Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtles: Secret of the Ooze with Carlos Camacho

This week, Jamie and Caitlin have a very cowabunga discussion with special guest Carlos Camacho about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Secret of the Ooze!

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Beck dol cast, the questions asked if movies
have women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef
invest start changing it with the beck del cast. Hey, Jamie, Hey, Caitlin, cowabunga,

(00:21):
that's the intro? Yeah, sorry, cow bunga? Is that? Sorry?
Hold on, I'm new here. When someone says cowabunga, is
it generally considered polite to return the cowabunga? Or do you?
Is it just to be received? Is it in a
very cowabunga to you? Well? I think normally it wouldn't

(00:44):
be used as a greeting. It's not like it's not alone, right, Okay,
it's more a term of excitement. It's it's not an expletive.
What's the words? An exclamatory. Yes, it's an exclamatory. Okay.
I am a link quist. So this is really helpful
for me. So cowa bunga. It's it's a way of saying, wow,

(01:05):
who we did it? How exciting? Yeah? Exactly okay, And
and a very cowa bung it to you, Caitlin, thank
you so much. We were just joking since Jamie you
mentioned that you're new here. You're you're rather new to
the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Yeah, I'm extremely young,
so that's it's and it's hard for me. We were

(01:28):
just joking off Mike with our guests, who we will
introduce in a moment, that he has a PhD in
Ninja Turtles. I have a master's degree in both Turtles
and screenwriting from Boston University, which, of course I hate
to mention. I didn't know that. And we were joking

(01:49):
that you're like a freshman in high school when it
comes to Ninja Turtles. Jamie. Yeah, I'm throwing back to
my early days of the podcast, where I'm like, I
don't know anything, But in this case it is actually,
um fairly true. T M and T is outside of
my purview. I'm the new girl at school and I

(02:09):
love homework, so I'm excited to learn in my yellow
jacket that appears to be canonical, but I don't think
appears in this movie. Correct. Yes, Okay, see I'm learning already.
She's got a little Morton jacket. So this is the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Secret of the Ooze episode of

(02:32):
the Bechtel Cast, requested by everyone. We are most popular request.
People have just been clamoring how to Lose a guy
in Ten Days, Pride and Prejudice, Secret of the Ouze,
and we've done all of them pretty recently. So you're welcome. True,
you're welcome. So this is the Bechtel Cast, our show
in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens.

(02:54):
My name is Caitlin Toronte. My name is Jamie Loftus.
Cow Bunga to you, calabunga to us all please, oh,
and everyone if you're if you're sitting next to someone,
we can make it like Sunday service. Could you turn
to the person to your left and say very cowabunga
to you, and then turn to the person to right

(03:14):
and say a very cowabunga to you. And then let's
just sit in our own cowabunga and then say cow
bunga to yourself. You know, I don't think we stop
often enough to say cowabunga to ourselves. I tend to
agree that's self care, that's just basic self care. You sit,
you breathe, you say cowabunga. You know, really feel each

(03:38):
syllable in your mouth. I've been listening to a lot
of guided meditations. What's the podcast about? Well I already
said that, but I didn't say what the Bechdel test is? Sorry, yes,
what is it? Jamie? Maybe you need to take a
minute and just like have a cowabunga need to say cow.
I'm sorry, literally sorry, I'm gonna pull back. Um. So,

(04:01):
the Bechdel Test is a media metric created by a
queer cartoonists Alison Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test,
which we use as a jumping off point. And it's
a media metric where our version is two characters of
a marginalized gender have to have names, they have to
speak to each other, and their conversation has to be

(04:22):
about something other than a man, ideally for a meaningful exchange,
something that's kind of you know, plot relevant. Little boy, Yeah,
this movie I d K I K U K I
K for sure. But without much further ado, let us

(04:45):
introduce our guest. He has a recent PhD in sociology
and Ninja Turtles. He's a host of Play Hype Dialogue,
a media podcast. He's an aspiring screenwright. Or it's Carlos Camacho.
Carlos I'm so excited to be here. We're so excited

(05:07):
to have you for being here, and to everyone who
cannot see our video call, which is all of you.
Carlos is wearing a Buctle Cast Queer Icon t shirt.
It's incredible. We love to see it. How are you, Carlos,
Thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for having me.
I'm really well in the moment. I'm really excited to

(05:28):
be here to talk about the Turtles. I revisited them
for the first time in a while, so I'm I'm
so excited. Cow a bunk of baby. Let's do this.
Tell us your your history, your relationship with this franchise.
So I was born in nine so I was like

(05:48):
primed for turtle fandom. Taylor Swift over here. So, um,
I'm going to post this to my Instagram. But this
is a stuffed Raphael when I was a literal child.
So I've literally been around this property my whole life.

(06:10):
My family is always getting me turtle stuff like it
is very much. Um something I've watched, read, played video
games of stuffed animals, played turtles. Um, I've done all
of it. It's been there from pretty much my inception
into this world. Nice, that's so cool, Jamie, what about you? Nothing.

(06:32):
I think I briefly pretended in high school to know
what it was and what it was about, but I
just I don't know. I I think that T M
and T as I know they're called. It's like almost
like a micro generational thing where it's like if you're
born one or two years outside of the target audience,
you just missed it. Because they kind of I know

(06:53):
that they like, they still very much exist. It feels
like as like everyone knows who they are, but I
don't have any experience of like personality. I don't know.
I know who the Turtles are, I know who April is,
and that was sort of all. So going into this
movie was a treat. I do think I saw the
Megan Fox one in theaters and then blacked it out

(07:14):
because as it seems like most fans of the franchise
did not a slight to Megan Fox at all because
she has only been done to services in this lifetime anyways. Yeah,
so I hadn't had much experience with the franchise, but
I always like liked them in theory. I was like,
I don't think I have anything against these guys. They
seem I know they like pizza. I like pizza. I

(07:37):
know they have the names of classical artists. Still haven't
really cracked that, don't really understand it, but I'm on board.
I'm ready to learn. And this movie was first of all,
a hoot and a romp. There's a lot to discuss,
which we will, but it was a hoot and a
rop and it was mercifully eighty eight minutes long, and
it's actually eighty one minutes with credits, and I just

(07:59):
love when movies are that length. Caitlin, what's your history
with the teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? I love these little turtles,
specifically this movie, big, Caitlin', they're too big. You're right.
I love these large turtles specifically this movie. Because we

(08:21):
were trying to figure out which Turtles movie to cover,
and I was like, I know this is the sequel,
but I want to talk about this one. I don't
want to talk about the first, or the third, or
really any other installments in the franchise because this is
a movie I've seen probably like fifty times, Like it
was just like on a loop. In my house. As

(08:42):
a kid, I played with turtles toy like the action figures.
As a kid, I had like the regular ones. I
had the Astronaut ones. I don't remember when or if
they go to space at any point, there's Astronaut one,
but I had Astronaut turtle figurines. And then a few
years ago because my fandom has, like I guess, just

(09:05):
always stuck with me. And a few years ago I
had I wrote a sketch called Sex and the Sewer.
This I've seen many times, Thank you so much, Jamie.
It's a combination of Ninja Turtles and Sex in the
City where I mapped each of the four turtles onto
each of the four main Sex and the City characters,
and I have them just out for a pizza cocktail

(09:27):
chatting about their horny turtle sex lives. It is my
magnum opus and I'll post it on you know, our
Twitter or whatever. It's on YouTube if you if you
search Sex and the Sewer. I was recently introduced to it.
It is hilarious. I loved every second of it. Gius,
thank you so much. It is a classic of the

(09:49):
genre and I will stand by that till the day
I die, Thank you very much. And speaking of Cowabunga,
it obviously makes an appearance in reference to bung being
another name for like butt or anis. Why are you
saying anus right now? I'm sorry. This is a family show.

