Speaker 1: On the Beck dol cast, the questions asked if movies
Speaker 1: have women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends
Speaker 1: and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef
Speaker 1: invest start changing it with the beck del cast. Hey, Jamie, Hey, Caitlin, cowabunga,
Speaker 1: that's the intro? Yeah, sorry, cow bunga? Is that? Sorry?
Speaker 1: Hold on, I'm new here. When someone says cowabunga, is
Speaker 1: it generally considered polite to return the cowabunga? Or do you?
Speaker 1: Is it just to be received? Is it in a
Speaker 1: very cowabunga to you? Well? I think normally it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be used as a greeting. It's not like it's not alone, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's more a term of excitement. It's it's not an expletive.
Speaker 1: What's the words? An exclamatory. Yes, it's an exclamatory. Okay.
Speaker 1: I am a link quist. So this is really helpful
Speaker 1: for me. So cowa bunga. It's it's a way of saying, wow,
Speaker 1: who we did it? How exciting? Yeah? Exactly okay, And
Speaker 1: and a very cowa bung it to you, Caitlin, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. We were just joking since Jamie you
Speaker 1: mentioned that you're new here. You're you're rather new to
Speaker 1: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Yeah, I'm extremely young,
Speaker 1: so that's it's and it's hard for me. We were
Speaker 1: just joking off Mike with our guests, who we will
Speaker 1: introduce in a moment, that he has a PhD in
Speaker 1: Ninja Turtles. I have a master's degree in both Turtles
Speaker 1: and screenwriting from Boston University, which, of course I hate
Speaker 1: to mention. I didn't know that. And we were joking
Speaker 1: that you're like a freshman in high school when it
Speaker 1: comes to Ninja Turtles. Jamie. Yeah, I'm throwing back to
Speaker 1: my early days of the podcast, where I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't know anything, But in this case it is actually,
Speaker 1: um fairly true. T M and T is outside of
Speaker 1: my purview. I'm the new girl at school and I
Speaker 1: love homework, so I'm excited to learn in my yellow
Speaker 1: jacket that appears to be canonical, but I don't think
Speaker 1: appears in this movie. Correct. Yes, Okay, see I'm learning already.
Speaker 1: She's got a little Morton jacket. So this is the
Speaker 1: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Secret of the Ooze episode of
Speaker 1: the Bechtel Cast, requested by everyone. We are most popular request.
Speaker 1: People have just been clamoring how to Lose a guy
Speaker 1: in Ten Days, Pride and Prejudice, Secret of the Ouze,
Speaker 1: and we've done all of them pretty recently. So you're welcome. True,
Speaker 1: you're welcome. So this is the Bechtel Cast, our show
Speaker 1: in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Toronte. My name is Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 1: Cow Bunga to you, calabunga to us all please, oh,
Speaker 1: and everyone if you're if you're sitting next to someone,
Speaker 1: we can make it like Sunday service. Could you turn
Speaker 1: to the person to your left and say very cowabunga
Speaker 1: to you, and then turn to the person to right
Speaker 1: and say a very cowabunga to you. And then let's
Speaker 1: just sit in our own cowabunga and then say cow
Speaker 1: bunga to yourself. You know, I don't think we stop
Speaker 1: often enough to say cowabunga to ourselves. I tend to
Speaker 1: agree that's self care, that's just basic self care. You sit,
Speaker 1: you breathe, you say cowabunga. You know, really feel each
Speaker 1: syllable in your mouth. I've been listening to a lot
Speaker 1: of guided meditations. What's the podcast about? Well I already
Speaker 1: said that, but I didn't say what the Bechdel test is? Sorry, yes,
Speaker 1: what is it? Jamie? Maybe you need to take a
Speaker 1: minute and just like have a cowabunga need to say cow.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, literally sorry, I'm gonna pull back. Um. So,
Speaker 1: the Bechdel Test is a media metric created by a
Speaker 1: queer cartoonists Alison Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test,
Speaker 1: which we use as a jumping off point. And it's
Speaker 1: a media metric where our version is two characters of
Speaker 1: a marginalized gender have to have names, they have to
Speaker 1: speak to each other, and their conversation has to be
Speaker 1: about something other than a man, ideally for a meaningful exchange,
Speaker 1: something that's kind of you know, plot relevant. Little boy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this movie I d K I K U K I
Speaker 1: K for sure. But without much further ado, let us
Speaker 1: introduce our guest. He has a recent PhD in sociology
Speaker 1: and Ninja Turtles. He's a host of Play Hype Dialogue,
Speaker 1: a media podcast. He's an aspiring screenwright. Or it's Carlos Camacho.
Speaker 1: Carlos I'm so excited to be here. We're so excited
Speaker 1: to have you for being here, and to everyone who
Speaker 1: cannot see our video call, which is all of you.
Speaker 1: Carlos is wearing a Buctle Cast Queer Icon t shirt.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. We love to see it. How are you, Carlos,
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm really well in the moment. I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: be here to talk about the Turtles. I revisited them
Speaker 1: for the first time in a while, so I'm I'm
Speaker 1: so excited. Cow a bunk of baby. Let's do this.
Speaker 1: Tell us your your history, your relationship with this franchise.
Speaker 1: So I was born in nine so I was like
Speaker 1: primed for turtle fandom. Taylor Swift over here. So, um,
Speaker 1: I'm going to post this to my Instagram. But this
Speaker 1: is a stuffed Raphael when I was a literal child.
Speaker 1: So I've literally been around this property my whole life.
Speaker 1: My family is always getting me turtle stuff like it
Speaker 1: is very much. Um something I've watched, read, played video
Speaker 1: games of stuffed animals, played turtles. Um, I've done all
Speaker 1: of it. It's been there from pretty much my inception
Speaker 1: into this world. Nice, that's so cool, Jamie, what about you? Nothing.
Speaker 1: I think I briefly pretended in high school to know
Speaker 1: what it was and what it was about, but I
Speaker 1: just I don't know. I I think that T M
Speaker 1: and T as I know they're called. It's like almost
Speaker 1: like a micro generational thing where it's like if you're
Speaker 1: born one or two years outside of the target audience,
Speaker 1: you just missed it. Because they kind of I know
Speaker 1: that they like, they still very much exist. It feels
Speaker 1: like as like everyone knows who they are, but I
Speaker 1: don't have any experience of like personality. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I know who the Turtles are, I know who April is,
Speaker 1: and that was sort of all. So going into this
Speaker 1: movie was a treat. I do think I saw the
Speaker 1: Megan Fox one in theaters and then blacked it out
Speaker 1: because as it seems like most fans of the franchise
Speaker 1: did not a slight to Megan Fox at all because
Speaker 1: she has only been done to services in this lifetime anyways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I hadn't had much experience with the franchise, but
Speaker 1: I always like liked them in theory. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't think I have anything against these guys. They
Speaker 1: seem I know they like pizza. I like pizza. I
Speaker 1: know they have the names of classical artists. Still haven't
Speaker 1: really cracked that, don't really understand it, but I'm on board.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to learn. And this movie was first of all,
Speaker 1: a hoot and a romp. There's a lot to discuss,
Speaker 1: which we will, but it was a hoot and a
Speaker 1: rop and it was mercifully eighty eight minutes long, and
Speaker 1: it's actually eighty one minutes with credits, and I just
Speaker 1: love when movies are that length. Caitlin, what's your history
Speaker 1: with the teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? I love these little turtles,
Speaker 1: specifically this movie, big, Caitlin', they're too big. You're right.
Speaker 1: I love these large turtles specifically this movie. Because we
Speaker 1: were trying to figure out which Turtles movie to cover,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I know this is the sequel,
Speaker 1: but I want to talk about this one. I don't
Speaker 1: want to talk about the first, or the third, or
Speaker 1: really any other installments in the franchise because this is
Speaker 1: a movie I've seen probably like fifty times, Like it
Speaker 1: was just like on a loop. In my house. As
Speaker 1: a kid, I played with turtles toy like the action figures.
Speaker 1: As a kid, I had like the regular ones. I
Speaker 1: had the Astronaut ones. I don't remember when or if
Speaker 1: they go to space at any point, there's Astronaut one,
Speaker 1: but I had Astronaut turtle figurines. And then a few
Speaker 1: years ago because my fandom has, like I guess, just
Speaker 1: always stuck with me. And a few years ago I
Speaker 1: had I wrote a sketch called Sex and the Sewer.
Speaker 1: This I've seen many times, Thank you so much, Jamie.
Speaker 1: It's a combination of Ninja Turtles and Sex in the
Speaker 1: City where I mapped each of the four turtles onto
Speaker 1: each of the four main Sex and the City characters,
Speaker 1: and I have them just out for a pizza cocktail
Speaker 1: chatting about their horny turtle sex lives. It is my
Speaker 1: magnum opus and I'll post it on you know, our
Speaker 1: Twitter or whatever. It's on YouTube if you if you
Speaker 1: search Sex and the Sewer. I was recently introduced to it.
Speaker 1: It is hilarious. I loved every second of it. Gius,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. It is a classic of the
Speaker 1: genre and I will stand by that till the day
Speaker 1: I die, Thank you very much. And speaking of Cowabunga,
Speaker 1: it obviously makes an appearance in reference to bung being
Speaker 1: another name for like butt or anis. Why are you
Speaker 1: saying anus right now? I'm sorry. This is a family show.
