Post by cometcrystal on Mar 17, 2021 18:52:50 GMT -5
I've been wanting to do something like this for a while, and I thought I'd make a thread here about it to gauge interest in a study like this.
The basic subject is that Daphne is not anywhere near the "damsel in distress" that she usually gets stereotyped as. I've written a few posts about this on my Tumblr (which I will not be linking because it's not PG; I curse a lot there), but I'll copy/paste what I said here:
I’ve finished season 1 of SDWAY and I kept tally of a few things. Out of 17 episodes:
Daphne gets kidnapped/is rendered helpless - 2 times
Shaggy throws his voice - 4 times
Someone says “what a ham” about Scooby and/or Shaggy - 5 or 6 times give or take because I’m not sure in an episode if they say it once or twice
I just thought it was interesting how damsel Daphne became a long-running joke/stereotype when she really isn’t one all that much in the very first season of Scooby Doo. I’m guessing it happens a lot later on, but I was expecting to see it more here.
[later] I finished sdway s2 last night and Daphne gets kidnapped/rendered helpless 3 more times in those 8 episodes. But you wanna know what the interesting thing is? Only ONE out of those two times is when she’s kidnapped/trapped by herself. The other two times, Fred and Velma are with her, as well
Daphne gets kidnapped/is rendered helpless - 2 times
Shaggy throws his voice - 4 times
Someone says “what a ham” about Scooby and/or Shaggy - 5 or 6 times give or take because I’m not sure in an episode if they say it once or twice
I just thought it was interesting how damsel Daphne became a long-running joke/stereotype when she really isn’t one all that much in the very first season of Scooby Doo. I’m guessing it happens a lot later on, but I was expecting to see it more here.
[later] I finished sdway s2 last night and Daphne gets kidnapped/rendered helpless 3 more times in those 8 episodes. But you wanna know what the interesting thing is? Only ONE out of those two times is when she’s kidnapped/trapped by herself. The other two times, Fred and Velma are with her, as well
I think there might have been a vague false idea in the minds of some people who grew up watching Scooby that Daphne was always getting kidnapped and tied up. They probably remembered the very few episodes where that did happen, and just based their memory of the early shows based around that and the other vague memories of the other charas. But it wasn’t like… dominating the image of Scooby Doo as a whole before the 2002 movie.
A few people with these vague memories are who created that movie, and that's how we got “macho Fred who takes the credit for everyone else’s work” and “bitter sarcastic Velma who does all the work” and “damsel Daphne who doesn’t do anything other than look pretty and get kidnapped”.
THAT’S how those ideas became the versions of the characters that most people know. a combination of using a select few singled-out moments to paint a (very limited) picture of the entire first 30 years of Scooby Doo, and the 2002 movie being such a big hit that it confirmed other people’s vague, incorrect memories, and ALSO informing these character traits to a new, younger audience who hadn’t grown up with them and, in many cases, wouldn’t watch much more than the 2002 movie and monsters unleashed after that.
A few people with these vague memories are who created that movie, and that's how we got “macho Fred who takes the credit for everyone else’s work” and “bitter sarcastic Velma who does all the work” and “damsel Daphne who doesn’t do anything other than look pretty and get kidnapped”.
THAT’S how those ideas became the versions of the characters that most people know. a combination of using a select few singled-out moments to paint a (very limited) picture of the entire first 30 years of Scooby Doo, and the 2002 movie being such a big hit that it confirmed other people’s vague, incorrect memories, and ALSO informing these character traits to a new, younger audience who hadn’t grown up with them and, in many cases, wouldn’t watch much more than the 2002 movie and monsters unleashed after that.
I'm almost completely done with classic Scooby now (every show pre-a pup named scooby doo). and you know what? I STILL don’t know why “Daphne always gets kidnapped” is the joke/claim that’s so common
It really doesn’t happen that often. I wasn’t keeping tally like i was with sdway, but like… I really can only think of a few examples of her getting kidnapped/rendered helpless compared to the 175+ episodes and shorts I’ve watched up to this point. I’d estimate maybe about 15 to 20% of the episodes is where it happens (maybe less taking into account the ones that she’s not in)?? And like, Velma saying “i can’t find my glasses” is a really popular Velma thing for people to mention, and that happens even less than Daphne getting kidnapped but. idk it just feels off.