(10:18):
I feel no need to defend myself. I'll say an
us again. Oh my god. Anyway, Bung cowabunga hilarious joke,
one of many in Sex and the Steward. Anyway, I
love this movie ten out of ten on the Rombometer.
There are many things to talk about. It's got some problems.

(10:40):
I did not see the vanilla ice coming. Imagine not
knowing that was coming, and the shock you feel when
it starts, I simply cannot imagine it was it was.
It felt really good. I will I woke right up.
I watched it pretty early in the morning, and then
all of a sudden, it was. It was wide awake, amazing.

(11:02):
I'm pretty sure that my mother has home video footage
of me performing that song in front of the television
with Oh That's so sweet. In college, my best friend
and I learned the dance that the turtles do to
vanilla ices ninja wrap, and we rehearsed it and we

(11:22):
practiced it, and we sometimes would do it at parties.
So is there video evidence of that, because I would
love to see it. Unfortunately not drop the footage. There's not,
but I'll relearn it. Also settled for you doing it now. Yeah,
it's like, let's just learn it. Yeah, we're already the
day we're recording this, we're already working on our magic

(11:44):
Mike choreography, so we might as well just throw another
number into rehearsal. Exactly, alright, So should I just get
into the recap and we'll go from there. Let's do it. Okay,
So again, this movie is a sequel. It is the
second installment in the original live action trilogy. So I'll
just give a really quick recap of the first movie.

(12:07):
From where we meet the four Turtles Leonardo, Donna, Tello, Michaelangelo,
and Raphael, as well as their mentor slash father figure,
a giant rat named Splinter. We learn about their backstory.
They had come into contact with radioactive US from a

(12:27):
canister as baby animals fifteen years prior, which made them
human sized, and it made them able to talk and
have complex thoughts and feelings, and in in the case
of the reboot movies, the Megan Fox movies, made them
some of the scariest looking computer generated characters ever committed

(12:49):
to film. Yeah, and I also think it changed those movies,
changed their backstory. It made them like aliens or something.
Am I I even't seen them, but I remember that
being there was a lot of outcry about that. Remember
when we had time to be upset about things like that.

(13:09):
Uh okay, So Splinter taught the turtles Ninjasu, and then
throughout the movie they eat pizza, They rescue and befriend
news reporter April O'Neill. They fight the bad guys who
are the Foot Clan and their leader, Shredder. The Turtles

(13:30):
win and it seems like they've defeated and killed Shredder
at the end of the movie. So Secret of the
Ooze picks up basically right after that. We open on
shots of New York City, Ever Heard of It? Where
everyone is eating pizza. We meet Keino played by Ernie

(13:50):
Rays Jr. He's a pizza delivery guy who heads out
to deliver an order for April O'Neill, but not before
body shaming a girl before jumping on his you're just
like well I Unfortunately it doesn't generally stay at that
vibration for the whole movie, but it was a wild
first dialogue exchange. Yeah, for sure. So he's out to

(14:13):
deliver this pizza, but on the way he discovers a
bunch of criminals stealing electronics. He fights them because he
also has martial arts training. But there are too many
of these criminals. But don't worry, the teenage mutant ninja
turtles show up and save the day. The turtle's head

(14:34):
back to April O'Neill's apartment, we see her on screen
for the first time. She's played by Page Turco in
this movie. She's also Yeah, she's played by a different
person than the last movie. Correct. I could not find
out why she got recast. I found I found something there, Okay, alright.
Basically it was the director of the previous movie. I

(14:55):
don't know if the first and second movies are directed
by the same person, but I think it's different people.
They basically claimed that she was difficult, says Turko. Replaced
Judith Hougue for this film and The Fall Uh and
the following film. According to Huge, she was not approached
to reprise their role because the producers thought she complained
too much during the first movie. So, um, yeah, women

(15:17):
be getting labeled as difficult and losing jobs. So what
a thrilling tail. Never heard that one before. So this
April is played by Page Turco. They go to her
apartment where the Turtles and Splinter are staying because they
can't go back to the sewer right now because the

(15:38):
Foot knows where they live. Then we cut to a
landfill Shredder survived. Then we cut to a junkyard where
what's left of the Foot clan regroups. We see Shredder's
right handman, Tatsu. He's throwing a fit, but then Shredder
shows up played by Francois How he shows up, he's

(16:01):
hungry for revenge and he wants to find and destroy
the Turtles. Then we meet Professor Jordan Perry played by
David Warner a k a. Love Joy from Titanic. I know,
I was so thrilled. I don't think I once. Once
I saw it, I couldn't un see it. I don't

(16:23):
know if I would have gotten there on my own.
So because I saw this movie a bazillion times before
Titanic came out. When Titanic came out, I was like,
oh my god, it's the professor from the Secret of
the Ooze. The director of teenage mutant ninja turtles too
would be so thrilled to hear that. I'm sure, um okay.
So the professor is helping with cleanup of toxic chemicals

(16:47):
from a company called t g R I. April interviews
him for the news. She's suspicious. She senses something is
going on with t g R I, especially because this
toxic waste seems to be mutating things nearby, like we
see these huge mutated dandelions, and Shredder gets wind of
this toxic waste and wonders if he might be able

(17:10):
to use it against his enemies. Meanwhile, Splinter reveals that
the radioactive material that mutated the turtles when they were
babies was the same toxic waste from t g R I,
So it's all connected. So the turtles go to t

(17:31):
g r I to investigate, but the Foot also shows
up and steals the one remaining canister of ouze, which
is what everyone calls it s x uz situations in
this movie sometimes you're just like what's happening, and then
you're like, Okay, the ouze is back. I'm assuming that

(17:51):
things are back on track, as long as you can
keep your eye on the ouze, you can sort of
figure out what's going on. The uz is kind of
the like connective glue, so to speak, that really holds
this movie together. Classics. So they've also kidnapped the professor.
The Foot has who Shredder forces to administer the ooze

(18:13):
to a couple of dangerous creatures, but we don't know
what exactly. We have yet to get a big reveal.
Then Keno shows back up to April O'Neill's place because
he had seen the turtles in that first sequence and
he's like, what's going on? What are these turtles all about?
So he wants more information. He discovers them there. He

(18:36):
tells them that the Foot plan is recruiting, especially teenagers
with martial arts experience, and he's like, oh, if I
get recruited, we can find their headquarters and then take
them down. But Splinters like, no, that's too dangerous. Then
the turtles go back to the sewer to try to
find a spot to live. They find an abandoned subway station,

(18:58):
but Raphael is pissed, I think because they're like not
doing anything to try to get the ooze back from
the Foot, so he storms off. He does this a
lot because he also does this in the first movie.
Oh does he Okay, that's good to know. I do
appreciate how this very New York movie, even when you're

(19:19):
in the world of the teenage mutant Ninja turtles, it's
so elevated, it's still really hard to find an apartment, right, Like,
that's that's a level of realism I wasn't anticipating. Okay.
So meanwhile, the creatures that the Professor had mutated are

(19:39):
ready for their big debut. It is a giant mutant
wolf and snapping turtle, Toca and raise Are. I love them.
They're great, They're amazing. They're like mama, right because they're babies.
Their babies, the babies. I used to scream that around
my house as a kid at all the time. It's

(20:01):
so funny. It's so funny and sweet, and I feel
like it without trying to accidentally comments on the born
Sexy Yesterday Trupe Trump where it's like something that comes
out that's supposed to be very fully formed and then
it's like Google Gaga, You're like, oh, yeah, it's a baby,
that's how that would work, right. Yeah. So they're not

(20:23):
very cognitively developed, but they are strong and still dangerous,
so Keno, who has linked up with Rafael, gets recruited
into the Foot so the Keno can learn their secrets
and double cross them. But then the Foot clan kidnaps Rafael,
so the other turtles go to the Junkyard to rescue him,

(20:46):
but Shredder springs a trap. There's a big fight. Shredder
unleashes Toca and raise Are, and the turtles are no
match for them, so they run away and they bring
the Professor with them, who gets to work on developing
an antidote to un mutate Toca and raise Are, which
the Professor reveals those animals will have to ingest, So

(21:11):
the turtles have the idea to put the antidote into
donuts and feed those two Toca and raise Are, so
that night the turtles go back to the Junkyard for
the big fight. There's so many fights in this movie.
It's it's very exciting, truly. They feed the donuts to
Toca and raise Are, but another fight breaks out and

(21:35):
as they're fighting, they crash into a nightclub where Vanilla
Ice is performing, which in York that also is very possible.
So Vanilla Ice is, you know, rapping whatever right, and

(21:59):
then everyone at the club is watching this fight happen.
So then Vanilla Ice improvises one of the best songs
of all time, Ninja Wrap, And then at one point
the Turtles burst out into a choreographed dance, which I
later learned and performed as well. Who could blame you?