Speaker 1: I feel no need to defend myself. I'll say an
Speaker 1: us again. Oh my god. Anyway, Bung cowabunga hilarious joke,
Speaker 1: one of many in Sex and the Steward. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: love this movie ten out of ten on the Rombometer.
Speaker 1: There are many things to talk about. It's got some problems.
Speaker 1: I did not see the vanilla ice coming. Imagine not
Speaker 1: knowing that was coming, and the shock you feel when
Speaker 1: it starts, I simply cannot imagine it was it was.
Speaker 1: It felt really good. I will I woke right up.
Speaker 1: I watched it pretty early in the morning, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it was. It was wide awake, amazing.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that my mother has home video footage
Speaker 1: of me performing that song in front of the television
Speaker 1: with Oh That's so sweet. In college, my best friend
Speaker 1: and I learned the dance that the turtles do to
Speaker 1: vanilla ices ninja wrap, and we rehearsed it and we
Speaker 1: practiced it, and we sometimes would do it at parties.
Speaker 1: So is there video evidence of that, because I would
Speaker 1: love to see it. Unfortunately not drop the footage. There's not,
Speaker 1: but I'll relearn it. Also settled for you doing it now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, let's just learn it. Yeah, we're already the
Speaker 1: day we're recording this, we're already working on our magic
Speaker 1: Mike choreography, so we might as well just throw another
Speaker 1: number into rehearsal. Exactly, alright, So should I just get
Speaker 1: into the recap and we'll go from there. Let's do it. Okay,
Speaker 1: So again, this movie is a sequel. It is the
Speaker 1: second installment in the original live action trilogy. So I'll
Speaker 1: just give a really quick recap of the first movie.
Speaker 1: From where we meet the four Turtles Leonardo, Donna, Tello, Michaelangelo,
Speaker 1: and Raphael, as well as their mentor slash father figure,
Speaker 1: a giant rat named Splinter. We learn about their backstory.
Speaker 1: They had come into contact with radioactive US from a
Speaker 1: canister as baby animals fifteen years prior, which made them
Speaker 1: human sized, and it made them able to talk and
Speaker 1: have complex thoughts and feelings, and in in the case
Speaker 1: of the reboot movies, the Megan Fox movies, made them
Speaker 1: some of the scariest looking computer generated characters ever committed
Speaker 1: to film. Yeah, and I also think it changed those movies,
Speaker 1: changed their backstory. It made them like aliens or something.
Speaker 1: Am I I even't seen them, but I remember that
Speaker 1: being there was a lot of outcry about that. Remember
Speaker 1: when we had time to be upset about things like that.
Speaker 1: Uh okay, So Splinter taught the turtles Ninjasu, and then
Speaker 1: throughout the movie they eat pizza, They rescue and befriend
Speaker 1: news reporter April O'Neill. They fight the bad guys who
Speaker 1: are the Foot Clan and their leader, Shredder. The Turtles
Speaker 1: win and it seems like they've defeated and killed Shredder
Speaker 1: at the end of the movie. So Secret of the
Speaker 1: Ooze picks up basically right after that. We open on
Speaker 1: shots of New York City, Ever Heard of It? Where
Speaker 1: everyone is eating pizza. We meet Keino played by Ernie
Speaker 1: Rays Jr. He's a pizza delivery guy who heads out
Speaker 1: to deliver an order for April O'Neill, but not before
Speaker 1: body shaming a girl before jumping on his you're just
Speaker 1: like well I Unfortunately it doesn't generally stay at that
Speaker 1: vibration for the whole movie, but it was a wild
Speaker 1: first dialogue exchange. Yeah, for sure. So he's out to
Speaker 1: deliver this pizza, but on the way he discovers a
Speaker 1: bunch of criminals stealing electronics. He fights them because he
Speaker 1: also has martial arts training. But there are too many
Speaker 1: of these criminals. But don't worry, the teenage mutant ninja
Speaker 1: turtles show up and save the day. The turtle's head
Speaker 1: back to April O'Neill's apartment, we see her on screen
Speaker 1: for the first time. She's played by Page Turco in
Speaker 1: this movie. She's also Yeah, she's played by a different
Speaker 1: person than the last movie. Correct. I could not find
Speaker 1: out why she got recast. I found I found something there, Okay, alright.
Speaker 1: Basically it was the director of the previous movie. I
Speaker 1: don't know if the first and second movies are directed
Speaker 1: by the same person, but I think it's different people.
Speaker 1: They basically claimed that she was difficult, says Turko. Replaced
Speaker 1: Judith Hougue for this film and The Fall Uh and
Speaker 1: the following film. According to Huge, she was not approached
Speaker 1: to reprise their role because the producers thought she complained
Speaker 1: too much during the first movie. So, um, yeah, women
Speaker 1: be getting labeled as difficult and losing jobs. So what
Speaker 1: a thrilling tail. Never heard that one before. So this
Speaker 1: April is played by Page Turco. They go to her
Speaker 1: apartment where the Turtles and Splinter are staying because they
Speaker 1: can't go back to the sewer right now because the
Speaker 1: Foot knows where they live. Then we cut to a
Speaker 1: landfill Shredder survived. Then we cut to a junkyard where
Speaker 1: what's left of the Foot clan regroups. We see Shredder's
Speaker 1: right handman, Tatsu. He's throwing a fit, but then Shredder
Speaker 1: shows up played by Francois How he shows up, he's
Speaker 1: hungry for revenge and he wants to find and destroy
Speaker 1: the Turtles. Then we meet Professor Jordan Perry played by
Speaker 1: David Warner a k a. Love Joy from Titanic. I know,
Speaker 1: I was so thrilled. I don't think I once. Once
Speaker 1: I saw it, I couldn't un see it. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I would have gotten there on my own.
Speaker 1: So because I saw this movie a bazillion times before
Speaker 1: Titanic came out. When Titanic came out, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's the professor from the Secret of
Speaker 1: the Ooze. The director of teenage mutant ninja turtles too
Speaker 1: would be so thrilled to hear that. I'm sure, um okay.
Speaker 1: So the professor is helping with cleanup of toxic chemicals
Speaker 1: from a company called t g R I. April interviews
Speaker 1: him for the news. She's suspicious. She senses something is
Speaker 1: going on with t g R I, especially because this
Speaker 1: toxic waste seems to be mutating things nearby, like we
Speaker 1: see these huge mutated dandelions, and Shredder gets wind of
Speaker 1: this toxic waste and wonders if he might be able
Speaker 1: to use it against his enemies. Meanwhile, Splinter reveals that
Speaker 1: the radioactive material that mutated the turtles when they were
Speaker 1: babies was the same toxic waste from t g R I,
Speaker 1: So it's all connected. So the turtles go to t
Speaker 1: g r I to investigate, but the Foot also shows
Speaker 1: up and steals the one remaining canister of ouze, which
Speaker 1: is what everyone calls it s x uz situations in
Speaker 1: this movie sometimes you're just like what's happening, and then
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, the ouze is back. I'm assuming that
Speaker 1: things are back on track, as long as you can
Speaker 1: keep your eye on the ouze, you can sort of
Speaker 1: figure out what's going on. The uz is kind of
Speaker 1: the like connective glue, so to speak, that really holds
Speaker 1: this movie together. Classics. So they've also kidnapped the professor.
Speaker 1: The Foot has who Shredder forces to administer the ooze
Speaker 1: to a couple of dangerous creatures, but we don't know
Speaker 1: what exactly. We have yet to get a big reveal.
Speaker 1: Then Keno shows back up to April O'Neill's place because
Speaker 1: he had seen the turtles in that first sequence and
Speaker 1: he's like, what's going on? What are these turtles all about?
Speaker 1: So he wants more information. He discovers them there. He
Speaker 1: tells them that the Foot plan is recruiting, especially teenagers
Speaker 1: with martial arts experience, and he's like, oh, if I
Speaker 1: get recruited, we can find their headquarters and then take
Speaker 1: them down. But Splinters like, no, that's too dangerous. Then
Speaker 1: the turtles go back to the sewer to try to
Speaker 1: find a spot to live. They find an abandoned subway station,
Speaker 1: but Raphael is pissed, I think because they're like not
Speaker 1: doing anything to try to get the ooze back from
Speaker 1: the Foot, so he storms off. He does this a
Speaker 1: lot because he also does this in the first movie.
Speaker 1: Oh does he Okay, that's good to know. I do
Speaker 1: appreciate how this very New York movie, even when you're
Speaker 1: in the world of the teenage mutant Ninja turtles, it's
Speaker 1: so elevated, it's still really hard to find an apartment, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's that's a level of realism I wasn't anticipating. Okay.
Speaker 1: So meanwhile, the creatures that the Professor had mutated are
Speaker 1: ready for their big debut. It is a giant mutant
Speaker 1: wolf and snapping turtle, Toca and raise Are. I love them.
Speaker 1: They're great, They're amazing. They're like mama, right because they're babies.
