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| "If it's gay, it's good" |
(In order to be more hip with the kids today, I intend to bring you more socially conscious messages, under the label Nega Nancy)
Are we ready for a female Ninja Turtle?
Who can forget the 80's? Awful commercialism invaded everything, even our children! When Ronald Reagan(who is not a minority, a woman, or gay. We're not judging him for what he is, we're judging him for what he ISN'T) loosened the rules of what educational television could be, the toy empires of the world saw an opening from which to launch half an hour toy commercials for their wares disguised as so called cartoons.
Bookending with a variety of statues quo enshrining platitudes, shows like Transformers, GI Joe,He-Man and more to the point, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where the moral teachers on the university of egotism disguised as pride, and individualism disguised as "staying true to yourself, and defending the current corporate oligarchy as "right makes might". "But, to boys only", patriarchy said.
To wit, these lessons are incredibly noxious on young cis males, but are sorely needed on unempowered groups for some reason. I consider The Ninja Turtles one of the main reasons we're not at True Equality Lv. 5 yet.
The show followed four sociopathic unemployed cis white turtles as they "saved" the earth from a grassroots movement the Foot Clan, which was lead by a foreign Colored man known as Shredder and a intersex brain creature known as "The Krang". The subtext is right there. These Turtle boys had absolutely not a plan to help the disenfranchised in New York city, but would go to any length to find and brutalize them.
But you know the story. There have been more years with Ninja Turtles products that there have been without them since they where invented. Over the years, they've proven a popular element of the culture of pop. These could be seen as fairly inoffensive stories that strike a cord with young and old alike, and that'd be the end of that. But EVERYTHING IS SERIOUS. Let's discuss the sexual politics of the Ninja Turtles.
There is no nonsexist reason why one of the Ninja Turtles can't be a woman. You might have some counter-points, but my counter argument is that you're white, or straight or a man. You don't know that I'm right because of it!
Yes, the Turtles have a female prescence in April, a cis white female who serves as the audience identification character in the great majority of TMNT stories. What, can't the boring audience identification character be a man for once? These sexists also once tried to make the audience identification character a kid named Max "the fifth turtle". Can't the cool audience identification character be a girl for once?
Either way, it is not enough, as nothing is! We need a female turtle. Now, mind you , that did happen, on the live action last ditch attempt to keep the franchise alive during the mid 90's called TMNT the Next Mutation. Her name was Venus. The maleocracy obviously rebelled against the mere idea, and the show floundered.
There was also Mona Lisa, who was almost the 5th female Turtle, until the potential rapist who made the original cartoon rebelled against the idea, and some quick(but not quick enough) changes made her into a Lizard Woman, who immediately jumped into Raphael's Turtle Dick, because most people are straight, amirite?
But that's all small potatoes. We can't change the socioeconomic background of inequality with a couple of one off cartoon characters! We need Lead characters before we'll have any real impact on the world.
I mean, the Turtles are THE HEROES of these stories. Their name is right there on the tin. Am I to believe that a young boy, fresh of a rival comic, picked up four turtles off of a petshop, they all fall off into a sewer that had mutagenic goop in it and it turned them into humanoid, english speaking, martial arts practicing mutants and they all happened to be male Turtles? That's not realistic. At least one of them could be a female.
This story is constantly retold, and as any story that is constantly retold, I believe every time it snubs my passionate ideas it does so because it hates them, and it hates me. How hard would it be if, the next time they're remaking this particular story(in like, 2 years, right?) they just take a moment to consider all the damage that is being caused by telling young girls "EY! You can't be a Ninja Turtle, live in the sewers, eat junk food, and partake in gang wars between a dude with blades and a ratman!"
Or better yet, if one of the current takes, such as the current cartoon or the upcoming sequel to the movie, took the time to adress that one of these turtles is, in fact a female (or OMG a transexual
It's time these authors stop making excuses and start working towards what I just made up is the real goal, isn't it? Yes it is, I'm not ending that on a question.
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