(22:21):
But then Shredder bursts in. He drinks a vial of ooze,
which not only makes him bigger and stronger, but it
also mutates his outfit and makes it spikier. I liked that. Yeah,
it's really good. There's so many things I about this
movie that as a kid I did not question for
a second, And then as an adult, I'm like, why

(22:43):
did the US mutate his spikes? I don't know his outfit.
I mean, it stands to reason I didn't ask. I
honestly didn't ask that question. And I'm almost thirty years old. Okay,
So the Turtles are trying to fight Super Shredder, which
I also had a toy of as a kid. Brag.

(23:05):
They're on a dock now, and Super Shredder is just
like tearing everything down around him and he ends up
getting crushed when the whole thing collapses. But the turtles
avoid getting crushed because they are like, we're turtles, we
can jump in the water. Then the movie ends with

(23:26):
the turtles back at their new home and Splinter says,
go Ninja, Go, Ninja go, and then freeze frame and
the movie's over after eight one minutes on the half
a flip. Incredible. Every movie should do this, yes, including
the freeze frame on a mid flip. That is how
the Robert Pattinson Batman movie should have ended. Uh go Batman,

(23:48):
Go Batman, Go flip. Directed by Matt. I don't know
who knows what his last name could be anything, Matt.
The movie Doubt should have ended that Meryl's drip doing
apple flip, Go, Sister Aloish's go, Sister Alowish's go flip.

(24:11):
Oh my god. Oh we haven't brought up doubt in
a while. Yeah, it's I I've found that it tends
to bring down the mood of any discussion that we're happening.
But I would love to see Meryl do a flip
as sister aloish Is, but only as Sister aloish Is.
I'm not interested in it in any other character of hers. Actually,

(24:34):
maybe maybe what's her name? The devil who wore product.
I would, I would, Miranda Priestley. Yeah, I thought it
was a very satisfying ending. Yes, um, let's take a
quick break and then we will come right back to
discuss and we're back. Where should we be? Cam, Well,

(25:01):
I'll let I'll let you guys stare. Oh my gosh, Carlos,
does anything jump out to you as a good place
to start as the resident PhD have her? I feel
so I feel so inadequate next to you, but with
only my measly master's degree. Um, I'm gonna be like you,
be like I have a PhD. I don't like to

(25:21):
bring it up. Yeah, yeah, um, I think just talking
quickly about some of the parallels between the first movie
in the second movie, because as you were giving the recap,
I realized that Rafael is in trouble in both movies.
So he goes out by himself, gets beat up and

(25:42):
left for dead in the first one, and then ends
up getting kidnapped and tied to a big pole in
this one. Yeah, sir, can you learn your lesson and
not go out by yourself? Honestly? I wrote down for
when the way that Rafael he looks like car Sin
Dunston the Spider Web at the peak of Spider Man Too,

(26:03):
where it's like, well, I guess he's not going to
be allowed to participate in this this scrap It was fun,
but then he is because then he's a turtle, and yeah,
not a damseled woman. Um. But on that line of thinking,
because a lot of the notes I have as they
relate to April O'Neill's character, a lot of it is

(26:27):
how her character is treated in the first movie versus
the second one. So for anyone who hasn't seen the
first movie, here are a few things of note that
happen in relation to her character. So the first Ninja
Turtles movie that came out like one year prior to
this one, it makes April have to be rescued at

(26:51):
least twice by the Turtles, so it damsels her. And
then she has to be rescued twice. During at least
one of these rescues. Uh, she is hit in the
face by some members of the foot Plan multiple times,
so she is assaulted quite a bit. The movie also

(27:13):
puts her in a romance with Casey Jones, which I
think is like cannon to the comics which I never
really read, but I did watch the animated series as
a kid, although I don't remember it at all, I
did a little bit of research on it and it
seems like she's treated much the same like I think,
particularly bad in the in the original comics, where she's

(27:36):
like really like drawn exploitatively and like just someone that
people say plot to. And then it sounds like the
animated series attempted to give her a character, but maybe
not very well. Yeah, so the first movie includes the
Casey Jones character. They are put into a like romantic

(27:59):
like a floor rotation slash romantic tension, and eventually they
kiss at the end. He is a jerk to her
the whole time, and then there's also some like not
very appropriate for a kid's movie stuff that happens where
he gives her a very horny massage at one point
where he is first like shoves her down in a
chair in a pretty violent way, and then he starts

(28:22):
to give her a massage in which he is almost
like touching her breasts and it's just like, why is
this happening in this PG movie? So basically in this
first movie, she's damseled, battered, and treated poorly by her
love interest. I hate how In the second movie, they

(28:43):
deal with that by being like, um, let's just not
have her be in it that much question mark, then
we can't do anything fucked up to her. Yeah, so
in Secret of the Ooze, April doesn't have to be
rescued at any point. Some random lady does at the
Vanilla Ice concert. But was that that was just a

(29:06):
random lady who loved Ninja rap. And that's that's also
I mean, not that this excuses it, but that's like
a very brief moment. It's not like a super like plot, like,
none of the plot really revolves around that. No, it's
just to the point where it was weird that it
was included at all. It was like, right, damseling someone

(29:26):
we don't know for thirty seconds and then having it
be completely fine. And then she also does put a
button on the scene by passing out. Women be fainting.
Women be fainting. But to be fair, Keno faints at
one point in the movie, so they are giving um
equal opportunity, right, Um, So April does not have to

(29:47):
be rescued. She's not wedged into a relationship with an
asshole or anyone, which also reduces the ways in which
she was like over sexualized in the first movie, so
we're not really seeing any of that in this sequel. So,
like you said, Jamie, she just like isn't given a
lot to do. I would say her involvement in the

(30:09):
story isn't zero because she is investigating T g R. I.
But also nothing that she does in this movie has
any real bearing on the plot as so to say
I think you could take her, I mean, I know
you can't canotically take her out of the franchise, but
you could take her out of this plot and not
much would change, which I feel like, isn't such a

(30:31):
bizarre like moment. I mean, I guess moment in feminism
in like one particular way where it's like I don't know,
like that whole third wave thing of like, but you
can't be mad at us because we gave her a job,
and it's like, well, but the job she's doing doesn't
have any bearing on what's happening or any decision she
makes at all. Right, And and most of the time

(30:53):
in her job, I was like a little frustrated to
see that almost every piece of information she makes she
kind of encounters by mistake, Like we don't get to
see her do a lot of investigating. It's she encounters
the plot and information she needs by accident, and then
she's like, I knew it, and you can tell that
like in the early nineties, this was like feminism. She