Speaker 1: Their babies, the babies. I used to scream that around
Speaker 1: my house as a kid at all the time. It's
Speaker 1: so funny. It's so funny and sweet, and I feel
Speaker 1: like it without trying to accidentally comments on the born
Speaker 1: Sexy Yesterday Trupe Trump where it's like something that comes
Speaker 1: out that's supposed to be very fully formed and then
Speaker 1: it's like Google Gaga, You're like, oh, yeah, it's a baby,
Speaker 1: that's how that would work, right. Yeah. So they're not
Speaker 1: very cognitively developed, but they are strong and still dangerous,
Speaker 1: so Keno, who has linked up with Rafael, gets recruited
Speaker 1: into the Foot so the Keno can learn their secrets
Speaker 1: and double cross them. But then the Foot clan kidnaps Rafael,
Speaker 1: so the other turtles go to the Junkyard to rescue him,
Speaker 1: but Shredder springs a trap. There's a big fight. Shredder
Speaker 1: unleashes Toca and raise Are, and the turtles are no
Speaker 1: match for them, so they run away and they bring
Speaker 1: the Professor with them, who gets to work on developing
Speaker 1: an antidote to un mutate Toca and raise Are, which
Speaker 1: the Professor reveals those animals will have to ingest, So
Speaker 1: the turtles have the idea to put the antidote into
Speaker 1: donuts and feed those two Toca and raise Are, so
Speaker 1: that night the turtles go back to the Junkyard for
Speaker 1: the big fight. There's so many fights in this movie.
Speaker 1: It's it's very exciting, truly. They feed the donuts to
Speaker 1: Toca and raise Are, but another fight breaks out and
Speaker 1: as they're fighting, they crash into a nightclub where Vanilla
Speaker 1: Ice is performing, which in York that also is very possible.
Speaker 1: So Vanilla Ice is, you know, rapping whatever right, and
Speaker 1: then everyone at the club is watching this fight happen.
Speaker 1: So then Vanilla Ice improvises one of the best songs
Speaker 1: of all time, Ninja Wrap, And then at one point
Speaker 1: the Turtles burst out into a choreographed dance, which I
Speaker 1: later learned and performed as well. Who could blame you?
Speaker 1: But then Shredder bursts in. He drinks a vial of ooze,
Speaker 1: which not only makes him bigger and stronger, but it
Speaker 1: also mutates his outfit and makes it spikier. I liked that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really good. There's so many things I about this
Speaker 1: movie that as a kid I did not question for
Speaker 1: a second, And then as an adult, I'm like, why
Speaker 1: did the US mutate his spikes? I don't know his outfit.
Speaker 1: I mean, it stands to reason I didn't ask. I
Speaker 1: honestly didn't ask that question. And I'm almost thirty years old. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the Turtles are trying to fight Super Shredder, which
Speaker 1: I also had a toy of as a kid. Brag.
Speaker 1: They're on a dock now, and Super Shredder is just
Speaker 1: like tearing everything down around him and he ends up
Speaker 1: getting crushed when the whole thing collapses. But the turtles
Speaker 1: avoid getting crushed because they are like, we're turtles, we
Speaker 1: can jump in the water. Then the movie ends with
Speaker 1: the turtles back at their new home and Splinter says,
Speaker 1: go Ninja, Go, Ninja go, and then freeze frame and
Speaker 1: the movie's over after eight one minutes on the half
Speaker 1: a flip. Incredible. Every movie should do this, yes, including
Speaker 1: the freeze frame on a mid flip. That is how
Speaker 1: the Robert Pattinson Batman movie should have ended. Uh go Batman,
Speaker 1: Go Batman, Go flip. Directed by Matt. I don't know
Speaker 1: who knows what his last name could be anything, Matt.
Speaker 1: The movie Doubt should have ended that Meryl's drip doing
Speaker 1: apple flip, Go, Sister Aloish's go, Sister Alowish's go flip.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Oh we haven't brought up doubt in
Speaker 1: a while. Yeah, it's I I've found that it tends
Speaker 1: to bring down the mood of any discussion that we're happening.
Speaker 1: But I would love to see Meryl do a flip
Speaker 1: as sister aloish Is, but only as Sister aloish Is.
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in it in any other character of hers. Actually,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe what's her name? The devil who wore product.
Speaker 1: I would, I would, Miranda Priestley. Yeah, I thought it
Speaker 1: was a very satisfying ending. Yes, um, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break and then we will come right back to
Speaker 1: discuss and we're back. Where should we be? Cam, Well,
Speaker 1: I'll let I'll let you guys stare. Oh my gosh, Carlos,
Speaker 1: does anything jump out to you as a good place
Speaker 1: to start as the resident PhD have her? I feel
Speaker 1: so I feel so inadequate next to you, but with
Speaker 1: only my measly master's degree. Um, I'm gonna be like you,
Speaker 1: be like I have a PhD. I don't like to
Speaker 1: bring it up. Yeah, yeah, um, I think just talking
Speaker 1: quickly about some of the parallels between the first movie
Speaker 1: in the second movie, because as you were giving the recap,
Speaker 1: I realized that Rafael is in trouble in both movies.
Speaker 1: So he goes out by himself, gets beat up and
Speaker 1: left for dead in the first one, and then ends
Speaker 1: up getting kidnapped and tied to a big pole in
Speaker 1: this one. Yeah, sir, can you learn your lesson and
Speaker 1: not go out by yourself? Honestly? I wrote down for
Speaker 1: when the way that Rafael he looks like car Sin
Speaker 1: Dunston the Spider Web at the peak of Spider Man Too,
Speaker 1: where it's like, well, I guess he's not going to
Speaker 1: be allowed to participate in this this scrap It was fun,
Speaker 1: but then he is because then he's a turtle, and yeah,
Speaker 1: not a damseled woman. Um. But on that line of thinking,
Speaker 1: because a lot of the notes I have as they
Speaker 1: relate to April O'Neill's character, a lot of it is
Speaker 1: how her character is treated in the first movie versus
Speaker 1: the second one. So for anyone who hasn't seen the
Speaker 1: first movie, here are a few things of note that
Speaker 1: happen in relation to her character. So the first Ninja
Speaker 1: Turtles movie that came out like one year prior to
Speaker 1: this one, it makes April have to be rescued at
Speaker 1: least twice by the Turtles, so it damsels her. And
Speaker 1: then she has to be rescued twice. During at least
Speaker 1: one of these rescues. Uh, she is hit in the
Speaker 1: face by some members of the foot Plan multiple times,
Speaker 1: so she is assaulted quite a bit. The movie also
Speaker 1: puts her in a romance with Casey Jones, which I
Speaker 1: think is like cannon to the comics which I never
Speaker 1: really read, but I did watch the animated series as
Speaker 1: a kid, although I don't remember it at all, I
Speaker 1: did a little bit of research on it and it
Speaker 1: seems like she's treated much the same like I think,
Speaker 1: particularly bad in the in the original comics, where she's
Speaker 1: like really like drawn exploitatively and like just someone that
Speaker 1: people say plot to. And then it sounds like the
Speaker 1: animated series attempted to give her a character, but maybe
Speaker 1: not very well. Yeah, so the first movie includes the
Speaker 1: Casey Jones character. They are put into a like romantic
Speaker 1: like a floor rotation slash romantic tension, and eventually they
Speaker 1: kiss at the end. He is a jerk to her
Speaker 1: the whole time, and then there's also some like not
Speaker 1: very appropriate for a kid's movie stuff that happens where
Speaker 1: he gives her a very horny massage at one point
Speaker 1: where he is first like shoves her down in a
Speaker 1: chair in a pretty violent way, and then he starts
Speaker 1: to give her a massage in which he is almost
Speaker 1: like touching her breasts and it's just like, why is
Speaker 1: this happening in this PG movie? So basically in this
Speaker 1: first movie, she's damseled, battered, and treated poorly by her
Speaker 1: love interest. I hate how In the second movie, they
Speaker 1: deal with that by being like, um, let's just not
Speaker 1: have her be in it that much question mark, then
Speaker 1: we can't do anything fucked up to her. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: in Secret of the Ooze, April doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: rescued at any point. Some random lady does at the
Speaker 1: Vanilla Ice concert. But was that that was just a
Speaker 1: random lady who loved Ninja rap. And that's that's also
Speaker 1: I mean, not that this excuses it, but that's like
Speaker 1: a very brief moment. It's not like a super like plot, like,
Speaker 1: none of the plot really revolves around that. No, it's
Speaker 1: just to the point where it was weird that it
Speaker 1: was included at all. It was like, right, damseling someone
Speaker 1: we don't know for thirty seconds and then having it
Speaker 1: be completely fine. And then she also does put a
Speaker 1: button on the scene by passing out. Women be fainting.
Speaker 1: Women be fainting. But to be fair, Keno faints at
Speaker 1: one point in the movie, so they are giving um
Speaker 1: equal opportunity, right, Um, So April does not have to
Speaker 1: be rescued. She's not wedged into a relationship with an
Speaker 1: asshole or anyone, which also reduces the ways in which
Speaker 1: she was like over sexualized in the first movie, so
Speaker 1: we're not really seeing any of that in this sequel. So,
Speaker 1: like you said, Jamie, she just like isn't given a
Speaker 1: lot to do. I would say her involvement in the
Speaker 1: story isn't zero because she is investigating T g R. I.
