Over the years, members of the gang have been pigeonholed and retconned into fitting certain stereotypes; Shaggy as a stoner and Velma identifying as a lesbian being the two most prominent examples. However, one stereotype is often thrust upon a member of this gang, but has not been explored in much depth over the years. Fred is sometimes labelled as a jock, despite not really displaying any athletic ability and being quite quirky at times.
In many of the earlier series, although Fred is the leader of the gang, he displays a number of quirky traits. He seems to really enjoy being the glue that holds the gang together, and is the type of person who enjoys structure. Typically, at least in the early episodes, he's the one who always suggests the gang split up. If you look closely in the early episodes, he's almost always got his hands in his pockets, which is an interesting little quirk in itself. Occasionally, he'll seem somewhat fixated on things, for example, in "The Ghost of Bigfoot," he mentions going skiing at least a dozen times. In these early episodes, we never see Fred wanting to play sports or displaying the traits of the stereotypical 'macho man.' However, it's perhaps worth pointing out that when Frank Welker first auditioned for the role, he was told to "think Jack Armstrong! Channel the All-American Boy!", which he revealed in a recent interview. It is also worth noting, however, that Fred seems to go through a bit of a phase in season one of The New Scooby-Doo Movies. In the first episode of the series, he makes an odd joke out of nowhere about women, saying "This desert is like a woman...it goes on and on and on!" Besides this, his general behavior in some episodes is very odd. One example of this is in "Wednesday Is Missing," in which Daphne asks where a door goes. Fred tries to open the door, and when he realizes it's locked, he says "we'll never know!" in a very serious voice. In "The Haunted Horseman of Hagglethorn Hall," Shaggy says that he doesn't know if he has the spine to deal with the hauntings, to which Fred very sassily replies "What spine?" Perhaps most prominently in "The Phantom of the Country Music Hall," he acts as if he's only half listening to what Jerry says, which I detailed in my review here. Fred also lashes out at Shaggy inexplicably when Shaggy is scared of a dummy head falling down the stairs, shouting "You oughta be ashamed of yourself!" While perhaps the writers just had a different vision for his character in this season, it could be argued in-universe that Fred was perhaps going through some sort of mental health issues in this season, further showing his three-dimensionality beyond the two-dimensional "jock" stereotype. Fred's quirkiness goes into overdrive in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, which represents him as a conspiracy theorist. In the series, Fred is regularly very invested in various conspiracy theories posed by his favorite magazine The National Exaggerator, which his Uncle Eddie owns. He is shown to have a lot of anxiety about these theories, regularly becoming alarmed about what he reads in the magazines. The closest we've ever seen to Fred fitting this "All-American Boy" stereotype is What's New, Scooby-Doo? A recurring joke throughout the series is that Fred can bench 220 pounds. However, we still never see Fred display an overt interest in sports, besides in "Toy Scary Boo" in which Fred asks Shaggy if he watched the game last night. It may also be worth noting he wears a football helmet to cover a poodle haircut he's accidentally given in "Homeward Hound." Still, Fred is never directly shown to have an interest in playing sports. I would argue a more accurate depiction of Fred from What's New is someone who's interested in travel. Repeatedly through What's New and some of the DTVs around that time, Fred attempts to learn some aspect of the language of the place the gang is visiting, but the running joke is that his translations are awkward and often incorrect. He seems to have a wide variety of interests in this series, but he's never explicitly stated to enjoy sports. Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated provides an interesting case study, because the jock stereotype is being thrust upon Fred by his father, Mayor Jones. Mayor Jones continuously laments that he wishes Fred could be more like normal boys his age, at one point suggesting he join the soccer team. However, Fred remains interested in building elaborate traps. SDMI almost feels like a commentary on that stereotype that Fred is a jock. Speaking of commentaries, Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! provides an excellent one on Fred. In this series, Fred's leadership style expanded upon. Fred's shown to be someone who likes rigid structure, and becomes frustrated when something does not go according to plan. In one episode, "Trading Chases," he becomes so frustrated with the gang not listening to him that he switches places with a tour guide to lead a bunch of kids. Although Daphne's often given the "quirky" label in this series, I would argue Fred has his fair share of quirks. You could argue that Fred was retconned for this series, but I believe Jon Colton Barry simply amplified and expanded upon traits that were already there. Even in the early series, Fred could be a bit of a control freak and enjoyed structure. He definitely wasn't the "average boy." Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins provides an interesting contrast here, because this is one of the few pieces of Scooby-Doo media where Fred is officially confirmed to be a jock. In this film, Fred is on the football team, hangs out with all the kids who are into sports, and struggles with making genuine friendships where he can feel open about everything. At one point, when Daphne asks how Fred could possibly be friends with a selfish jerk who's bullying Shaggy on the school bus, Fred defends himself by saying that they're just friends because this guy happens to be on the football team. Despite this defense, Fred seems genuinely uncomfortable with the fact that someone he considered a "friend" was being cruel to another person. This alludes to the fact that Fred may be having issues being in tune with his emotions and open with others. Ultimately while I think it's an interesting plot point to explore, Robbie Amell's portrayal didn't really fully feel like Fred. A lot of people attribute it to him not being blonde, but I think part of it has to do with the writing. Making Fred a jock plays into the stereotype of the "average American boy" who likes sports, is tough and unfeeling, and can't be vulnerable with others. In my opinion, this demonstrates a superficial understanding of Fred's character. Fred is not really shown to be a leader in this film, his love of structure isn't really touched upon, and he doesn't really have of the quirks that make Fred seem like himself. The fact that Fred's character in this film feels a bit off, given it's heavily based around being a jock, goes to show that Fred doesn't really fit the jock stereotype. A second interesting contrast comes from another live-action movie, the original Scooby-Doo from 2002. Freddie Prinze Jr. portrays Fred as the stereotypical "frat guy": full of himself, aggressive, and not in touch with his emotions at all. This made Freddie's portrayal of Fred come off almost as a parody of the character. Like Amell's peformance, it didn't really fully embody Fred as a character. It's also worth noting that the 2002 film drew upon a lot of stereotypes in general - there's a scene in which Shaggy and Scooby are having a cookout, which begins with a shot of the outside of the van in which you can see smoke coming out. The joke here is that Shaggy and Scooby are supposedly getting high in the van, but once the scene pans in, you can see it's just a cookout. There's another scene which was ultimately cut from the movie where Velma makes out with Daphne, which plays upon the stereotype of Velma being lesbian. These two portrayals of Fred provide further evidence that traditional stereotypes of being a jock (Amell) or hypermasculinity (Freddie Prinze Jr.) doesn't really fit Fred, since it comes off as a bit unnatural. If Fred doesn't really have the traditional characteristics of a "jock," then why do some fans see him this way? I would argue that interpretation of Fred is an oversimplification of his character based on stereotypes. Physically, he looks like the average "all-American boy," in the same way that Shaggy looks like a hippie, and a common stereotype about hippies is that they smoke marijuana. Similarly, many people assume that Velma might be lesbian because she has short hair and isn't interested in traditionally "girly" things. All of these character interpretations are based on mere stereotypes from the gang's physical appearance. However, when you really get to know the characters through the plethora of episodes and movies, you can clearly see the characters are actually quite three-dimensional, and so much more than the two-dimensional stereotypes that the general public has imposed on them.