(31:15):
has a job, and there's another little glimpse of that
when her boss is like, it's ratings week, drop this
g g R. I story do something really interesting and
then he like hands are a piece of paper and
she's like, oh, swimsuits of the nineties and he's like, yeah,
I find that really interesting, and like her reaction, we're

(31:37):
supposed to be like, yeah, she doesn't care about, you know,
women in swimsuits. She cares about this hard hitting journalism
she's doing. But it's like, which is like she's not enough, right,
but then let her do the hard hitting journalists, right.
She could have easily been with Jerry question Mark her
like assistant cameraman, assistant person when he finds the dandelion,

(32:00):
Like she could have easily snuck in with him, or
it's been her by herself, and then she tells Jerry
and then he tells Shredder, like that could have been
a moment for her to be more active in the story.
Totally totally. It felt like she It's interesting to know
that there was all this shoehorned in love interest stuff
in the first movie, because it felt like in lieu

(32:20):
of that, they were just like, well, we're just not
going to have her around as much, when it's like,
instead of finding ways to meaningfully include her in the plot,
when it sounds like, canonically she's a great character to
have there because she's theoretically an investigator. Bizarre right, And
on the tale of the first one, she's now the
highest paid investigative reporter in New York City to afford

(32:44):
a two level apartment after days of her old apartment branding.
It's like, and it's like, too bad for New York City,
because this lady isn't investigating a damn thing she's she
is yell at the chief of police a lot. And
I do appreciate that this movie and the first one.

(33:08):
I did not go back and rewatch the third movie
because it um sucks. But uh, these two movies present
cops in a way that shows them as being like
severely incompetent and never handling things properly, to the point
where April says to the police chief like she's like,

(33:29):
I guess you're not the ones who are going to
handle this. Right after, like there's a scene where Token
raisar like reek havoc on the city and the police
chief is just like, that's what we do best, not
handle things, and that we're like, whoo hoo. That's pretty
cool for a nineties movie. I like that, and I
also liked I have a question for the two experts

(33:52):
in the room. I like how the Turtles have this
like story that's connected to ironmental disaster, and that this
movie also kind of like the Ouze is like this
vaguely environmental story. Is that something that happens on the
show a lot? Because I thought that that was really cool.
I actually don't know, it's been such a long time

(34:15):
since I've watched the shows. UM. I feel like it
was part of that trend in the early nineties where
it's like Captain Planet, the Power Rangers, the Turtles, everyone
had the environment and being environmentally conscious on their radar UM,
But I'm not sure how deeply it goes in UM
Turtles Cannon and then they forgot. I'm curious because I

(34:35):
know that this franchise is being rebooted again again by
I think Seth Rogan. Yeah, that's what I heard, And
I would be surprised if that didn't come into the
news story because it's like they lend themselves very well
to an environmental crisis story that hopefully isn't too depressing, right,
because their whole origin is we came in contact with

(34:59):
toxic Way East. But that was actually a good thing
because they turned into these awesome crime fighting martial arts experts. Yeah,
it's going to be a very like, don't worry, guys,
everything's gonna actually be awesome when the environment collapses. Yeah,
we'll just all turn into these amazing superheroes. Yeah, pizza

(35:21):
eating turtles. Another thing about April, even though this movie
doesn't foist a romantic relationship on her, the turtles all
have a crush on April, especially Michael Angelo, or at
least he's the most vocal about it. And I just
got to think, like, what if you were a grown,

(35:44):
adult human woman and there are these four horny teenagers
that all have a big crush on you, and then
they're all also mutant turtles. See that's where you lose me.
I just it's a it's a weird choice, I think,
but wild but it also feels so of the era.

(36:06):
Yeah that Yes, it's also interesting because I watched the
first one and the second one pretty close back to
back to prep for this episode. I also watched the
third one, which Choices. But there's a scene when um
Master Splinter is kidnapped in the first movie where they
come to her door crying, and so it's very much

(36:28):
like you were the only adult we can turn to,
while also still having this sort of hyper sexuality. It's like,
we want to bone you, but you're also kind of
a mother figure. In the first one, try, I couldn't
tell I settled on big Sister because I'm like, is
she mommy? It made me feel better to think of
her as big sister? Sorry, can we just pause for

(36:48):
a second? Son? You just got here? Yeah, okay, let's
let's sunny. Might be running back and forth and there's
not going to be a way around um right, So yeah,
she's not mommy really like Splinters definitely daddy, but she's

(37:13):
not big sister because they all want to have sex
with her. Maybe it's like a creepy babysitter kind of thing.
It's babysitter. That might be a yeah, because it's like
she's not Yeah, I agree that she's not exactly mommy,
but she does take on this like caretaking role for
them and she worries about them, but she's clearly not

(37:34):
like into them. Yeah, thank god. She wants them out
of her apartment. She's like, I'm the highest paid journalist
new York City. I'm I'm trying to fuck all these
turtles in a rat are like living here. I love
imagine her bumble profile. She was like, we can't go
back to my plays. Not that it isn't nice, but

(37:57):
I just have something's going on right now. There might
be four strange teenage boys and it's not of my apartment,
right and they're like, oh okay, unmatched They're like, wait, no,
they're turtles. Like what. That doesn't make it any less
weird for the only woman in the movie to be

(38:22):
the like caregiver slash person that they all have this
like little you know, like teen infatuation with, and then
for her to also not really be allowed to do
anything narratively significant. Don't love it. It sucks And it

(38:42):
also I just I definitely saw the first Megan Fox
Ninja Turtles movie in theaters because fun fact or maybe
it was how many teenage? I saw the one that
came out in like the late two thousand's whatever one
that was. So there there are two there, one from
fen and there's a sequel to it from sixteen, both

(39:04):
produced by Michael Bay. Okay, what was the one that
came out in like two thousand and seven? Seven? There
was another one? So I saw that one. Okay, So
there's a computer animated one called T M and T
Chris Evan's. It's the Chris Evans Teenagement. Ninta turtle because
I that was my cousin's first date and I was

(39:25):
like her kid cousin, and she's like, you're gonna come
with me? Oh, you were a little chaperone. Yeah, I
was this. I was a baby chaperone of no kissing
while I watch that's adorable, creepy. Anyways, I guess all
that to say, I know that there are movies that
treat April O'Neil much worse than this movie does. Well

(39:46):
because in the Megan Fox ones in particular, which this
one is, and this is the Sarah Michelle Geller one,
apparently I don't remember. I mean all all that to say,
like Megan Fox was given the full on Megan Fox
treatment of how she was treated it in every movie
where her body was super exploited, where she was like

(40:06):
given love interests and just all this stuff. And it's
so frustrating in these franchises that all they need to
do is involve more women or less guys that only
have one idea because the the only it seems like
the only alternative to treat April not horribly is to
like reduce her presence, which is so not true. Especially

(40:27):
it's extra frustrating when it's like in the bones of
the character for her to be very useful to any
plot involving the teenage mutant Ninja turtles. I know she's
got contact, she can make calls, She's probably got people
who will tell her things off the records, so she
can like sneak around and get information. It's like, we're

(40:48):
just gonna have her chillen and nowhere, right, And I
don't know if like the the you know, the property's
logic is, well, she doesn't have martial arts train name
and therefore she can't participate in the action scenes. But
it's like, well then that's all the more reason to
give her other things to do. Yeah, there's so much

(41:10):
surface world stuff she could be doing, like dealing with
the police, She could be dealing with any of these
business owners. Does no one have security cameras that she
can steal the footage and use in her reports, like right,
because that's the other thing. They have to like stay
in the shadows because they're human sized turtles, which I okay.