Speaker 1: But also nothing that she does in this movie has
Speaker 1: any real bearing on the plot as so to say
Speaker 1: I think you could take her, I mean, I know
Speaker 1: you can't canotically take her out of the franchise, but
Speaker 1: you could take her out of this plot and not
Speaker 1: much would change, which I feel like, isn't such a
Speaker 1: bizarre like moment. I mean, I guess moment in feminism
Speaker 1: in like one particular way where it's like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like that whole third wave thing of like, but you
Speaker 1: can't be mad at us because we gave her a job,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, but the job she's doing doesn't
Speaker 1: have any bearing on what's happening or any decision she
Speaker 1: makes at all. Right, And and most of the time
Speaker 1: in her job, I was like a little frustrated to
Speaker 1: see that almost every piece of information she makes she
Speaker 1: kind of encounters by mistake, Like we don't get to
Speaker 1: see her do a lot of investigating. It's she encounters
Speaker 1: the plot and information she needs by accident, and then
Speaker 1: she's like, I knew it, and you can tell that
Speaker 1: like in the early nineties, this was like feminism. She
Speaker 1: has a job, and there's another little glimpse of that
Speaker 1: when her boss is like, it's ratings week, drop this
Speaker 1: g g R. I story do something really interesting and
Speaker 1: then he like hands are a piece of paper and
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, swimsuits of the nineties and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I find that really interesting, and like her reaction, we're
Speaker 1: supposed to be like, yeah, she doesn't care about, you know,
Speaker 1: women in swimsuits. She cares about this hard hitting journalism
Speaker 1: she's doing. But it's like, which is like she's not enough, right,
Speaker 1: but then let her do the hard hitting journalists, right.
Speaker 1: She could have easily been with Jerry question Mark her
Speaker 1: like assistant cameraman, assistant person when he finds the dandelion,
Speaker 1: Like she could have easily snuck in with him, or
Speaker 1: it's been her by herself, and then she tells Jerry
Speaker 1: and then he tells Shredder, like that could have been
Speaker 1: a moment for her to be more active in the story.
Speaker 1: Totally totally. It felt like she It's interesting to know
Speaker 1: that there was all this shoehorned in love interest stuff
Speaker 1: in the first movie, because it felt like in lieu
Speaker 1: of that, they were just like, well, we're just not
Speaker 1: going to have her around as much, when it's like,
Speaker 1: instead of finding ways to meaningfully include her in the plot,
Speaker 1: when it sounds like, canonically she's a great character to
Speaker 1: have there because she's theoretically an investigator. Bizarre right, And
Speaker 1: on the tale of the first one, she's now the
Speaker 1: highest paid investigative reporter in New York City to afford
Speaker 1: a two level apartment after days of her old apartment branding.
Speaker 1: It's like, and it's like, too bad for New York City,
Speaker 1: because this lady isn't investigating a damn thing she's she
Speaker 1: is yell at the chief of police a lot. And
Speaker 1: I do appreciate that this movie and the first one.
Speaker 1: I did not go back and rewatch the third movie
Speaker 1: because it um sucks. But uh, these two movies present
Speaker 1: cops in a way that shows them as being like
Speaker 1: severely incompetent and never handling things properly, to the point
Speaker 1: where April says to the police chief like she's like,
Speaker 1: I guess you're not the ones who are going to
Speaker 1: handle this. Right after, like there's a scene where Token
Speaker 1: raisar like reek havoc on the city and the police
Speaker 1: chief is just like, that's what we do best, not
Speaker 1: handle things, and that we're like, whoo hoo. That's pretty
Speaker 1: cool for a nineties movie. I like that, and I
Speaker 1: also liked I have a question for the two experts
Speaker 1: in the room. I like how the Turtles have this
Speaker 1: like story that's connected to ironmental disaster, and that this
Speaker 1: movie also kind of like the Ouze is like this
Speaker 1: vaguely environmental story. Is that something that happens on the
Speaker 1: show a lot? Because I thought that that was really cool.
Speaker 1: I actually don't know, it's been such a long time
Speaker 1: since I've watched the shows. UM. I feel like it
Speaker 1: was part of that trend in the early nineties where
Speaker 1: it's like Captain Planet, the Power Rangers, the Turtles, everyone
Speaker 1: had the environment and being environmentally conscious on their radar UM,
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure how deeply it goes in UM
Speaker 1: Turtles Cannon and then they forgot. I'm curious because I
Speaker 1: know that this franchise is being rebooted again again by
Speaker 1: I think Seth Rogan. Yeah, that's what I heard, And
Speaker 1: I would be surprised if that didn't come into the
Speaker 1: news story because it's like they lend themselves very well
Speaker 1: to an environmental crisis story that hopefully isn't too depressing, right,
Speaker 1: because their whole origin is we came in contact with
Speaker 1: toxic Way East. But that was actually a good thing
Speaker 1: because they turned into these awesome crime fighting martial arts experts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a very like, don't worry, guys,
Speaker 1: everything's gonna actually be awesome when the environment collapses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll just all turn into these amazing superheroes. Yeah, pizza
Speaker 1: eating turtles. Another thing about April, even though this movie
Speaker 1: doesn't foist a romantic relationship on her, the turtles all
Speaker 1: have a crush on April, especially Michael Angelo, or at
Speaker 1: least he's the most vocal about it. And I just
Speaker 1: got to think, like, what if you were a grown,
Speaker 1: adult human woman and there are these four horny teenagers
Speaker 1: that all have a big crush on you, and then
Speaker 1: they're all also mutant turtles. See that's where you lose me.
Speaker 1: I just it's a it's a weird choice, I think,
Speaker 1: but wild but it also feels so of the era.
Speaker 1: Yeah that Yes, it's also interesting because I watched the
Speaker 1: first one and the second one pretty close back to
Speaker 1: back to prep for this episode. I also watched the
Speaker 1: third one, which Choices. But there's a scene when um
Speaker 1: Master Splinter is kidnapped in the first movie where they
Speaker 1: come to her door crying, and so it's very much
Speaker 1: like you were the only adult we can turn to,
Speaker 1: while also still having this sort of hyper sexuality. It's like,
Speaker 1: we want to bone you, but you're also kind of
Speaker 1: a mother figure. In the first one, try, I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell I settled on big Sister because I'm like, is
Speaker 1: she mommy? It made me feel better to think of
Speaker 1: her as big sister? Sorry, can we just pause for
Speaker 1: a second? Son? You just got here? Yeah, okay, let's
Speaker 1: let's sunny. Might be running back and forth and there's
Speaker 1: not going to be a way around um right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: she's not mommy really like Splinters definitely daddy, but she's
Speaker 1: not big sister because they all want to have sex
Speaker 1: with her. Maybe it's like a creepy babysitter kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It's babysitter. That might be a yeah, because it's like
Speaker 1: she's not Yeah, I agree that she's not exactly mommy,
Speaker 1: but she does take on this like caretaking role for
Speaker 1: them and she worries about them, but she's clearly not
Speaker 1: like into them. Yeah, thank god. She wants them out
Speaker 1: of her apartment. She's like, I'm the highest paid journalist
Speaker 1: new York City. I'm I'm trying to fuck all these
Speaker 1: turtles in a rat are like living here. I love
Speaker 1: imagine her bumble profile. She was like, we can't go
Speaker 1: back to my plays. Not that it isn't nice, but
Speaker 1: I just have something's going on right now. There might
Speaker 1: be four strange teenage boys and it's not of my apartment,
Speaker 1: right and they're like, oh okay, unmatched They're like, wait, no,
Speaker 1: they're turtles. Like what. That doesn't make it any less
Speaker 1: weird for the only woman in the movie to be
Speaker 1: the like caregiver slash person that they all have this
Speaker 1: like little you know, like teen infatuation with, and then
Speaker 1: for her to also not really be allowed to do
Speaker 1: anything narratively significant. Don't love it. It sucks And it
Speaker 1: also I just I definitely saw the first Megan Fox
Speaker 1: Ninja Turtles movie in theaters because fun fact or maybe
Speaker 1: it was how many teenage? I saw the one that
Speaker 1: came out in like the late two thousand's whatever one
Speaker 1: that was. So there there are two there, one from
Speaker 1: fen and there's a sequel to it from sixteen, both
Speaker 1: produced by Michael Bay. Okay, what was the one that
Speaker 1: came out in like two thousand and seven? Seven? There
Speaker 1: was another one? So I saw that one. Okay, So
Speaker 1: there's a computer animated one called T M and T
Speaker 1: Chris Evan's. It's the Chris Evans Teenagement. Ninta turtle because
Speaker 1: I that was my cousin's first date and I was
Speaker 1: like her kid cousin, and she's like, you're gonna come
Speaker 1: with me? Oh, you were a little chaperone. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was this. I was a baby chaperone of no kissing
Speaker 1: while I watch that's adorable, creepy. Anyways, I guess all
Speaker 1: that to say, I know that there are movies that
Speaker 1: treat April O'Neil much worse than this movie does. Well
Speaker 1: because in the Megan Fox ones in particular, which this
Speaker 1: one is, and this is the Sarah Michelle Geller one,
Speaker 1: apparently I don't remember. I mean all all that to say,
Speaker 1: like Megan Fox was given the full on Megan Fox
Speaker 1: treatment of how she was treated it in every movie
Speaker 1: where her body was super exploited, where she was like
Speaker 1: given love interests and just all this stuff. And it's
Speaker 1: so frustrating in these franchises that all they need to
Speaker 1: do is involve more women or less guys that only
Speaker 1: have one idea because the the only it seems like
Speaker 1: the only alternative to treat April not horribly is to
Speaker 1: like reduce her presence, which is so not true. Especially
Speaker 1: it's extra frustrating when it's like in the bones of
Speaker 1: the character for her to be very useful to any
Speaker 1: plot involving the teenage mutant Ninja turtles. I know she's
Speaker 1: got contact, she can make calls, She's probably got people
Speaker 1: who will tell her things off the records, so she
Speaker 1: can like sneak around and get information. It's like, we're
Speaker 1: just gonna have her chillen and nowhere, right, And I
Speaker 1: don't know if like the the you know, the property's
Speaker 1: logic is, well, she doesn't have martial arts train name
Speaker 1: and therefore she can't participate in the action scenes. But
Speaker 1: it's like, well then that's all the more reason to
Speaker 1: give her other things to do. Yeah, there's so much
Speaker 1: surface world stuff she could be doing, like dealing with
Speaker 1: the police, She could be dealing with any of these
Speaker 1: business owners. Does no one have security cameras that she
Speaker 1: can steal the footage and use in her reports, like right,
Speaker 1: because that's the other thing. They have to like stay
Speaker 1: in the shadows because they're human sized turtles, which I okay.
