“Scooby-Doo” teenage detective Velma Dinkley was accused of being a “Karen,” when woke Twitter discovered that her character in a new video game had police calling powers.
In Warner Bros. newly released MultiVersus vidoe game, some players became vexed when they noticed that Velma’s special move was to gather evidence on opponents and call the police to car them away.
They considered the action racially offensive when Velma, a white woman, used the finisher against LeBron James’ “Space Jam” character. One Twitter user labeled the cartoon detective “Karen ultimate” for using her white privilege to summon the police on a Black character.
“I am enjoying Velma in Multiversus but maining a character [whose] special move is calling the police on her enemies definitely [doesn’t] sit right with me as a black man,” one player tweeted.
A small group of objectors took to Change.org to petition the game maker to remove the police car, because of how Black people have suffered from “police brutality,” which they believe the squad car represented.
Warner Bros. quietly addressed the problem in an update last Thursday. “Instead of calling the police, Velma now solves the mystery and calls the Mystery Inc. gang and the Mystery Machine to take the bad guys away,” the update notes read.
Not everyone is thrilled with the alternative, which involves Scooby and company kidnapping other competitors instead of sending them to jail.
“People are so caught up on the “Karen” and “Police Brutality” memes that they don’t realize that it’s way worse to have Velma call the Mystery gang. It’s literally 4 white people, and a dog, beating up someone in the back of a van. Then trying to run off the map,” someone pointed out.
Another noted how absurd the it is to brand a video game character’s actions racially motivated.
“With this logic I assume all the animal based characters will be removed as well because LeBron beating up on Bugs Bunny is obviously animal abuse and of course nobody can be expected to not take a video game seriously anymore and it must cater to modern political themed,” they wrote.