(41:30):
Another thing I really enjoyed about the movie is that
they don't seem to be making much of an effort
to hide in the shadows. It's so funny, like when
they're there's a computer sequence that are so computers. It
made me laugh so much, where they're like computers, like
they're they're such they're so goofy, but they're like theoretically

(41:51):
they snuck in there and they're screaming, they're so loud,
and they're huge turtles and they just are making no
effort to come seel themselves, which is sort of what
is being said to them at the end of the
movie where they're like, yeah, we're so discreet, Like I
just it's so funny. Yeah, and then spinters like he
holds up the what made the newspaper a photo of

(42:16):
them dancing to Ninja wrap and he's like, try harder. Okay,
you're telling me that would be front page news. If
for human size turtles started dancing in public and then
almost killed people, that would be front page news. Correct,
that's a documentary, yes, right. The thing that was jarring

(42:38):
watching them back to back is in the first one
when her boss and his son come over. They hide
so well for the most part. One of them is
caught under the table, but then is immediately gone to
watch this right after, Why is your foot there for
Keynote to step on? Like lost all of your ninja
skills so they can do it like, but sometimes they

(43:02):
just don't. It's really funny that scene that you're referring to, Carlos. So,
there's a scene where Keynote shows up to April's apartment
because he's like, something's going on these I saw these
turtles and I want to know more about it. He
shows up, He shows up under the guys of like,
I've brought you a pizza and she's like, well I

(43:22):
didn't order a pizza, and he's like that's okay, I'll
just come in. So he comes and uninvited, he's like,
what are these doing here? Referring to the nunchucks. And
then rather than April being like, who are you, please
get out of my house? Your trespassing? What's it to you?
What these nunchucks are doing? Sense? He's an important side

(43:45):
character in the film, so she doesn't kick him out,
but she's like just being really defensive about like, these
are my nunchucks, look at me practicing them, And it's
just like you can you can just tell this stranger
who's intruding onto your property to lee Ago, like in
another movie, that is the setup for a horror, a

(44:05):
lifetime movie. That's the beginning of funny games, like when
you just let a stranger into your home. And then
Keo is holding her hostage and it's the scariest thing
I've ever seen. God, I don't know why I just
conjured that movie. It's so scary. I'm impressed. Yeah, that
was a choice. Sorry, on the tail end of the

(44:27):
first movie, because this is days later, Like Shredder is
in the garbage at the end of the first one,
he's found in the dump like a day maybe two
days later. She should be very reticent and fearful of
random people coming to her door trying to find her,
Like her house was just burned down and her dad's

(44:47):
shop and she got I know we're talking about the
second one. We were talking about the second, but she
like in the first movie, she's like, her dad was shot. No,
he had a shop and it was burned down to
open for him. Still pretty bad, but yeah, and the
first one she's assaulted by the foot and then later
kidnapped or I forget exactly all what happens, but like
she like multiple times she's in these dangerous situations. And

(45:11):
then yeah, in this in this one, she's just like, uh,
come on and pizza guy, these are my nunchucks and
show yourself around. It's totally fine. So yeah, that was
um bizarre. I guess it would make sense if you
had four ninja turtles in your apartment, maybe you wouldn't
be scared of one dude at the door. Maybe, right,

(45:34):
But even I'm just still like, no, like self preservation,
where is it? That's why it's like I feel like
April is like treated like such a plot character that
in moments like that where it's like, well, she just
needs to behave. However, the plot needs her to behave
in order for this movie to be eighty one minutes
long where it's like we've got minutes to play around with.

(45:55):
She doesn't have to be thrilled about this, right, it's frustrating.
I was interested to learn about the the actor who
plays Keno. I I wasn't familiar with him, but apparently
I'm very familiar with his work because he's like a
famous stunt performer who's been doing stunts since he was
a child. So he was Donna Cello stuntman in the

(46:18):
first TMNT and then he was just upgraded to human
character in the second one, which is kind of fun.
And then he's done a time. He did stunt work
in Avatar, he did stunt work in Tim Burton Alice
in Wonderland. Like he's just he's kind of a legend.
He hosted a reality show on MTV and two thousand nine.

(46:42):
Who didn't it was it was about stuntman, It wasn't
about It wasn't totally random, but like he's just been
in goddamn everything. He was in The Really Bad Child
above Indiana Jones. You know, I just was so thrilled
to to learn about learned about him. If nothing else,
Keno's characters a little all over the place. Although I

(47:05):
did like that he was given a fully realized arc.
I wish April had had a similar treatment by the movie. Sure. Also,
when I watched this movie for the first time to
prep for this episode, I watched it with a friend
of the cast, Sammy Junio, and I was also talking
about this movie with another friend and they both said

(47:28):
the exact same thing, which is that Keino in this
movie again played by Ernie rays Jr. Along with Rufio
from the movie Hook played by Dante Basco, are the
only two examples of Filipino representation they saw in kids
media or just like media in general growing up. So like, yeah,

(47:50):
that is um that's so bleak. And also I'm very
glad that Ernie Rayes Jr. Is in this part, which
might a smooth transition to another topic of conversation, which
is the representation of Asian people and culture in this movie.

(48:13):
Where to begin? Well, um, So, the two main bad
guys who have names and or in leadership positions, Shredder
and his like second in command Tatsu, are canonically Japanese
characters like in the comics, and they get some more backs,

(48:34):
especially Shredder gets backstory in the first movie. He's from Japan.
So there's that there are aspects of Japanese culture attributed
to the good guys, in that the turtles study and
practice ninjatsu. Splinter grew up in Japan. Also, Splinter speaks

(48:55):
with a Japanese accent, although I believe that he's voiced
by an am American puppeteer, and a very controversial one
at that. Right. And then also these characters, the turtles
and Splint Splinter are not visually Japanese human beings because
they're turtles and a rat. And yes, you said Jamie.

(49:17):
The actor who voices Splinter is a black actor named
Kevin Clash, who is also the voice actor and puppeteer
of Elmo. I don't know any other information about him,
so if you have, I can give you a very
It's a very uh difficult uh story, but basically, yeah,
he was a famous puppeteer, one of the most prominent

(49:40):
black puppeteers in the world. He was Almo for a
long time and um then was made to resign as
Almo because there were a lot of allegations of him
having sex with underage teenagers. And so if the uh,

(50:00):
there's there's a lot a huge story. Ten years ago,
and I feel like no one really talks about it anymore.
He has since begun working again. There's been a lot
of conversation around the topic that I have not kept
up with, but definitely a massive fall from grace from
a very well respected puppeteer. As far as it's relevant

(50:23):
to this conversation. Uh, he's not an Asian actor putting
on a very very stereotypical, you know, trophy accent. Is this?
Do we know if Splinter also teenage must Ninja Turtles
are canonically written by two white guys from New England?
Are they not? Like so the sore of the well

(50:46):
is poisoned from the very beginning. Uh, don't let two
white guys from New England do literally anything. How has
history taught us nothing? Like why would you wall Burgers?
Like are you kidding any bad idea? Never do it? Um?
But yes, no, I will, I will, Caitlin. I'll send
you some links to the conversation around Kevin Clash because

(51:06):
I am not an authority in it. But I do
remember that, uh Splinter, it was it Splinter canonically based
on Mr Miyagi. That was what I was picking up on.
But I also don't know, like the timeline of that,
because the same tropes are present in that character. It
feels like Karate Kid came out in eighty four and

(51:29):
the first issue of Teenage Mutant inter Turtles the comic,
because that was like the source material, the original source
of everything also was published in Oh my gosh, Carlos
is holding up? You have it? It was also published
in eight four. So I think it's just sort of
like similar concepts happening at the exact same time, not

(51:53):
one based on the other, I would guess, But so
two white guys doing the same offensive thing in the
same calendar year shocking. So in conclusion, most of the
East Asian human beings again, because you have to uh
differentiate that from like the rat the people, the Japanese

(52:16):
characters are bad guys. And in addition to that, there's
just a lot of stereotypes of East Asian and Japanese
culture specifically being used. There's also that sort of like
all East Asian people no martial arts is something that's
being telegraphed. And then I feel like the Turtles are

