HOME | DD

Description
So, Velma Season 2 is out (no I’m not reviewing it) and it's getting the predictable thrashing it deserves. I guess the only positive outcome it managed to achieve was to unite everyone of every race, colour, sexual preference, religion, talking points and backgrounds into relentlessly dunking on it (which means Season 3 is on the way sadly). The few clips I did see has earned it a spot on this year's list (since I only managed 4 minutes of Season 1). Yes, it'll be at the bottom (again) but that should come as no surprise.

Bad news: We'll have to hear all about it again from the usual suspects of Youtube.
Good news: We can finally move the fuck on from Suicide Squad.

Yay?

This whole controversy got me thinking about SJW content as a whole; more to the point we need a better title for it all together. I believe a more fitting description for it would be 'revenge fantasy.' I say that because it generally involves people taking petty and childish revenge on those who "did them wrong." It's also something of an antithesis to the power fantasy concept as well. Power fantasies, from my experience, involve movies/cartoons/games/comics about an unkillable badass played by the likes of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Lungren, Willis or Van Damme. The key thing about most of their movies is they tend to play more heroic roles, such as a police officer, soldier, cyborg, kung fu warrior or dystopian law officer.

Revenge fantasies don't tend to involve a lot of noble ambition. It's usually making a caricature of someone, an organisation or public speaker the author has issues with, then turning them into a clown for the audience to laugh at. Maybe they're the bumbling minion of their main villain, an asshole who gets beaten up by their self-insert, or a big breasted bimbo to be fucked by the "protagonist" (depending if it's a nsfw revenge fantasy).

Now here's the thing: There's nothing inherently wrong with this method of writing. In fact, it can lead to some truly inspirational ideas. A few key examples off the top of my head involve Peter Griffin's voice being inspired by an old security guard at Seth MacFarlane's school. J.K. Rowling (before she became an irredeemable piece of shit) based the entire character of Dolores Umbridge off of someone she: "disliked intensely on sight." Probably the most famous example I could offer is Dragon Ball's very own Lord Frieza, as his entire character was Akira Toriyama taking his revenge on real estate speculators, what he called: "the worst kind of people."

Even I'm guilty of revenge fantasy thanks to my character, Mim Wimble; though I have since evolved her into something truly horrific.

The key thing all of those ideas have in common is they begin with an inspiration based on hatred, yet evolve the idea by taking them into a unique new direction. Yes, it can be amusing at first to turn your mother, teacher, co-worker or ‘that one asshole in class’ into a dumb cartoon villain, but once that dopamine rush is exhausted, you begin to ask yourself: “Okay, that was fun. Now how can I make this more fulfilling?” Essentially, letting go of that hate and resentment by transforming it into something to advance your writing potential.

Where the likes of Velma fails in this regard is the lack of imagination, as well as putting these thoughts and opinions into the minds of characters they didn't create in the first place. The typical template for these kinds of revenge fantasies stem from a sense of self-righteousness and policing the behaviour of others. I'd like to offer a real example for this point.

Last week (at time of writing) I had a miserable experience on the bus ride to work. Two idiots got on the bus. One was a man wearing a backwards baseball cap (no he wasn't 10 years old), a cigarette proudly in his mouth and publically drinking beer from a bottle. Meanwhile, his companion was an orange tanned thot, with a beer bottle in hand and said the word 'mate' more times than Vince Russo says Bro. She then conducted a highly questionable rant about ethnic minorities and homosexuals; to the point I would be kicked off this platform for repeating one sentence of her ignorant speech.

Public drinking, smoking and hate speech on a bus. How is this allowed??

Now, if I were to take this scenario and apply it to a page of WinneBobble -maybe Maggie or Panda verbally chews them out for this and smacks them around the back of the head- that's pretty fair game. Contrary to the opinions of Youtubers, these people DO exist and need to be called out for their bullshit. Doing this scenario with Jon Arbuckle, Fred from Scooby Doo, or even Megatron of Transformers fame - That's not okay. I say that because you're taking someone else's work and a beloved character to live out a revenge fantasy at the cost of the target audience.