Speaker 1: Another thing I really enjoyed about the movie is that
Speaker 1: they don't seem to be making much of an effort
Speaker 1: to hide in the shadows. It's so funny, like when
Speaker 1: they're there's a computer sequence that are so computers. It
Speaker 1: made me laugh so much, where they're like computers, like
Speaker 1: they're they're such they're so goofy, but they're like theoretically
Speaker 1: they snuck in there and they're screaming, they're so loud,
Speaker 1: and they're huge turtles and they just are making no
Speaker 1: effort to come seel themselves, which is sort of what
Speaker 1: is being said to them at the end of the
Speaker 1: movie where they're like, yeah, we're so discreet, Like I
Speaker 1: just it's so funny. Yeah, and then spinters like he
Speaker 1: holds up the what made the newspaper a photo of
Speaker 1: them dancing to Ninja wrap and he's like, try harder. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're telling me that would be front page news. If
Speaker 1: for human size turtles started dancing in public and then
Speaker 1: almost killed people, that would be front page news. Correct,
Speaker 1: that's a documentary, yes, right. The thing that was jarring
Speaker 1: watching them back to back is in the first one
Speaker 1: when her boss and his son come over. They hide
Speaker 1: so well for the most part. One of them is
Speaker 1: caught under the table, but then is immediately gone to
Speaker 1: watch this right after, Why is your foot there for
Speaker 1: Keynote to step on? Like lost all of your ninja
Speaker 1: skills so they can do it like, but sometimes they
Speaker 1: just don't. It's really funny that scene that you're referring to, Carlos. So,
Speaker 1: there's a scene where Keynote shows up to April's apartment
Speaker 1: because he's like, something's going on these I saw these
Speaker 1: turtles and I want to know more about it. He
Speaker 1: shows up, He shows up under the guys of like,
Speaker 1: I've brought you a pizza and she's like, well I
Speaker 1: didn't order a pizza, and he's like that's okay, I'll
Speaker 1: just come in. So he comes and uninvited, he's like,
Speaker 1: what are these doing here? Referring to the nunchucks. And
Speaker 1: then rather than April being like, who are you, please
Speaker 1: get out of my house? Your trespassing? What's it to you?
Speaker 1: What these nunchucks are doing? Sense? He's an important side
Speaker 1: character in the film, so she doesn't kick him out,
Speaker 1: but she's like just being really defensive about like, these
Speaker 1: are my nunchucks, look at me practicing them, And it's
Speaker 1: just like you can you can just tell this stranger
Speaker 1: who's intruding onto your property to lee Ago, like in
Speaker 1: another movie, that is the setup for a horror, a
Speaker 1: lifetime movie. That's the beginning of funny games, like when
Speaker 1: you just let a stranger into your home. And then
Speaker 1: Keo is holding her hostage and it's the scariest thing
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. God, I don't know why I just
Speaker 1: conjured that movie. It's so scary. I'm impressed. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a choice. Sorry, on the tail end of the
Speaker 1: first movie, because this is days later, Like Shredder is
Speaker 1: in the garbage at the end of the first one,
Speaker 1: he's found in the dump like a day maybe two
Speaker 1: days later. She should be very reticent and fearful of
Speaker 1: random people coming to her door trying to find her,
Speaker 1: Like her house was just burned down and her dad's
Speaker 1: shop and she got I know we're talking about the
Speaker 1: second one. We were talking about the second, but she
Speaker 1: like in the first movie, she's like, her dad was shot. No,
Speaker 1: he had a shop and it was burned down to
Speaker 1: open for him. Still pretty bad, but yeah, and the
Speaker 1: first one she's assaulted by the foot and then later
Speaker 1: kidnapped or I forget exactly all what happens, but like
Speaker 1: she like multiple times she's in these dangerous situations. And
Speaker 1: then yeah, in this in this one, she's just like, uh,
Speaker 1: come on and pizza guy, these are my nunchucks and
Speaker 1: show yourself around. It's totally fine. So yeah, that was
Speaker 1: um bizarre. I guess it would make sense if you
Speaker 1: had four ninja turtles in your apartment, maybe you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be scared of one dude at the door. Maybe, right,
Speaker 1: But even I'm just still like, no, like self preservation,
Speaker 1: where is it? That's why it's like I feel like
Speaker 1: April is like treated like such a plot character that
Speaker 1: in moments like that where it's like, well, she just
Speaker 1: needs to behave. However, the plot needs her to behave
Speaker 1: in order for this movie to be eighty one minutes
Speaker 1: long where it's like we've got minutes to play around with.
Speaker 1: She doesn't have to be thrilled about this, right, it's frustrating.
Speaker 1: I was interested to learn about the the actor who
Speaker 1: plays Keno. I I wasn't familiar with him, but apparently
Speaker 1: I'm very familiar with his work because he's like a
Speaker 1: famous stunt performer who's been doing stunts since he was
Speaker 1: a child. So he was Donna Cello stuntman in the
Speaker 1: first TMNT and then he was just upgraded to human
Speaker 1: character in the second one, which is kind of fun.
Speaker 1: And then he's done a time. He did stunt work
Speaker 1: in Avatar, he did stunt work in Tim Burton Alice
Speaker 1: in Wonderland. Like he's just he's kind of a legend.
Speaker 1: He hosted a reality show on MTV and two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: Who didn't it was it was about stuntman, It wasn't
Speaker 1: about It wasn't totally random, but like he's just been
Speaker 1: in goddamn everything. He was in The Really Bad Child
Speaker 1: above Indiana Jones. You know, I just was so thrilled
Speaker 1: to to learn about learned about him. If nothing else,
Speaker 1: Keno's characters a little all over the place. Although I
Speaker 1: did like that he was given a fully realized arc.
Speaker 1: I wish April had had a similar treatment by the movie. Sure. Also,
Speaker 1: when I watched this movie for the first time to
Speaker 1: prep for this episode, I watched it with a friend
Speaker 1: of the cast, Sammy Junio, and I was also talking
Speaker 1: about this movie with another friend and they both said
Speaker 1: the exact same thing, which is that Keino in this
Speaker 1: movie again played by Ernie rays Jr. Along with Rufio
Speaker 1: from the movie Hook played by Dante Basco, are the
Speaker 1: only two examples of Filipino representation they saw in kids
Speaker 1: media or just like media in general growing up. So like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is um that's so bleak. And also I'm very
Speaker 1: glad that Ernie Rayes Jr. Is in this part, which
Speaker 1: might a smooth transition to another topic of conversation, which
Speaker 1: is the representation of Asian people and culture in this movie.
Speaker 1: Where to begin? Well, um, So, the two main bad
Speaker 1: guys who have names and or in leadership positions, Shredder
Speaker 1: and his like second in command Tatsu, are canonically Japanese
Speaker 1: characters like in the comics, and they get some more backs,
Speaker 1: especially Shredder gets backstory in the first movie. He's from Japan.
Speaker 1: So there's that there are aspects of Japanese culture attributed
Speaker 1: to the good guys, in that the turtles study and
Speaker 1: practice ninjatsu. Splinter grew up in Japan. Also, Splinter speaks
Speaker 1: with a Japanese accent, although I believe that he's voiced
Speaker 1: by an am American puppeteer, and a very controversial one
Speaker 1: at that. Right. And then also these characters, the turtles
Speaker 1: and Splint Splinter are not visually Japanese human beings because
Speaker 1: they're turtles and a rat. And yes, you said Jamie.
Speaker 1: The actor who voices Splinter is a black actor named
Speaker 1: Kevin Clash, who is also the voice actor and puppeteer
Speaker 1: of Elmo. I don't know any other information about him,
Speaker 1: so if you have, I can give you a very
Speaker 1: It's a very uh difficult uh story, but basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a famous puppeteer, one of the most prominent
Speaker 1: black puppeteers in the world. He was Almo for a
Speaker 1: long time and um then was made to resign as
Speaker 1: Almo because there were a lot of allegations of him
Speaker 1: having sex with underage teenagers. And so if the uh,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot a huge story. Ten years ago,
Speaker 1: and I feel like no one really talks about it anymore.
Speaker 1: He has since begun working again. There's been a lot
Speaker 1: of conversation around the topic that I have not kept
Speaker 1: up with, but definitely a massive fall from grace from
Speaker 1: a very well respected puppeteer. As far as it's relevant
Speaker 1: to this conversation. Uh, he's not an Asian actor putting
Speaker 1: on a very very stereotypical, you know, trophy accent. Is this?
Speaker 1: Do we know if Splinter also teenage must Ninja Turtles
Speaker 1: are canonically written by two white guys from New England?
Speaker 1: Are they not? Like so the sore of the well
Speaker 1: is poisoned from the very beginning. Uh, don't let two
Speaker 1: white guys from New England do literally anything. How has
Speaker 1: history taught us nothing? Like why would you wall Burgers?
Speaker 1: Like are you kidding any bad idea? Never do it? Um?