(52:40):
coded white, especially in contrast to the very stereotypical Asian villains,
so are they They're all voiced by white actors. Is
that correct as having trouble fact checks? I think that
for the most part that is true. And then there's
also so differentiation and who was voice acting some of

(53:02):
the characters from the first movie to the second one.
I think two of the voice actors got recast in
Secret of the Ooze. I oh wait, Brian Tocci. The
Brian Tocci voices Leonardo, and I believe he is Japanese, right, Okay,
So IMDb is tricky because it's like this actor as Leonardo,

(53:25):
but like in the suit, and then it's this different
actor as Leonardo as the voice. So it's like I'm
trying to figure out all this. I was just thinking
voice because that is right, how their personalities are telegraphed, right,
No disrespect to the to the performers. I would not
want to do that job. Yeah, the voice actors are

(53:48):
primarily white, and with the exception I believe of Brian
Tocci who voices Leonardo, right, and Kevin Clash, who is
a black actor but doing an offensive Asian right, I said,
my head hurts. So there's a lot going on the
movie stereotypes and demonizes Asian people in a very harmful way.

(54:11):
It's borrowing elements from Japanese culture like ninjatsu and basically
saying like, when the white coated characters do it, it's
good and it saves the day, but when the Japanese
characters do this thing from their own culture, it's bad.
So there's a lot of fucory happening there, and they're

(54:36):
sort of bringing in lots of white youth to be
the Foot clan, and so across both movies, a lot
of the Foot are drawn from um runaways in New
York City, and so one would expect there to be
more diversity, especially along gender lines in the Foot, given
that a good number of runaways are girls there across

(55:01):
all races, all sexualities, but it is a very kind
of prototypical, largely white mass and so you've got these
Asian bad guys seducing these young white kids into lives
of crime and deviants in both movies, more clearly set
up in the first one, but the sort of trails
are well established in the second one, right, And and

(55:23):
it is so and it's this like t MNT was
certainly not happening in a void where I feel like
American culture in general was very permissive and actively encouraging
these sorts of huge, glossed over generalizations about East Asian
culture to happen throughout the eighties and nineties and into now.

(55:44):
But I feel like it was especially popular around this
time and largely written, directed, and acted by white guys. Yeah.
I also I thought, I don't even know how I
feel Toka and Raised are. I mean, they're just their babies,
but they're voiced by the guy who did Scooby Doo,

(56:05):
which I was like, I just love I hope. I
don't know anything about his politics or anything like that,
but I just love Frank Welker, who's like still alive.
He is in his seventies, like started doing I think
we've talked about him on the show before, because he's
the voice of literally everything famous ever. He started doing

(56:25):
voices when he was like in his early twenties, and
he's been every famous cartoon character that isn't played by
like Tom Kenny, you know, like he's he's literally Scooby
Doo anyways, He's Garage are Scooby Doo episode, He's everyone
He's sorry, okay, sorry, I just my Frank Welker fandom

(56:49):
popped out, and then to find out. He's also Toka
and raisar. I mean, he's the alpha bollina of the
vocal cords. So versatile, so versatile, he can be dogs
and alligators. He's a snapping turtle and a wolf range
the rage. Okay, So another thing along these lines is

(57:15):
the April O'Neill character, And there's some controversy around this
because of some kind of ambiguity, but she is thought
by many to have originally been in the comics a
black woman, which is something that is difficult to discern
because the interiors of the comic books are black and white.

(57:39):
But on the cover of I think like the eleventh
issue of the comic depicts April O'Neill as a light
skinned woman of color with black curly hair. But then
when that issue was reprinted later, she then appears as
a white woman with red hair. So people were like,

(58:02):
this character is being whitewashed, because this happened in eighty
six when this was reprinted, I believe so. When asked
about this by the co creators, Kevin Eastman said that
April was quote originally created as an Asian character. In
Pete's notes, referring to Peter Laird, the other creator, so

(58:26):
originally created as an Asian character in Pete's notes, but
named after an African American woman I once knew. And
then Peter Laird says, it depends on which co creator
of the T M N T you ask. If you
ask me, I always saw April O'Neil as white. If
you ask Kevin, I suspect he would say, as he

(58:47):
has in a number of interviews, that she was of
mixed race, much like his former girlfriend April. So say less. Oh, okay, okay,
So we have so Carlos is showing us an image
from what is this from? Exactly? So? This is from
a colorized version of the graphic novel that compiled the

(59:12):
original issues together in color. So I can post this
and give you the information you have Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles Book two, first graphic novel, number ten UM copyright
ven Mirage Comics. So the originals were like this, and
then they did uh colored issue um full color deluxe format.

(59:35):
The graphic novel became an instant bestseller. UM got it.
So the image you just showed us depicts April O'Neil
as a light skinned black woman. But then if you
look at the first uh so each version of her
is different, so she looks more kind of like the
character from this movie that we're discussing here, um also

(59:56):
sort of mixed. And then you have her again looking
again very different, but more sort of the image of
April O'Neal that we've come to sort of know an expense. Yes,
so I don't know much about the history of teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I do know quite a bit
about the history of women in comics, and this is

(01:00:18):
something that comes up again and again and again in
the history of comics of characters that were originally black
women later being whitewashed once the franchise becomes popular. I
believe a similar thing happened to Betty Boop way back
in the day. And this is and I think in
the case of Betty Boob and April O'Neil, it's a

(01:00:40):
little complicated by the fact that the character from the
Jump was heavily sexualized, which is something that affects women
of color in all areas, but but in you know,
certainly an animation as well, and April O'Neil and Betty
Boop are too heavily sexualized and eventually whitewashed characters. It's
just it's so frustrating that and and you know, and

(01:01:02):
who are who is at the top of those comics.
It's always white black men. So it's just it's really
just continued frustrating pattern. I didn't realize that it happened
in this case as well. And then you know, of course,
in this era and in all eras before, when black
women were working in animation, they were underpaid, unacknowledged, or

(01:01:23):
never hired. And then as it you know, pertains to
right now, even you know, black women who were very
successful in animation are completely erased from its history and
you don't learn that much about them. Sorry that was
a little ac cast side rant. But if anyone wants

(01:01:44):
to learn about in an amazing historical and by that
I mean she she's dead, uh, an amazing black woman
who blazed so many trails in cartooning. Jackie ORMs is
so awesome and I recommend everyone learn more about her.

(01:02:04):
That's so frustrating. I didn't know that. Now I'm all
piste off. Yeah, that is something. And of course in
this movie, she is a white character played by a
white actor, and I think I would guess and Carlos,
you might you probably know more about this than me.
But after that, maybe, like first string of issues in

(01:02:27):
the comics, she was only depicted as a white woman
from then on, like in the animated series. I don't
know if she was ever made into an action figure.
I don't remember having an April O'Neill action figure, but
like much the same way that when like the Newest
Star Wars trilogy came out, and like Ray was the

(01:02:48):
protagonist of those movies, and like those toy companies were like, well,
why would we have an action figure of Ray because
she's a woman, you know. Like again I'm kind of
speculating here, but like I don't know if they were
proble action figures. All this to say that most of
the renditions of her post those like kind of original
string of issues of the comic depict her as a

(01:03:08):
white woman. And I would say that the Turtles are also,
again I think, perceived as like white coated characters even
though they're turtles, because I think in at least of
the um feature films post this trilogy, all of the
voice actors who voiced the Turtle characters are all white actors,

(01:03:34):
cementing that kind of coding. Well, and it's another I
am saying that there were some April action figures, but
I think that that's like again further complicated by the
fact that she's by the way her characters written, she's
not included in the action. So it's like, oh, well,
why would we make an action figure for someone who
is canonically excluded from all action. It's and and also

