Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtles: Secret of the Ooze with Carlos Camacho

very cowabunga to you? Well? I think normally it wouldn't 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, 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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

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. 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. 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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.

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 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 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.

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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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

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 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,

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 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 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 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? 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 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.

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 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, 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. 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, 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,

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

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 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, 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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. 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, 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 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

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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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. 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 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 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, 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.

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, 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 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. 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 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,

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 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 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

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 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 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

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 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 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, 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 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. 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 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 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 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. 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, 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 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

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 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. 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, 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 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 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 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. 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

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 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 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 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

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 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.

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 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 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 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,

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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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.

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 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 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

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 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 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 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,

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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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,

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, 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. 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 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 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, 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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.

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. 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 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.

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, 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 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 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 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 of the stunts. Amen, Baby Cowabunga to that Cowabunga ol from Molina. Bye,