If it's not that, then the common method of SJW-RF is to reinterpret an established character as a contemporary hate figure (usually a celebrity) as a brief punching bag to show solidarity/pandering to a growing social movement. While I can understand the knee jerk reaction some of these hate figures have, I will never understand why these authors feel the need to have these controversial thoughts and opinions coming out of the mouths of characters they not only didn’t create, nor have relevance to the subject at hand. That’s the core issue with these ideas: They only “work” in the short term. Mocking or turning celebrity assholes into a cartoon pinata only has a shelf-life of about a year and a half. Times and trends quickly move on, so while people have moved onto the next big thing, you’re stuck with a cartoon mock up of someone that “isn’t trending anymore.”

I’m reminded of something a good friend of mine once said: “The person you don’t like will live on in your creative work forever. Is that something you truly want?”

I’d have more respect for these people if they just drew the Punisher or whoever beating the crap out of the person they’re angry at. Worked well for American entertainment in the 1940s, am I right?

Which brings us nicely back to Velma. While they deny this, Velma herself is clearly a stand-in for one of the head writers of the show, Mindy Kaling. I believe I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again for the record: I don’t know anything about Mindy or watch any of her content. For all I know, she’s “the nicest person on the planet.” What I can judge her on is Velma’s overall attitude and persona. Also, they race swapped Velma to be the same ethnicity as Ms.Kaling and she provides her voice; it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to connect the dots on that conclusion.

This sort of RF is something we’re all guilty of. Have you ever told someone a story, but you not-so subtly made the person you’re angry at look worse on purpose? Maybe you put on a silly voice when repeating what they said to you, draw them in an unflattering way, or present yourself as the best person when compared to them? Basically this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzO9Kt…

Velma seems to be a vehicle for Mindy to do this, while making the same tired and predictable punchlines that weren't funny the first time around. From the little I managed to watch of the show, I got the impression she hates men, white people, religion and millionaires in general. I find that last one hilarious as she has a net worth of $35 million and writes her drivel in Frank Santara’s old house (which she bought for $9.55 million).

Oh please, Mindy. Tell me about the evils of 'rich people.'

More to the point: Fred feels like a caricature of somebody Mindy knew in her life. That's fine and all, but why are you projecting this man onto a character with no relation to him? That’s what I believe the intent of Velma was when I saw it. A group of people taking petty revenge on others for “doing them wrong.” Cute and all, but this is something you’d usually do in the back of a notebook or on a blog nobody reads. Also, may I suggest therapy next time when deciding to desecrate beloved children’s cartoons? It's not like you can't afford one.

I guess a good question to ask is: What's the difference between something like Velma, and any run of the mill edgy webcomic or Youtube animation?. A webcomic where Batman is an edgelord, or Sonic is a paste swilling idiot can be written off as just fan fiction. For example, I don’t look at something like ‘Mad Mad Mario’ as a proper representation of Super Mario’s character or personality. You can easily ignore it as it doesn't really affect things. Velma, on the other hand, is an officially licenced product by Warner Brothers and has their stamp of approval on it; Meaning whatever stupid shit Mindy & the Funky Bunch decided to do with this nasty series, David Zaslav 100% approves of. The same man who cancelled that terrible Batgirl movie said YES to this.

What we have is a series filled with bitterness, resentfulness and hatred written by a woman who desperately wants to be like Seth MacFarlane. One Family Guy is bad enough - I don’t need another one. At least Family Guy has the potential to write one funny joke now and then… I know that’s a difficult task for it, but the point still stands. I think the only animated series that's good at this sort of commentary is South Park, because it's never one continuous punching bag, but rather everyone is in Matt & Trey’s crosshairs. Oh yeah, they’re also not obsessed with this cringey ‘Meta Humour’ that people are into at the moment. Maybe one day, they’ll Meta-person that finds it funny.

In summary: I don’t see anything inherently wrong with having a revenge fantasy, provided you have the artistic talent and creativity to do something inspiring with it. However, turning an established character into someone you don’t like to get the rage out is something guaranteed to piss off the target audience and enrage your corporate overlords. Well, unless you’re a Marvel Comics writer, of course.

But seriously - Consider therapy, Mindy.