(01:03:57):
that like the I don't know, the trope of like
the sexy woman journalist felt also very prevalent during this time,
and an animation in particular, where again it's just like
such a it's not even a half step, it's whatever
two step, because it's like, well, but she has a job.
You know, she's not married. But it's like, but she's

(01:04:20):
not there to do journalism, you know, like she's not
there to do what you're saying she's there to do.
And so oh, I'm pretty sure the cartoon up until
maybe uh, this movie a little bit, and the revivals
with the cartoons on Nickelodeon, I think most people when

(01:04:42):
they think April O'Neil, they think the yellow jump suit
from her from the cartoon in seven um which white women.
That's where um a lot of the action figures sort
of began was based off of the show, so there's
like the van they had and all of them with
their their tools and toys. I'm not sure how much
she was involved in the show, because I don't it's

(01:05:04):
been right. I know, I don't remember it either eighty
four years. Eighty four years and I can still hear
the original commercial, so it's definitely ingrained that, like she's
a redhead, she wears the yellow jacket, which is why
I think some people were reticent with Um. Aside from

(01:05:26):
like the sexism that we love to throw up, Megan
Fox Um then and now to a certain degree was
just like, oh, she's not the right fit for the character,
Like she could be a badass and do badass things.
Why why is she not a good fit? Can she
stand in front of a mic and talking to it? Yeah?
I think she could took the job, especially given the
material that she's given to work with UM in this film.
I don't remember the recent one to comment or people

(01:05:49):
saying like Megan Fox is like too sexy four yes,
the April okay, which is like, oh my god. The
standard that is also saying it in the way that
It's like I I went back to read some of
the coverage from and it made me want to be
I was just like, oh my god, this is like
not even ten years ago, and this you could just write.

(01:06:09):
You could just write this down. Yeah. The tone of
all of that reporting was very like, you know, making
it seem like it was Megan Fox's fault that she
was framed and written in the way that she was
when it's like Megan Fox, by all accounts, was really
into teenage mutant Ninja Turtles and really liked like nerdy stuff,
liked Transformers, and it's like, so she's she's coming to

(01:06:32):
the project from an honest place and it's the fucking
culture that treats her the way it does. But all
of the coverage was like Megan Fox ruins this movie
and she was, you know, nominated for Razzies and like
just all that ship that. It's just like, uh, she
was doing all she could was what she was given,

(01:06:52):
and anytime she said anything about it, she would get fired,
Like Steven Spielberg fired her for insulting my Kyl Bay,
the most insultable person of all time. It's just oh yeah, yeah,
well that is terrible. Does anyone have any other thoughts
about the movie. I want a spinoff series for April

(01:07:14):
O'Neil where she can really get into the New York City.
I want a version that is like April O'Neil with
the Turtles as her like investigative assistance, and they're busting
ship wide open, and she's delegating to them and she's
training them to be turtle journalists, turtalists, turtle lists, and

(01:07:40):
they and they solve the environmental crisis and save the world.
That's the rearranged pieces I want from this. Oh my goodness.
I mean, you know there's corruption in the police department
in city Hall that is right, right for the picking
right the turtles and their access the turtles can Yeah,
they can break into anything. They can get her the

(01:08:00):
information she needs. And then she she cracks it wide
open and the NYPD is abolished, right, And that's how
it ends. I love this. Yes, they're defunded completely. They
have so much fucking money, so much money, too much money.
It's on the case. Um. One last question, which turtle

(01:08:25):
do you most identify with? Carlos? You you start, I
was hoping this would be a question because I was like,
who do I think Caitlin and Jamie are? And I
was like, and who am I? Yeah? Who do you
think you are? As a teenager? I was definitely Raphael.
I had a lot of anger issues that I had
to process and work through. I'm better now. I recommend

(01:08:50):
it to my students. I'm like, you should go to therapy,
It's good for you. Um. Probably Leonardo with like a
bit of an a Tello because I do have a
pH d um and he's like become the nerd element
of the Yes. Yeah, so probably a bit of Leo,

(01:09:13):
a bit of Donatum, Jamie. Any thoughts, I have no
idea you guys are? You guys are gonna have to
tell me? Okay, oh, part of me wants to say
Michael Angelo. But I also identify with michel Angelo because
he makes a lot of movie references and he loves movies.

(01:09:33):
But then there's also Rafael. I don't know. I love
his hard his hard shell, if you will, his uh,
his hardened exterior. You know, he's got an attitude problem,
but I kind of admire it. So I don't know.
Maybe I'm Rafael and Jamie you're Michelangelo. Okay. I'm on
a media dot com article I have not vetted, but

(01:09:56):
they're saying that Michelangelo is Ringo Star, which is always
what I'm going for. I love that well. I did
a lot of uh. I had to think very carefully
about which character mapped onto which sex in the City character. Um,
Carrie is Leonardo because they're both like the leaders of

(01:10:18):
the group. Who's a question mark. Raphael is Miranda, Michaelangelo
is Samantha because they're both the horniest ones. And then
Charlotte is Donna Tello because they're kind of I don't
know what is Charlotte's personality besides being boring the George
no offense. Wow, okay, we don't have time. We don't

(01:10:43):
have time. Charlotte's complicated. I was definitely going to give
michael Angelo to both of you a bit, but I
was also going to have done a Tello get a
little bit to Jamie because the research that went into
my yarn at cast Lolita podcast just like the journalistic

(01:11:04):
brain and just like Jamie's context corners always on point,
like um sort of very intellectual in a really fun way,
sort of the michael Angelo of it. And then I
was going to say Leonardo for you because you're sort
of like the leader. You sort of in charge running
the show for me. Oh my gosh, you have shorter

(01:11:25):
hair than me. So it follows the rule of the
baldest baldest woman in charge. It's been a while since
I've heard that one. No, Unfortunately, you can't really apply
it to this series because you need to have two
women for the rule to even come into operation. The
baldest turtle is also not in charge because they're all

(01:11:47):
equal amounts of They're all how many nipples does a
turtle have? Turtle facts with Caitlin and they answered zero
because they're reptiles. Oh, I was once applying a single
micro second of thought. That makes a lot of sense. Um,
does this movie pass the factel test? No? No, no,

(01:12:10):
hard No. There's no women for her to talk to
except for that one woman at the club who gets
um kind of held hostage by Shredder for two seconds,
and her neighbor who she doesn't talk to in the
beginning because she's too busy being engaged with by her
boyfriend husband and he like takes her keys to let

(01:12:31):
her in the building. It's like, I think she would
have gotten it together, like she would have been five. Right,
I feel like that's the only other woman in this
story with a speaking role, and she's only on screen
for thirty seconds and she doesn't talk to April. Yeah,
definitely doesn't pass the Bactel test. What about our nipple
scale though zero to five nipples. Based on examining the

(01:12:56):
movie through an intersectional feminist lens, I would give this
a half nipple because it, I guess arguably it treats
the one woman in the entire story better than she

(01:13:16):
was treated one year earlier in the first movie. But
it's not as though that improvement is very significant because
it still does not give her really any narrative bearing
on the plot, and she could just be replaced by
her own apartment and because they really only so that's

(01:13:38):
a big bummer. But I like her as a character,
the fact that she like stands up to the chief
of police, she stands up to her boss, she stands
up to her boss in the first movie too. She's
not afraid to speak out and advocate for herself, and
she's like strong and empowered in that way. Unfortunately, it
doesn't really have much impact on the larger narrative. But

(01:14:02):
I think she used a character to be admired if
you just like isolate certain aspects of her character. So
that's cool, But between like her very minimal actual involvement
in the story, and the way this movie demonizes and
stereotypes Japanese characters is despicable. So half nipple and I'll