19 Comments
Becker
8/2/2022 09:32:11 am
Short answer: no, he is not.
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8/2/2022 12:02:58 pm
No worries, I didn't read your rant as being directed at me. It really bothers me too, which is why I liked this article idea that James pitched so much. I really dislike these surface-level interpretations thrown upon the characters, and I wish people would actually look at the characters on a deeper level. It's why those Velma character descriptions (which I still don't fully believe are real, and that's why I never covered it on here, since it's not really been confirmed) bothered me so much. If those descriptions are actually real, I'm going to be a lot more worried about the series, because the descriptions seem to turn the characters into one-dimensional stereotypes (i.e. Shaggy smoking weed, Fred having autism, etc.) rather than looking at the three-dimensional characterizations that have developed throughout the franchise.
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Becker
8/2/2022 01:35:44 pm
Completely agreed
Matt
8/2/2022 07:52:06 pm
^This
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Becker
8/3/2022 01:37:28 am
These untrue stereotypes that people project onto these characters make them a lot more two-dimensional when they're actually quite three-dimensional and don't rely on these lazy tropes. 8/3/2022 11:15:02 am
Absolutely agreed. It's one of the reasons I don't care for many of the Guess Who episodes. Not necessarily because of stereotypes, but Fred, Velma and Daphne in-particular feel very two-dimensional at times. It feels like their dialogue could be interchangeable between the three of them, and you wouldn't know the difference.
Mystery5
8/2/2022 05:13:25 pm
This has nothing to do with this but WWV you may want to check social media about SCOOB: Holiday Haunt…very sad day
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Becker
8/2/2022 05:18:08 pm
Just checked and... HOLY SHIT
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8/2/2022 06:11:06 pm
OMG that's horrible news! Thank you for sharing it, though. I'm admittedly worried about what this means for the future of the franchise. Given the CEO David Zaslav said that he wants to shift WB towards a more "cost effective" theatrical model rather than a streaming model, it seems like maybe this is why we haven't gotten any DTVs either. I hope this doesn't adversely affect the franchise or our ability to get DTVs in the future.
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Becker
8/3/2022 01:42:56 am
Considering Discovery don't seem interested in continuing the theatrical HB Universe that started under AT&T, I don't know about that. At least the shows should be fine (at least I hope) since you can't release shows theatrically. 8/3/2022 11:16:18 am
Given Zaslav seems to be on a cutback spree to make everything more "cost effective," I could easily see them giving Velma the axe with all the controversy around it.
Matt
8/2/2022 07:54:36 pm
Very nice write up, Fred is honestly a very interesting character to me, and it does suck to see him being called a jock stereotype or bland
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Becker
8/3/2022 01:39:25 am
Yeah Fred's great and quite hilarious, in many different iterations.
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8/3/2022 11:16:49 am
Thank you! Fred is such an interesting three-dimensional character so it makes me sad to see people do that too. Sassy Fred forever! haha
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Dzsasztin
8/3/2022 02:37:33 am
Such a cool look into Fred's character!
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Becker
8/3/2022 07:20:47 am
The 2009-2010 movies bothered me more in that regard than the 2002-2004 ones personally. I know Prinze's Fred is a narcissistic asshole at many points in those ones, but he's also hilarious and entertaining af at the same time, so it evens out at least.
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8/3/2022 11:19:56 am
I wouldn't say my opinion is quite as strong as yours when it comes to the live-action movies, but Fred's characterization definitely brings them down for me. The first two in particular, as Freddie Prinze Jr. comes off like a narcissistic jerk. I guess the tone of those two movies is kind of parody-ish, but it still annoys me. Robbie Amell's portayal never bothered me as much just because it's kinda flat, and therefore easier to ignore than Prinze's in-your-face narcissistic characterization.
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Becker
8/3/2022 11:48:01 am
I think BCSD Fred was significantly better than SDMI Fred 8/3/2022 05:42:35 pm
Agreed, although I liked both iterations of the character personally. Leave a Reply. |
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