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The live action Scooby-Doo movies?
I did not see this ask until RIGHT now (first time on desktop since crab day, second time since Nov 5 2020 [which was DOUBLY experience since I got my phone taken the same day]) so I'm going to assume this ask got eaten on mobile because tumblr, HOWEVER you poked a bear with this ask anon (as I'm sure you knew when asking) SO without further ado: my Scooby Doo live action opinions
So when you say 'live action Scooby-Doo movies' I'm assuming you're talking about the James Gunn films, starting with Scooby-Doo (2002) followed by Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, just due to like, generally popularity and also the fact that I have actually seen those films. However shoot another ask if you wanted me to include Curse of the Lake Monster in this (because I will if anyone cares and turn this into a live-action scooby dissertation, i'd just need to like. watch the movie first) But anyways where I'm going with this is that this post is about the Gunn movies aka the ones with SMG, Freddie Prinze Jr., Linda Cardellini, and ofc our #1 man, Matthew Lilliard.
Okay so my take on these movies is... complicated. I wouldn't say it's as complicated as my feelings towards SDMI, because I watched the live actions way less as a kid and generally care less about them, but still no matter how much shit I throw at these two movies there are parts that I generally like (even love) that stops me from totally condemning them wholesale. Like the fact that these movies are FUNNY! There's so many moments from this duology that are just beyond iconic "like, that's one of my favorite names!" the whole thing with Scooby in the dress at the airport, ET. CETERA (like I can go on!)
The Gunn movies are genuinely SO fun and I can 100% see and understand how they've stood so well in the public view as a representation of Scooby. HOWEVER, this is where you start to see my problems with them. For the general American, (because that is the audience I'm familiar with) ESPECIALLY millennials and younger, who happen to make up the majority of both people on this site AND people I talk about Scooby with in real life, these movies, and the elements they introduced as "quintessential scooby tropes" are the base of their understanding of the Scooby franchise, along with likely some miscellaneous WAY episodes and maybe SDMI.
Which is where I get pissed off. In the pushing of the narrative of "breaking away" from the Scooby norm, Gunn basically invents (aka totally makes up) an idea of what classic era Scooby was like, cementing an idea of classic Scooby into the public mind that is totally disingenuous and just straight up false. For example, in attempting to portray Daphne as having taken strides to be seen more seriously in solving mysteries and defending herself, it pushes the narrative that in the classic era she WASN'T taken seriously, and only existed as a damsel-in-distress prop of a character, which is just not true??? Like yes, Daphne is clumsy, that's a part of her character, and her friends (because, fun fact, the gang ARE friends) joke about it sometimes because that's what friends DO. Framing that in some kind of sexist "that's all she does" lens is just total bull, especially as gang members fall into secret passageways/get lost etc. in WAY ALL THE DAMN TIME because that's how the plot functions! Like are we calling Velma ditzy for losing her glasses every other episode? Of course not, and Fred falls into passageways all the time, not to MENTION Shaggy and Scooby and all they get up to. Also one last thing on the topic of Daphne, like this idea of her mystery solving skills not being respected by the gang is just so supremely bullshit it amazes me sometimes, especially when she was the LEADER (or leader adjacent) through pretty much all of her appearances in the 1980s [Not that James Gunn could look at '80s era Scooby without spitting on it, but I digress]
AND THIS IS JUST DAPHNE! Like the perceptions pushed towards Fred (and Velma, but mostly Fred) through these movies are just as bad! Like okay, with Fred---In these movies Fred is just an asshole. I hate Gunn Movies!Fred. I mean yeah he can be funny but it's almost always so mean! Almost nothing makes me madder than a mean Fred by the way. If he's putting other gang members down (even halfway, like with his whole "dorky chicks like you turn me on too" line, which... ew) then to me something has gone very, very, VERY, wrong in your basic understanding of Frederick Herman Jones as a character. Like he's the cheerleader! He puts himself in between his friends and danger! He loves nets, and traps, and Elvis impressions, and wrestling, and the trapeze, and cars, and most of all he LOVES sharing the things he loves with his friends! (Sometimes to a bit of an extreme. No one wants to hear about your net facts, Fred) And the live action movies just don't understand that at all. And I know there's maybe something to say I suppose in that some of those aspects of his characterization hadn't been "established yet" by the time "Scooby-Doo" came out in 2002. But it's there if you look. For Fred Jones, being the leader means being the caretaker, (he's the Mom friend what can I say) and any version where he's cruel and arrogant and just DOESN'T CARE about his friends in the way he's shown to in the Gunn movies is just so far from Fred to me it's not even funny. And what makes it even worse for me is that this (or at least something similar) is the idea of Fred that has really spread to the popular culture. Just the "leader", the jock that makes the rules, the one that [insert X adaptation here] finally gave a personality and made interesting (something that has been said more times than I can count for pretty much every gang member, save Shaggy and Scooby).