(01:14:26):
give the nipple to Toka and Raiser when they get
turned back into their little animals, they're just baby their babies. Wait, no,
they get an honorable mention. But my half nipple goes
to Ninja rap the song and dance, so that's fair

(01:14:50):
Ninja Rap. And I'm like, and you're telling me he
improvised this if there's three words in this song, because
the scene goes on for a while. That sequence goes
on for like probably six minutes or so, and Vanilla
Ice is singing the whole time, and if you really

(01:15:10):
pay attention, he's just repeating the lyrics over and over again. Yeah. Yeah, well,
I mean that's I mean that that was I think
about where his skills tapped out. Um, so yeah, half nipples.
Vanilla Ice is Ninja Rap. I'm also going to go
with a half nipple for all the reasons you described, Gailan,

(01:15:32):
I mean and and it was really thank you both
for giving me the context of the origins of April.
The more I learned about this character, the more I'm like,
this is a character that had so much potential and
has never been seen through to that potential because it's

(01:15:54):
just the curse of the late twentieth century and five
trillion white guys being in control of how she's perceived.
But like on her face, such a fascinating character that
could have brought more diversity to the series, and then
they actively chose not to do it. Always really frustrating.
The treatment of East Asian culture is so just atrocious

(01:16:17):
and also very on par It feels like with how
East Asian culture was treated, I mean, I don't want
to like it's you can't even really specifically pull T,
M and T as especially bad, like this was just
how Western culture treated East Asian characters at this time. Um,
we didn't get a chance to talk to about it,
but there was a great essay I read in sci

(01:16:40):
Fi Wire that came out, I believe just last year
by a writer named Ariel Dean who talked about like T,
M and T being kind of as close as they
could find to East Asian representation when they were growing
up in the nineties and how frustrating that was, but
also how it formed a strong connection with the characters,

(01:17:00):
and how that you know, it's a pop culture is
a motherfucker. It's very complicated, weird um, and then you
have the babies and I'm laughing, and then you have
they do flips and I'm laughing, and so it's hard.
But as far as our scale goes half nipple for
April being there and not being completely abused by the movie,

(01:17:26):
but only because she's not in it. So uh, half
a nipple and I will give it to Frank Walker.
All right, Scooby Doo, you do, Scooby Doo, Carlos, what
about you? This is tough. I was like on the
Caitlin's rampameter. I know I'm going to give it ten stars.

(01:17:50):
But the nipple scale, the nipple skill is hard. Story
of our lives. We can't give this film credit for
the April O'Neil character, but I know in like the
cartoons and in other iterations more currently, she is often
aged down, so she's like a teenager um sort of

(01:18:10):
still doing investigative stuff and is more active, at least
in the Nickelodeon show. Um, so the character is treated
better in other UM properties under this sort of umbrella,
which is great, but we cannot give this movie for that. UM.
Like you said, with East Asian representations not great like

(01:18:31):
the whole nineties. I was thinking about Power Rangers a
lot during our conversation today. I'm sort of doing similar things,
sort of just copy pasting and then recasting mostly white
characters and actors and mostly white city. Um. Sort of
that piece the fathers and sons of it all. I
was waiting for, oh my gosh to talk about that,

(01:18:52):
but wait a minute, there's the whole splinters always like
my son's and we're like, Okay, you're totally right. The
father the movie, even TMNT is about fathers and it's
about sons. It just makes use sick enough. We get it.

(01:19:15):
It's hard, which makes it worse because I watched the
first one and I'm like, we don't touch April's trauma
of losing her like apartment, her dad's store that she
kept opening his memory, like, none of her characterization gets
to carry over into the next one other than she
has money and a better paying job. I think I'm

(01:19:35):
talking myself into a lower number of Now I think
I'm gonna go one, um, like Sammy and your other friends.
And in terms of Filipino representation, um, it's not the best,
but it was something this was really sort of formative
looking back on like PhD representation, what what because of

(01:19:59):
the professor which he would just be called doctor in
this research place because it's not a university. But that
is another conversation. I'm gonna stop talking. I'm gonna say
one nipple for all the reasons you said, but giving
it a little extra for Filipino representation, um, yeah. Which also,
like it makes the representation of the bad guys a

(01:20:22):
little more complicated because you also have Keno. So it's
not as though every Asian character is a bad guy
because also Splinter is like canonically Japanese. But like there's
still the optics of a lot of it is still
like really messed up. So it's complicated. But anyway, it's

(01:20:43):
also really more complicated in the third one, which we
didn't watch, don't they travel back in time? In the
famous and famous third movie of a trilogy fashion the
character's time travel and yet feudal Japan. Why is that
a thing? April goes and then they have to go
rescue her from the past. I do that is fascinating

(01:21:05):
because it's like the first movie is the first movie,
the second movie is the first movie, a second time
the third movie they can time travel this. I feel
like you could think of ten movie franchises where this
is the case. That is so wild. I've never thought
about that before. So men in Black three, it happens
evil dead any time travels in the third movie. Yeah,

(01:21:27):
in the third Harry Potter book and movie is the
only one that they have to travel. Yes, and it's
the only one that there's time travel wild. Why is
that they never do that in the Series of Unfortunate Events?
They're too busy rehash in the first book over and over.
I know there's at least like two or three other examples,
So listeners, if you have examples, throw them at us.

(01:21:50):
But anyway, this is this is the new This is
the new Leo in not sorry, not that Leonardo, not
Turtle Leonardo. We have to differentiate. It's the new Leonardo DiCaprio.
Enough a body of water where cloth? Yes, yes, so
oh boy. Anyway, Carlos, thank you so much for joining us.

(01:22:11):
It's been a treat. It's been a slice of pizza. Cowabunga, Calabunga,
very Mary, Cowabunka to you, Carlos, thank you so much
for joining us my Catholic upbringing. When you said cola
bunka to you, I was like and also with you,
but they'll thank you for having me. This was great.

(01:22:32):
Oh my gosh, come back anytime. Where can people check
out your stuff? Follow you on social media, et cetera.
So I am Carlos Creates on Instagram. Um, I'm also
um one of the three co hosts at play dot
Hype dot Dialogue on Instagram, and I am revamping my

(01:22:55):
professional website to be both part academic and part consultant creative. Um.
So that's Carlos m Camacho dot net. But it is
a work in progress. Sure aren't we all? You know? Cow?
You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at becktel Cast.

(01:23:17):
You can go to patreon dot com slash pecktel Cast
and subscribe to our patron ak Matreon where we do
to bonus episodes every month, and then you'll also have
access to our entire back catalog, which is over one
hundred bonus episodes. And um, we always forget to say this,

(01:23:37):
but why don't you, um, you know, like us and
give us a little you know, five star five nipple review.
I love her, You're like, we never say this, but
why don't you like? You like us? Being like the
verb where you like click a like button, but also
why don't you like us? But also why don't you

(01:23:58):
like us? Why do we ever heard we're so cool?
They say cow a bunga, But yeah, write us a
five nipple review on you know, Apple podcasts or whatever
you're listening platform is, and you can check out our
merch at t public dot com. Slash the back dol
cast if you are so inclined. Springs coming. Carlos is

(01:24:20):
wearing a queer icon T shirt. Why aren't you get
it together? Get it together, Jamie. I feel like we
should also briefly just touch on the shirt that you're wearing.
I am wearing I don't even know if it's currently
it might be, it might be rare at this point,
but I'm wearing a shirt that I co designed with

(01:24:40):
super Yocky, who advertises on the show we love them
so much um and it says Alfred Molina could have
done it, which is first of all a true David
and also second of all, today my boss was like
done what And I was like everything. Alfred Molina could
have been every Ninja Turtle, both voice wise and all

(01:25:03):
of the stunts. Amen, Baby Cowabunga to that Cowabunga ol
from Molina. Bye,