Description
So, Velma Season 2 is out (no I’m not reviewing it) and it's getting the predictable thrashing it deserves. I guess the only positive outcome it managed to achieve was to unite everyone of every race, colour, sexual preference, religion, talking points and backgrounds into relentlessly dunking on it (which means Season 3 is on the way sadly). The few clips I did see has earned it a spot on this year's list (since I only managed 4 minutes of Season 1). Yes, it'll be at the bottom (again) but that should come as no surprise.

Bad news: We'll have to hear all about it again from the usual suspects of Youtube.
Good news: We can finally move the fuck on from Suicide Squad.

Yay?

This whole controversy got me thinking about SJW content as a whole; more to the point we need a better title for it all together. I believe a more fitting description for it would be 'revenge fantasy.' I say that because it generally involves people taking petty and childish revenge on those who "did them wrong." It's also something of an antithesis to the power fantasy concept as well. Power fantasies, from my experience, involve movies/cartoons/games/comics about an unkillable badass played by the likes of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Lungren, Willis or Van Damme. The key thing about most of their movies is they tend to play more heroic roles, such as a police officer, soldier, cyborg, kung fu warrior or dystopian law officer.

Revenge fantasies don't tend to involve a lot of noble ambition. It's usually making a caricature of someone, an organisation or public speaker the author has issues with, then turning them into a clown for the audience to laugh at. Maybe they're the bumbling minion of their main villain, an asshole who gets beaten up by their self-insert, or a big breasted bimbo to be fucked by the "protagonist" (depending if it's a nsfw revenge fantasy).

Now here's the thing: There's nothing inherently wrong with this method of writing. In fact, it can lead to some truly inspirational ideas. A few key examples off the top of my head involve Peter Griffin's voice being inspired by an old security guard at Seth MacFarlane's school. J.K. Rowling (before she became an irredeemable piece of shit) based the entire character of Dolores Umbridge off of someone she: "disliked intensely on sight." Probably the most famous example I could offer is Dragon Ball's very own Lord Frieza, as his entire character was Akira Toriyama taking his revenge on real estate speculators, what he called: "the worst kind of people."

Even I'm guilty of revenge fantasy thanks to my character, Mim Wimble; though I have since evolved her into something truly horrific.

The key thing all of those ideas have in common is they begin with an inspiration based on hatred, yet evolve the idea by taking them into a unique new direction. Yes, it can be amusing at first to turn your mother, teacher, co-worker or ‘that one asshole in class’ into a dumb cartoon villain, but once that dopamine rush is exhausted, you begin to ask yourself: “Okay, that was fun. Now how can I make this more fulfilling?” Essentially, letting go of that hate and resentment by transforming it into something to advance your writing potential.

Where the likes of Velma fails in this regard is the lack of imagination, as well as putting these thoughts and opinions into the minds of characters they didn't create in the first place. The typical template for these kinds of revenge fantasies stem from a sense of self-righteousness and policing the behaviour of others. I'd like to offer a real example for this point.

Last week (at time of writing) I had a miserable experience on the bus ride to work. Two idiots got on the bus. One was a man wearing a backwards baseball cap (no he wasn't 10 years old), a cigarette proudly in his mouth and publically drinking beer from a bottle. Meanwhile, his companion was an orange tanned thot, with a beer bottle in hand and said the word 'mate' more times than Vince Russo says Bro. She then conducted a highly questionable rant about ethnic minorities and homosexuals; to the point I would be kicked off this platform for repeating one sentence of her ignorant speech.

Public drinking, smoking and hate speech on a bus. How is this allowed??

Now, if I were to take this scenario and apply it to a page of WinneBobble -maybe Maggie or Panda verbally chews them out for this and smacks them around the back of the head- that's pretty fair game. Contrary to the opinions of Youtubers, these people DO exist and need to be called out for their bullshit. Doing this scenario with Jon Arbuckle, Fred from Scooby Doo, or even Megatron of Transformers fame - That's not okay. I say that because you're taking someone else's work and a beloved character to live out a revenge fantasy at the cost of the target audience.