And I haven't even touched on Velma, and how they gave her a bit of a early 2000s smart superiority girl complex against Daphne, plus the whole makeover thing and etc. etc. The Gunn Movies are pretty much what would happen if you took someone who hadn't seen Scooby since they were 7 years old (and honestly had a pretty negative outlook against it then) and tried to "fix" it, only his memory was so bad he just made up problems (and threw in a good helping of early 2000s style sexism with it) convincing pretty much the entirety of the popular culture that said problems exist and that Gunn was absolutely brilliant for fixing them (and then bringing up said "problems" whenever anyone wants to talk about Scooby) and this entire rant has been without even fucking MENTIONING what is probably the reason you, anonymous tumblr user sent this ask in the first place, to I, Swishy "Scrappy Doo Redemption Arc" Broke-on-books (dot tumblr dot com), which is his HIGHLY SUCESSFUL and utterly sadistic character assassination of my number one man, Scrappy Doo.
And I am going to try my damnedest here not to get totally into my highly passionate opinions over what James Gunn did to Scrappy in the first of his Scooby movies and how thoroughly it has pissed me the fuck off because I have been writing this post for over an hour now and if we start to really get into my feelings on this topic it will certainly be a couple of hours more but like. That Fucking Bitch. I give James Gunn personally a solid eighty-five percent of the blame for making my life as a Scrappy Doo fan UTTERLY unbearable with this stupid fucking movie alone, and just his Scrappy crimes would honestly be enough for me to say that I hate this movie, not even considering the numerous Scooby crimes I've been talking about here for the past million paragraphs, but the part about this movie that makes me the MOST mad the most pissed off is that it's actually a good fucking movie. James Gunn wrote two hilarious and entertaining movies that have become beloved in the popular culture for their successes in that arena, while at the same time pissing all over the core themes and messages of the franchise of which it was based, that of friendship.
TLDR; The Live Action Scooby Doo movies (written by James Gunn) are highly entertaining and fun pieces of media to watch, and are widely loved by the general public and looked at with fondness and nostalgia because of that. However, as a hardcore Scooby Doo fan (writing that phrase sounds so ridiculous but oh well) the existence of these movies and their impact on the popular culture can be extremely frustrating (despite any personal nostalgia said fan may have) due to their spreading of a misinformed picture of what "typical Scooby Doo" looks like. This picture is especially frustrating due to the fabrication or exaggeration of problems present in classic Scooby (such as sexism in regards to the girls), as well as giving more ammunition to other problems in Scooby fandom (such as oversexualization, and sexualization in general, which no one wants to see in regards to their children's cartoons, like HONESTLY.) Discussions of sexism and sexualization in Scooby (both of which ARE present and are issues, although not at their worst in WAY) can often lead to an overlooking of the issues that are very present and clear in WAY and have continued since then with far too little resistance (I'm 100% talking about the racism here) HOWEVER that topic deserves at least a dozen posts of its own that I am no way informed or qualified enough to even begin to think about writing. The Gunn Movies are frustrating to many longtime Scooby fans because of these reasons, but for me, and fellow Scrappy Doo fans there is also the added aspect of the demonization of Scrappy Doo in the live action movies and the affects that has had on the popular culture as well, making it uniquely inhospitable to like or enjoy the character of Scrappy. End post.