Speaker 1: But yes, no, I will, I will, Caitlin. I'll send
Speaker 1: you some links to the conversation around Kevin Clash because
Speaker 1: I am not an authority in it. But I do
Speaker 1: remember that, uh Splinter, it was it Splinter canonically based
Speaker 1: on Mr Miyagi. That was what I was picking up on.
Speaker 1: But I also don't know, like the timeline of that,
Speaker 1: because the same tropes are present in that character. It
Speaker 1: feels like Karate Kid came out in eighty four and
Speaker 1: the first issue of Teenage Mutant inter Turtles the comic,
Speaker 1: because that was like the source material, the original source
Speaker 1: of everything also was published in Oh my gosh, Carlos
Speaker 1: is holding up? You have it? It was also published
Speaker 1: in eight four. So I think it's just sort of
Speaker 1: like similar concepts happening at the exact same time, not
Speaker 1: one based on the other, I would guess, But so
Speaker 1: two white guys doing the same offensive thing in the
Speaker 1: same calendar year shocking. So in conclusion, most of the
Speaker 1: East Asian human beings again, because you have to uh
Speaker 1: differentiate that from like the rat the people, the Japanese
Speaker 1: characters are bad guys. And in addition to that, there's
Speaker 1: just a lot of stereotypes of East Asian and Japanese
Speaker 1: culture specifically being used. There's also that sort of like
Speaker 1: all East Asian people no martial arts is something that's
Speaker 1: being telegraphed. And then I feel like the Turtles are
Speaker 1: coded white, especially in contrast to the very stereotypical Asian villains,
Speaker 1: so are they They're all voiced by white actors. Is
Speaker 1: that correct as having trouble fact checks? I think that
Speaker 1: for the most part that is true. And then there's
Speaker 1: also so differentiation and who was voice acting some of
Speaker 1: the characters from the first movie to the second one.
Speaker 1: I think two of the voice actors got recast in
Speaker 1: Secret of the Ooze. I oh wait, Brian Tocci. The
Speaker 1: Brian Tocci voices Leonardo, and I believe he is Japanese, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So IMDb is tricky because it's like this actor as Leonardo,
Speaker 1: but like in the suit, and then it's this different
Speaker 1: actor as Leonardo as the voice. So it's like I'm
Speaker 1: trying to figure out all this. I was just thinking
Speaker 1: voice because that is right, how their personalities are telegraphed, right,
Speaker 1: No disrespect to the to the performers. I would not
Speaker 1: want to do that job. Yeah, the voice actors are
Speaker 1: primarily white, and with the exception I believe of Brian
Speaker 1: Tocci who voices Leonardo, right, and Kevin Clash, who is
Speaker 1: a black actor but doing an offensive Asian right, I said,
Speaker 1: my head hurts. So there's a lot going on the
Speaker 1: movie stereotypes and demonizes Asian people in a very harmful way.
Speaker 1: It's borrowing elements from Japanese culture like ninjatsu and basically
Speaker 1: saying like, when the white coated characters do it, it's
Speaker 1: good and it saves the day, but when the Japanese
Speaker 1: characters do this thing from their own culture, it's bad.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of fucory happening there, and they're
Speaker 1: sort of bringing in lots of white youth to be
Speaker 1: the Foot clan, and so across both movies, a lot
Speaker 1: of the Foot are drawn from um runaways in New
Speaker 1: York City, and so one would expect there to be
Speaker 1: more diversity, especially along gender lines in the Foot, given
Speaker 1: that a good number of runaways are girls there across
Speaker 1: all races, all sexualities, but it is a very kind
Speaker 1: of prototypical, largely white mass and so you've got these
Speaker 1: Asian bad guys seducing these young white kids into lives
Speaker 1: of crime and deviants in both movies, more clearly set
Speaker 1: up in the first one, but the sort of trails
Speaker 1: are well established in the second one, right, And and
Speaker 1: it is so and it's this like t MNT was
Speaker 1: certainly not happening in a void where I feel like
Speaker 1: American culture in general was very permissive and actively encouraging
Speaker 1: these sorts of huge, glossed over generalizations about East Asian
Speaker 1: culture to happen throughout the eighties and nineties and into now.
Speaker 1: But I feel like it was especially popular around this
Speaker 1: time and largely written, directed, and acted by white guys. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also I thought, I don't even know how I
Speaker 1: feel Toka and Raised are. I mean, they're just their babies,
Speaker 1: but they're voiced by the guy who did Scooby Doo,
Speaker 1: which I was like, I just love I hope. I
Speaker 1: don't know anything about his politics or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but I just love Frank Welker, who's like still alive.
Speaker 1: He is in his seventies, like started doing I think
Speaker 1: we've talked about him on the show before, because he's
Speaker 1: the voice of literally everything famous ever. He started doing
Speaker 1: voices when he was like in his early twenties, and
Speaker 1: he's been every famous cartoon character that isn't played by
Speaker 1: like Tom Kenny, you know, like he's he's literally Scooby
Speaker 1: Doo anyways, He's Garage are Scooby Doo episode, He's everyone
Speaker 1: He's sorry, okay, sorry, I just my Frank Welker fandom
Speaker 1: popped out, and then to find out. He's also Toka
Speaker 1: and raisar. I mean, he's the alpha bollina of the
Speaker 1: vocal cords. So versatile, so versatile, he can be dogs
Speaker 1: and alligators. He's a snapping turtle and a wolf range
Speaker 1: the rage. Okay, So another thing along these lines is
Speaker 1: the April O'Neill character, And there's some controversy around this
Speaker 1: because of some kind of ambiguity, but she is thought
Speaker 1: by many to have originally been in the comics a
Speaker 1: black woman, which is something that is difficult to discern
Speaker 1: because the interiors of the comic books are black and white.
Speaker 1: But on the cover of I think like the eleventh
Speaker 1: issue of the comic depicts April O'Neill as a light
Speaker 1: skinned woman of color with black curly hair. But then
Speaker 1: when that issue was reprinted later, she then appears as
Speaker 1: a white woman with red hair. So people were like,
Speaker 1: this character is being whitewashed, because this happened in eighty
Speaker 1: six when this was reprinted, I believe so. When asked
Speaker 1: about this by the co creators, Kevin Eastman said that
Speaker 1: April was quote originally created as an Asian character. In
Speaker 1: Pete's notes, referring to Peter Laird, the other creator, so
Speaker 1: originally created as an Asian character in Pete's notes, but
Speaker 1: named after an African American woman I once knew. And
Speaker 1: then Peter Laird says, it depends on which co creator
Speaker 1: of the T M N T you ask. If you
Speaker 1: ask me, I always saw April O'Neil as white. If
Speaker 1: you ask Kevin, I suspect he would say, as he
Speaker 1: has in a number of interviews, that she was of
Speaker 1: mixed race, much like his former girlfriend April. So say less. Oh, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So we have so Carlos is showing us an image
Speaker 1: from what is this from? Exactly? So? This is from
Speaker 1: a colorized version of the graphic novel that compiled the
Speaker 1: original issues together in color. So I can post this
Speaker 1: and give you the information you have Teenage Mutant Ninja
Speaker 1: Turtles Book two, first graphic novel, number ten UM copyright
Speaker 1: ven Mirage Comics. So the originals were like this, and
Speaker 1: then they did uh colored issue um full color deluxe format.
Speaker 1: The graphic novel became an instant bestseller. UM got it.
Speaker 1: So the image you just showed us depicts April O'Neil
Speaker 1: as a light skinned black woman. But then if you
Speaker 1: look at the first uh so each version of her
Speaker 1: is different, so she looks more kind of like the
Speaker 1: character from this movie that we're discussing here, um also
Speaker 1: sort of mixed. And then you have her again looking
Speaker 1: again very different, but more sort of the image of
Speaker 1: April O'Neal that we've come to sort of know an expense. Yes,
Speaker 1: so I don't know much about the history of teenage
Speaker 1: Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I do know quite a bit
Speaker 1: about the history of women in comics, and this is
Speaker 1: something that comes up again and again and again in
Speaker 1: the history of comics of characters that were originally black
Speaker 1: women later being whitewashed once the franchise becomes popular. I
Speaker 1: believe a similar thing happened to Betty Boop way back
Speaker 1: in the day. And this is and I think in
Speaker 1: the case of Betty Boob and April O'Neil, it's a
Speaker 1: little complicated by the fact that the character from the
Speaker 1: Jump was heavily sexualized, which is something that affects women
Speaker 1: of color in all areas, but but in you know,
Speaker 1: certainly an animation as well, and April O'Neil and Betty
Speaker 1: Boop are too heavily sexualized and eventually whitewashed characters. It's
Speaker 1: just it's so frustrating that and and you know, and
Speaker 1: who are who is at the top of those comics.
Speaker 1: It's always white black men. So it's just it's really
Speaker 1: just continued frustrating pattern. I didn't realize that it happened
Speaker 1: in this case as well. And then you know, of course,
Speaker 1: in this era and in all eras before, when black
Speaker 1: women were working in animation, they were underpaid, unacknowledged, or
Speaker 1: never hired. And then as it you know, pertains to
Speaker 1: right now, even you know, black women who were very
Speaker 1: successful in animation are completely erased from its history and
Speaker 1: you don't learn that much about them. Sorry that was
Speaker 1: a little ac cast side rant. But if anyone wants
Speaker 1: to learn about in an amazing historical and by that
Speaker 1: I mean she she's dead, uh, an amazing black woman
Speaker 1: who blazed so many trails in cartooning. Jackie ORMs is
Speaker 1: so awesome and I recommend everyone learn more about her.