If it's not that, then the common method of SJW-RF is to reinterpret an established character as a contemporary hate figure (usually a celebrity) as a brief punching bag to show solidarity/pandering to a growing social movement. While I can understand the knee jerk reaction some of these hate figures have, I will never understand why these authors feel the need to have these controversial thoughts and opinions coming out of the mouths of characters they not only didn’t create, nor have relevance to the subject at hand. That’s the core issue with these ideas: They only “work” in the short term. Mocking or turning celebrity assholes into a cartoon pinata only has a shelf-life of about a year and a half. Times and trends quickly move on, so while people have moved onto the next big thing, you’re stuck with a cartoon mock up of someone that “isn’t trending anymore.”

I’m reminded of something a good friend of mine once said: “The person you don’t like will live on in your creative work forever. Is that something you truly want?”

I’d have more respect for these people if they just drew the Punisher or whoever beating the crap out of the person they’re angry at. Worked well for American entertainment in the 1940s, am I right?

Which brings us nicely back to Velma. While they deny this, Velma herself is clearly a stand-in for one of the head writers of the show, Mindy Kaling. I believe I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again for the record: I don’t know anything about Mindy or watch any of her content. For all I know, she’s “the nicest person on the planet.” What I can judge her on is Velma’s overall attitude and persona. Also, they race swapped Velma to be the same ethnicity as Ms.Kaling and she provides her voice; it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to connect the dots on that conclusion.

This sort of RF is something we’re all guilty of. Have you ever told someone a story, but you not-so subtly made the person you’re angry at look worse on purpose? Maybe you put on a silly voice when repeating what they said to you, draw them in an unflattering way, or present yourself as the best person when compared to them? Basically this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzO9Kt…

Velma seems to be a vehicle for Mindy to do this, while making the same tired and predictable punchlines that weren't funny the first time around. From the little I managed to watch of the show, I got the impression she hates men, white people, religion and millionaires in general. I find that last one hilarious as she has a net worth of $35 million and writes her drivel in Frank Santara’s old house (which she bought for $9.55 million).

Oh please, Mindy. Tell me about the evils of 'rich people.'

More to the point: Fred feels like a caricature of somebody Mindy knew in her life. That's fine and all, but why are you projecting this man onto a character with no relation to him? That’s what I believe the intent of Velma was when I saw it. A group of people taking petty revenge on others for “doing them wrong.” Cute and all, but this is something you’d usually do in the back of a notebook or on a blog nobody reads. Also, may I suggest therapy next time when deciding to desecrate beloved children’s cartoons? It's not like you can't afford one.

I guess a good question to ask is: What's the difference between something like Velma, and any run of the mill edgy webcomic or Youtube animation?. A webcomic where Batman is an edgelord, or Sonic is a paste swilling idiot can be written off as just fan fiction. For example, I don’t look at something like ‘Mad Mad Mario’ as a proper representation of Super Mario’s character or personality. You can easily ignore it as it doesn't really affect things. Velma, on the other hand, is an officially licenced product by Warner Brothers and has their stamp of approval on it; Meaning whatever stupid shit Mindy & the Funky Bunch decided to do with this nasty series, David Zaslav 100% approves of. The same man who cancelled that terrible Batgirl movie said YES to this.

What we have is a series filled with bitterness, resentfulness and hatred written by a woman who desperately wants to be like Seth MacFarlane. One Family Guy is bad enough - I don’t need another one. At least Family Guy has the potential to write one funny joke now and then… I know that’s a difficult task for it, but the point still stands. I think the only animated series that's good at this sort of commentary is South Park, because it's never one continuous punching bag, but rather everyone is in Matt & Trey’s crosshairs. Oh yeah, they’re also not obsessed with this cringey ‘Meta Humour’ that people are into at the moment. Maybe one day, they’ll Meta-person that finds it funny.

In summary: I don’t see anything inherently wrong with having a revenge fantasy, provided you have the artistic talent and creativity to do something inspiring with it. However, turning an established character into someone you don’t like to get the rage out is something guaranteed to piss off the target audience and enrage your corporate overlords. Well, unless you’re a Marvel Comics writer, of course.

But seriously - Consider therapy, Mindy.