Cultivation Analysis of Scooby Doo.

 

     Scooby Doo was a peak viewing experience back in the 60s all the way into the 90s. Originally aired on CBS, it moved to ABC until it was cancelled in the 80s. It was soon revitalized for the next generation through a revival effort called Boomerang hosted on Cartoon Network that hosted “retro” cartoons for younger viewers. This gave the viewers a perception of nostalgia and a deep reflection culture through its many popular guests and situations the crew faced. Even though the show was not by any means scary, it was meant to explore themes of fear and mystery and the psychology behind it.

 

     Scooby Doo had a simple timeline for its episodes. The gang is traveling, something happens that strands them in a spooky space, the place is haunted by a “creature” or “ghost”, and the gang goes through multiple zany chase sequences and plans to capture the bad guy. This is always done in a very rational way. Because it is so repetitive, the viewer is encouraged to be skeptical of all the human players on the field of each episode as the monster is always found to be human. This asks the viewers to use critical observation to guess the masked monster before the gang does. This all plays into media literacy, from cartoon to real-world, if viewers understood the message behind the show will question “truths” of society and be more receptive of potential deception in our day to day lives.

 

     The scenarios the gang finds themselves in every episode are very hard to equate to real-world experiences, but we can however compare the character archetypes and how they are perceived. Scooby is the comic relief of the group along with shaggy, Velma is the brains, Fred the leader and Daphne is the talkative and social type. (Jung, 1959/1968; Fouts & Burggraf, 1999) Each character can align to personality and social spectrums and stereotypes to which the viewers can easily identify and engage with. This allows them to “be” one of the characters. The show often challenges those same stereotypes often by depicting Fredin cowardly instances, Velma in a leader role, Daphne as brave and Scooby and Shaggy as smart planners and executers showing that the norms can shift.

 

     The show itself very likely was reflective of the times in which it was made but I was not alive during that time but what I can deduce is that it absolutely played on broad social fears within the establishment. The monster always turned out to be a greedy businessperson or a corrupt government official. It was always someone with authority that had bad intentions, people that you are normally told to trust without question. This “villain-behind-the-mask” trope symbolically externalizes social anxieties about deception and corruption (Booker, 2006) This is a reminder that the real “monsters” were always humans with evil motives and that was my greatest takeaway as a kid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

 

Booker, M. K. (2006). Drawn to television: Prime-time animation from The Flintstones to Family Guy. Praeger.

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Jung, C. G. (1968). The archetypes and the collective unconscious (R. F. C. Hull, Trans., 2nd ed.). Princeton University Press.