Speaker 1: That's so frustrating. I didn't know that. Now I'm all
Speaker 1: piste off. Yeah, that is something. And of course in
Speaker 1: this movie, she is a white character played by a
Speaker 1: white actor, and I think I would guess and Carlos,
Speaker 1: you might you probably know more about this than me.
Speaker 1: But after that, maybe, like first string of issues in
Speaker 1: the comics, she was only depicted as a white woman
Speaker 1: from then on, like in the animated series. I don't
Speaker 1: know if she was ever made into an action figure.
Speaker 1: I don't remember having an April O'Neill action figure, but
Speaker 1: like much the same way that when like the Newest
Speaker 1: Star Wars trilogy came out, and like Ray was the
Speaker 1: protagonist of those movies, and like those toy companies were like, well,
Speaker 1: why would we have an action figure of Ray because
Speaker 1: she's a woman, you know. Like again I'm kind of
Speaker 1: speculating here, but like I don't know if they were
Speaker 1: proble action figures. All this to say that most of
Speaker 1: the renditions of her post those like kind of original
Speaker 1: string of issues of the comic depict her as a
Speaker 1: white woman. And I would say that the Turtles are also,
Speaker 1: again I think, perceived as like white coated characters even
Speaker 1: though they're turtles, because I think in at least of
Speaker 1: the um feature films post this trilogy, all of the
Speaker 1: voice actors who voiced the Turtle characters are all white actors,
Speaker 1: cementing that kind of coding. Well, and it's another I
Speaker 1: am saying that there were some April action figures, but
Speaker 1: I think that that's like again further complicated by the
Speaker 1: fact that she's by the way her characters written, she's
Speaker 1: not included in the action. So it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: why would we make an action figure for someone who
Speaker 1: is canonically excluded from all action. It's and and also
Speaker 1: that like the I don't know, the trope of like
Speaker 1: the sexy woman journalist felt also very prevalent during this time,
Speaker 1: and an animation in particular, where again it's just like
Speaker 1: such a it's not even a half step, it's whatever
Speaker 1: two step, because it's like, well, but she has a job.
Speaker 1: You know, she's not married. But it's like, but she's
Speaker 1: not there to do journalism, you know, like she's not
Speaker 1: there to do what you're saying she's there to do.
Speaker 1: And so oh, I'm pretty sure the cartoon up until
Speaker 1: maybe uh, this movie a little bit, and the revivals
Speaker 1: with the cartoons on Nickelodeon, I think most people when
Speaker 1: they think April O'Neil, they think the yellow jump suit
Speaker 1: from her from the cartoon in seven um which white women.
Speaker 1: That's where um a lot of the action figures sort
Speaker 1: of began was based off of the show, so there's
Speaker 1: like the van they had and all of them with
Speaker 1: their their tools and toys. I'm not sure how much
Speaker 1: she was involved in the show, because I don't it's
Speaker 1: been right. I know, I don't remember it either eighty
Speaker 1: four years. Eighty four years and I can still hear
Speaker 1: the original commercial, so it's definitely ingrained that, like she's
Speaker 1: a redhead, she wears the yellow jacket, which is why
Speaker 1: I think some people were reticent with Um. Aside from
Speaker 1: like the sexism that we love to throw up, Megan
Speaker 1: Fox Um then and now to a certain degree was
Speaker 1: just like, oh, she's not the right fit for the character,
Speaker 1: Like she could be a badass and do badass things.
Speaker 1: Why why is she not a good fit? Can she
Speaker 1: stand in front of a mic and talking to it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think she could took the job, especially given the
Speaker 1: material that she's given to work with UM in this film.
Speaker 1: I don't remember the recent one to comment or people
Speaker 1: saying like Megan Fox is like too sexy four yes,
Speaker 1: the April okay, which is like, oh my god. The
Speaker 1: standard that is also saying it in the way that
Speaker 1: It's like I I went back to read some of
Speaker 1: the coverage from and it made me want to be
Speaker 1: I was just like, oh my god, this is like
Speaker 1: not even ten years ago, and this you could just write.
Speaker 1: You could just write this down. Yeah. The tone of
Speaker 1: all of that reporting was very like, you know, making
Speaker 1: it seem like it was Megan Fox's fault that she
Speaker 1: was framed and written in the way that she was
Speaker 1: when it's like Megan Fox, by all accounts, was really
Speaker 1: into teenage mutant Ninja Turtles and really liked like nerdy stuff,
Speaker 1: liked Transformers, and it's like, so she's she's coming to
Speaker 1: the project from an honest place and it's the fucking
Speaker 1: culture that treats her the way it does. But all
Speaker 1: of the coverage was like Megan Fox ruins this movie
Speaker 1: and she was, you know, nominated for Razzies and like
Speaker 1: just all that ship that. It's just like, uh, she
Speaker 1: was doing all she could was what she was given,
Speaker 1: and anytime she said anything about it, she would get fired,
Speaker 1: Like Steven Spielberg fired her for insulting my Kyl Bay,
Speaker 1: the most insultable person of all time. It's just oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well that is terrible. Does anyone have any other thoughts
Speaker 1: about the movie. I want a spinoff series for April
Speaker 1: O'Neil where she can really get into the New York City.
Speaker 1: I want a version that is like April O'Neil with
Speaker 1: the Turtles as her like investigative assistance, and they're busting
Speaker 1: ship wide open, and she's delegating to them and she's
Speaker 1: training them to be turtle journalists, turtalists, turtle lists, and
Speaker 1: they and they solve the environmental crisis and save the world.
Speaker 1: That's the rearranged pieces I want from this. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know there's corruption in the police department
Speaker 1: in city Hall that is right, right for the picking
Speaker 1: right the turtles and their access the turtles can Yeah,
Speaker 1: they can break into anything. They can get her the
Speaker 1: information she needs. And then she she cracks it wide
Speaker 1: open and the NYPD is abolished, right, And that's how
Speaker 1: it ends. I love this. Yes, they're defunded completely. They
Speaker 1: have so much fucking money, so much money, too much money.
Speaker 1: It's on the case. Um. One last question, which turtle
Speaker 1: do you most identify with? Carlos? You you start, I
Speaker 1: was hoping this would be a question because I was like,
Speaker 1: who do I think Caitlin and Jamie are? And I
Speaker 1: was like, and who am I? Yeah? Who do you
Speaker 1: think you are? As a teenager? I was definitely Raphael.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of anger issues that I had
Speaker 1: to process and work through. I'm better now. I recommend
Speaker 1: it to my students. I'm like, you should go to therapy,
Speaker 1: It's good for you. Um. Probably Leonardo with like a
Speaker 1: bit of an a Tello because I do have a
Speaker 1: pH d um and he's like become the nerd element
Speaker 1: of the Yes. Yeah, so probably a bit of Leo,
Speaker 1: a bit of Donatum, Jamie. Any thoughts, I have no
Speaker 1: idea you guys are? You guys are gonna have to
Speaker 1: tell me? Okay, oh, part of me wants to say
Speaker 1: Michael Angelo. But I also identify with michel Angelo because
Speaker 1: he makes a lot of movie references and he loves movies.