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just a boys’ game
7x04 coda (silly version) | based on my tags on this gifset by @whattarush
“Have you talked to your brother lately?”
Maddie looks up from the tower of blocks she’s been building with Jee-Yun. Chimney’s leaning against the door way, gym bag slung over one shoulder and a hint of sweat still glistening on his skin.
She frowns. “Just the other day. Why?”
“Did you know about the basketball?”
“Oh, the part where he was jealous that Eddie and Tommy are spending time together doing something he doesn’t even like?” she asks.
Chimney points an accusatory finger at her. “So you did know! Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Warn you about—” she looks at him again, at the gym bag bulging suspiciously. Much like it would if it contained, say, a basketball. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes,” Chimney says, finally walking all the way into the living room. He sits on the other side of the pile of blocks and leans back on his hands. “He used me, Maddie. As a basketball beard.”
“Pretty sure that’s not a real thing,” she says, and Chimney sighs, dramatic and long-suffering.
“Basketball beard,” he says. “Noun. When you tell someone you want to play basketball with them, but you actually just want to use them as a cover to be where someone else is.”
“Is that how words work?” Maddie asks, grinning, and Chimney looks affronted.
“Words work however I want them to work,” he says. “Just ask Shakespeare, he made half that shit up.”
Maddie hums, a laugh nearly breaking through it. “Shakespeare, got it.”
“Oh, you should have seen it,” Chimney says, and accepts a block that Jee-Yun hands him. “Here? No?” he asks, and Jee-Yun sighs, just as dramatic as he had a moment ago, and takes the block back.
“That bad?” Maddie winces.
“I haven’t seen him act this embarrassing since—” Chimney narrows his eyes. “Since Eddie joined the 118.”
Maddie snorts. “Well, that tracks.”
“What do you—” Chimney’s eyes go wide. “Oh,” he says slowly. “Oh, I see.”
“Right? I’m not just imagining this?” Maddie asks. “You should have heard him going on about Eddie and Tommy the other day. Has this been under our noses the whole time?”
“I mean, it hasn’t been that long,” Chimney says.
Maddie frowns. “What do you mean?”
Chimney frowns, too. “What do you mean?”
“Did something change recently?” Maddie asks.
Chimney’s brows draw further together. “Okay, back up. Start from the beginning. What are you thinking?”
“Okay, so, Buck and Eddie and Tommy all met for the first time a couple of weeks ago when you went after Bobby and Athena,” Maddie says, counting it on a finger. “Eddie and Tommy started spending time together.” Another finger.
“With you so far,” Chimney says. “Honestly, makes sense they’d get along. Can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.”
Maddie holds up another finger. “The other day, Buck was sitting at our kitchen table talking my ear off about Tommy this and Tommy that and how even Christopher thinks Tommy is so cool.”
“Still following,” Chimney confirms.
“Buck tricked you into going to a pickup basketball he’s been dodging for years, because Eddie would be there with Tommy.”
“Yeah,” Chimney says. “Because he’s jealous.”
“Exactly,” Maddie says. “Jealous of—”
“—Eddie,” Chimney fills in, just as Maddie finishes her sentence.
“—Tommy.”
Chimney blinks. “You think—”
“Well, I did,” Maddie says, “But actually—”
“No, no, I think you’re onto something,” Chimney says. “He and Eddie have always been weirdly attached at the hip.”
“But he has been talking about Tommy an awful lot,” Maddie says. “It’s suspicious. You know he went to tour the helicopters the other day?”
“Bet on it?” Chimney asks.
Maddie grins. “You’re on.”
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