Daphne’s regular appearance is proven to be a superficial thing, and not what actually matters the most to her.”
At the end of the movie, Velma points out that the curse didn’t take away “what means the most to each of them: their friendship,” Warner Bros. said, explaining that Daphne’s narcissism was the real issue.
“I actually have to defend the writers here because Daphne realized she was being superficial throughout that story arc,” one reviewer said on Amazon.
“I would say it was more about acceptance and not being superficial than anything.”
But Burns, and several other bloggers and social media users, aren’t buying it.
“Why not have her cursed to look like one of the classic Scooby monsters?” he writes. “Why not cover her in hair and fangs and turn her into a wolf-girl? Why not give her a third eye, green skin, a tail … why not really make her terrible to look at?”