Even when she IS getting kidnapped, more than half the time, she’s getting kidnapped alongside someone else (either both Fred and Velma, or either scrappy or shaggy). It’s almost never just HER.
And the only people a lot of people seem to think of when Daphne Blake is mentioned is “oh she’s the damsel in distress”/"she's the useless one". when that’s usually not the case at all. Before Pup, there was about 20 years worth of her canonically being clever, resourceful, a natural leader, and one of the gang’s primary clue finders. She also has an enthusiastic interest in uncovering the truth, whatever that may be, as well as several other topics like history and anthropology
Like, I’ve seen people say that Daphne doesn’t really have a personality, but she’s always had one?? it’s always been there?? Why hasn’t it been noticed
It really feels like this decades-long joke built to downplay her character and reduce her to something that people can digest based on something that rarely happens to her and isn’t even exclusive to her (read: a kidnapped, helpless damsel) because she’s the “pretty” one and they can’t accept that she was the leader of the gang for THREE entire series and she’s canonically more than just the pretty one.
It’s really truly baffling to me because watching all these old shows, I just. I can’t stop thinking about it.
It really doesn’t happen that often. I wasn’t keeping tally like i was with sdway, but like… I really can only think of a few examples of her getting kidnapped/rendered helpless compared to the 175+ episodes and shorts I’ve watched up to this point. I’d estimate maybe about 15 to 20% of the episodes is where it happens (maybe less taking into account the ones that she’s not in)?? And like, Velma saying “i can’t find my glasses” is a really popular Velma thing for people to mention, and that happens even less than Daphne getting kidnapped but. idk it just feels off.
Even when she IS getting kidnapped, more than half the time, she’s getting kidnapped alongside someone else (either both Fred and Velma, or either scrappy or shaggy). It’s almost never just HER.
And the only people a lot of people seem to think of when Daphne Blake is mentioned is “oh she’s the damsel in distress”/"she's the useless one". when that’s usually not the case at all. Before Pup, there was about 20 years worth of her canonically being clever, resourceful, a natural leader, and one of the gang’s primary clue finders. She also has an enthusiastic interest in uncovering the truth, whatever that may be, as well as several other topics like history and anthropology
Like, I’ve seen people say that Daphne doesn’t really have a personality, but she’s always had one?? it’s always been there?? Why hasn’t it been noticed
It really feels like this decades-long joke built to downplay her character and reduce her to something that people can digest based on something that rarely happens to her and isn’t even exclusive to her (read: a kidnapped, helpless damsel) because she’s the “pretty” one and they can’t accept that she was the leader of the gang for THREE entire series and she’s canonically more than just the pretty one.
It’s really truly baffling to me because watching all these old shows, I just. I can’t stop thinking about it.
The image of Damsel Daphne really does feel like the female version of Kirk Drift. I started reading an article about that this morning before I left for work but didn't have time to finish and making Kirk a macho womanizing character (by modern standards) in public consciousness when he's really Not That just feels like the other side of the same coin. The generic modern standard of sexist female tropes are often helplessness and being useless as a character. And I think people have mentally inserted that into retro Scooby Doo when it was never there.
With all that being said, what I'm interested in doing at some point is rewatching all the retro Scooby series (SDWAY thru 13g) and taking some notes. I'd continue my tally of how many times she gets kidnapped, but I'd also keep additional tallies, such as "Daphne directly contributes to helping solve the case" and "A character other than Daphne gets kidnapped". I'd also keep a separate tally for the times Daphne does get kidnapped, but it's alongside someone else, so I can compare that to the times she gets kidnapped alone.
I'm not sure what I'd do with my findings in the end. I was thinking about making a video essay, but I don't know much about video editing. Either way, I'd have the data, and I think it's something worth looking into!