Speaker 1: But then there's also Rafael. I don't know. I love
Speaker 1: his hard his hard shell, if you will, his uh,
Speaker 1: his hardened exterior. You know, he's got an attitude problem,
Speaker 1: but I kind of admire it. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm Rafael and Jamie you're Michelangelo. Okay. I'm on
Speaker 1: a media dot com article I have not vetted, but
Speaker 1: they're saying that Michelangelo is Ringo Star, which is always
Speaker 1: what I'm going for. I love that well. I did
Speaker 1: a lot of uh. I had to think very carefully
Speaker 1: about which character mapped onto which sex in the City character. Um,
Speaker 1: Carrie is Leonardo because they're both like the leaders of
Speaker 1: the group. Who's a question mark. Raphael is Miranda, Michaelangelo
Speaker 1: is Samantha because they're both the horniest ones. And then
Speaker 1: Charlotte is Donna Tello because they're kind of I don't
Speaker 1: know what is Charlotte's personality besides being boring the George
Speaker 1: no offense. Wow, okay, we don't have time. We don't
Speaker 1: have time. Charlotte's complicated. I was definitely going to give
Speaker 1: michael Angelo to both of you a bit, but I
Speaker 1: was also going to have done a Tello get a
Speaker 1: little bit to Jamie because the research that went into
Speaker 1: my yarn at cast Lolita podcast just like the journalistic
Speaker 1: brain and just like Jamie's context corners always on point,
Speaker 1: like um sort of very intellectual in a really fun way,
Speaker 1: sort of the michael Angelo of it. And then I
Speaker 1: was going to say Leonardo for you because you're sort
Speaker 1: of like the leader. You sort of in charge running
Speaker 1: the show for me. Oh my gosh, you have shorter
Speaker 1: hair than me. So it follows the rule of the
Speaker 1: baldest baldest woman in charge. It's been a while since
Speaker 1: I've heard that one. No, Unfortunately, you can't really apply
Speaker 1: it to this series because you need to have two
Speaker 1: women for the rule to even come into operation. The
Speaker 1: baldest turtle is also not in charge because they're all
Speaker 1: equal amounts of They're all how many nipples does a
Speaker 1: turtle have? Turtle facts with Caitlin and they answered zero
Speaker 1: because they're reptiles. Oh, I was once applying a single
Speaker 1: micro second of thought. That makes a lot of sense. Um,
Speaker 1: does this movie pass the factel test? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: hard No. There's no women for her to talk to
Speaker 1: except for that one woman at the club who gets
Speaker 1: um kind of held hostage by Shredder for two seconds,
Speaker 1: and her neighbor who she doesn't talk to in the
Speaker 1: beginning because she's too busy being engaged with by her
Speaker 1: boyfriend husband and he like takes her keys to let
Speaker 1: her in the building. It's like, I think she would
Speaker 1: have gotten it together, like she would have been five. Right,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the only other woman in this
Speaker 1: story with a speaking role, and she's only on screen
Speaker 1: for thirty seconds and she doesn't talk to April. Yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely doesn't pass the Bactel test. What about our nipple
Speaker 1: scale though zero to five nipples. Based on examining the
Speaker 1: movie through an intersectional feminist lens, I would give this
Speaker 1: a half nipple because it, I guess arguably it treats
Speaker 1: the one woman in the entire story better than she
Speaker 1: was treated one year earlier in the first movie. But
Speaker 1: it's not as though that improvement is very significant because
Speaker 1: it still does not give her really any narrative bearing
Speaker 1: on the plot, and she could just be replaced by
Speaker 1: her own apartment and because they really only so that's
Speaker 1: a big bummer. But I like her as a character,
Speaker 1: the fact that she like stands up to the chief
Speaker 1: of police, she stands up to her boss, she stands
Speaker 1: up to her boss in the first movie too. She's
Speaker 1: not afraid to speak out and advocate for herself, and
Speaker 1: she's like strong and empowered in that way. Unfortunately, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really have much impact on the larger narrative. But
Speaker 1: I think she used a character to be admired if
Speaker 1: you just like isolate certain aspects of her character. So
Speaker 1: that's cool, But between like her very minimal actual involvement
Speaker 1: in the story, and the way this movie demonizes and
Speaker 1: stereotypes Japanese characters is despicable. So half nipple and I'll
Speaker 1: give the nipple to Toka and Raiser when they get
Speaker 1: turned back into their little animals, they're just baby their babies. Wait, no,
Speaker 1: they get an honorable mention. But my half nipple goes
Speaker 1: to Ninja rap the song and dance, so that's fair
Speaker 1: Ninja Rap. And I'm like, and you're telling me he
Speaker 1: improvised this if there's three words in this song, because
Speaker 1: the scene goes on for a while. That sequence goes
Speaker 1: on for like probably six minutes or so, and Vanilla
Speaker 1: Ice is singing the whole time, and if you really
Speaker 1: pay attention, he's just repeating the lyrics over and over again. Yeah. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's I mean that that was I think
Speaker 1: about where his skills tapped out. Um, so yeah, half nipples.
Speaker 1: Vanilla Ice is Ninja Rap. I'm also going to go
Speaker 1: with a half nipple for all the reasons you described, Gailan,
Speaker 1: I mean and and it was really thank you both
Speaker 1: for giving me the context of the origins of April.
Speaker 1: The more I learned about this character, the more I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is a character that had so much potential and
Speaker 1: has never been seen through to that potential because it's
Speaker 1: just the curse of the late twentieth century and five
Speaker 1: trillion white guys being in control of how she's perceived.
Speaker 1: But like on her face, such a fascinating character that
Speaker 1: could have brought more diversity to the series, and then
Speaker 1: they actively chose not to do it. Always really frustrating.
Speaker 1: The treatment of East Asian culture is so just atrocious
Speaker 1: and also very on par It feels like with how
Speaker 1: East Asian culture was treated, I mean, I don't want
Speaker 1: to like it's you can't even really specifically pull T,
Speaker 1: M and T as especially bad, like this was just
Speaker 1: how Western culture treated East Asian characters at this time. Um,
Speaker 1: we didn't get a chance to talk to about it,
Speaker 1: but there was a great essay I read in sci
Speaker 1: Fi Wire that came out, I believe just last year
Speaker 1: by a writer named Ariel Dean who talked about like T,
Speaker 1: M and T being kind of as close as they
Speaker 1: could find to East Asian representation when they were growing
Speaker 1: up in the nineties and how frustrating that was, but
Speaker 1: also how it formed a strong connection with the characters,
Speaker 1: and how that you know, it's a pop culture is
Speaker 1: a motherfucker. It's very complicated, weird um, and then you
Speaker 1: have the babies and I'm laughing, and then you have
Speaker 1: they do flips and I'm laughing, and so it's hard.
Speaker 1: But as far as our scale goes half nipple for
Speaker 1: April being there and not being completely abused by the movie,
Speaker 1: but only because she's not in it. So uh, half
Speaker 1: a nipple and I will give it to Frank Walker.
Speaker 1: All right, Scooby Doo, you do, Scooby Doo, Carlos, what
Speaker 1: about you? This is tough. I was like on the
Speaker 1: Caitlin's rampameter. I know I'm going to give it ten stars.
Speaker 1: But the nipple scale, the nipple skill is hard. Story
Speaker 1: of our lives. We can't give this film credit for
Speaker 1: the April O'Neil character, but I know in like the
Speaker 1: cartoons and in other iterations more currently, she is often
Speaker 1: aged down, so she's like a teenager um sort of
Speaker 1: still doing investigative stuff and is more active, at least
Speaker 1: in the Nickelodeon show. Um, so the character is treated
Speaker 1: better in other UM properties under this sort of umbrella,
Speaker 1: which is great, but we cannot give this movie for that. UM.
Speaker 1: Like you said, with East Asian representations not great like
Speaker 1: the whole nineties. I was thinking about Power Rangers a
Speaker 1: lot during our conversation today. I'm sort of doing similar things,
Speaker 1: sort of just copy pasting and then recasting mostly white
Speaker 1: characters and actors and mostly white city. Um. Sort of
Speaker 1: that piece the fathers and sons of it all. I
Speaker 1: was waiting for, oh my gosh to talk about that,
Speaker 1: but wait a minute, there's the whole splinters always like
Speaker 1: my son's and we're like, Okay, you're totally right. The
Speaker 1: father the movie, even TMNT is about fathers and it's
Speaker 1: about sons. It just makes use sick enough. We get it.
Speaker 1: It's hard, which makes it worse because I watched the
Speaker 1: first one and I'm like, we don't touch April's trauma
Speaker 1: of losing her like apartment, her dad's store that she
Speaker 1: kept opening his memory, like, none of her characterization gets
Speaker 1: to carry over into the next one other than she
Speaker 1: has money and a better paying job. I think I'm
Speaker 1: talking myself into a lower number of Now I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go one, um, like Sammy and your other friends.
Speaker 1: And in terms of Filipino representation, um, it's not the best,
Speaker 1: but it was something this was really sort of formative
Speaker 1: looking back on like PhD representation, what what because of
Speaker 1: the professor which he would just be called doctor in
Speaker 1: this research place because it's not a university. But that
Speaker 1: is another conversation. I'm gonna stop talking. I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: one nipple for all the reasons you said, but giving
Speaker 1: it a little extra for Filipino representation, um, yeah. Which also,
Speaker 1: like it makes the representation of the bad guys a
Speaker 1: little more complicated because you also have Keno. So it's
Speaker 1: not as though every Asian character is a bad guy
Speaker 1: because also Splinter is like canonically Japanese. But like there's
Speaker 1: still the optics of a lot of it is still
Speaker 1: like really messed up. So it's complicated. But anyway, it's
Speaker 1: also really more complicated in the third one, which we
Speaker 1: didn't watch, don't they travel back in time? In the
Speaker 1: famous and famous third movie of a trilogy fashion the
Speaker 1: character's time travel and yet feudal Japan. Why is that
Speaker 1: a thing? April goes and then they have to go
Speaker 1: rescue her from the past. I do that is fascinating
Speaker 1: because it's like the first movie is the first movie,
Speaker 1: the second movie is the first movie, a second time
Speaker 1: the third movie they can time travel this. I feel
Speaker 1: like you could think of ten movie franchises where this
Speaker 1: is the case. That is so wild. I've never thought
Speaker 1: about that before. So men in Black three, it happens
Speaker 1: evil dead any time travels in the third movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the third Harry Potter book and movie is the
Speaker 1: only one that they have to travel. Yes, and it's
Speaker 1: the only one that there's time travel wild. Why is
Speaker 1: that they never do that in the Series of Unfortunate Events?
Speaker 1: They're too busy rehash in the first book over and over.
Speaker 1: I know there's at least like two or three other examples,
Speaker 1: So listeners, if you have examples, throw them at us.
Speaker 1: But anyway, this is this is the new This is
Speaker 1: the new Leo in not sorry, not that Leonardo, not
Speaker 1: Turtle Leonardo. We have to differentiate. It's the new Leonardo DiCaprio.
Speaker 1: Enough a body of water where cloth? Yes, yes, so
Speaker 1: oh boy. Anyway, Carlos, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: It's been a treat. It's been a slice of pizza. Cowabunga, Calabunga,
Speaker 1: very Mary, Cowabunka to you, Carlos, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us my Catholic upbringing. When you said cola
Speaker 1: bunka to you, I was like and also with you,
Speaker 1: but they'll thank you for having me. This was great.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, come back anytime. Where can people check
Speaker 1: out your stuff? Follow you on social media, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So I am Carlos Creates on Instagram. Um, I'm also
Speaker 1: um one of the three co hosts at play dot
Speaker 1: Hype dot Dialogue on Instagram, and I am revamping my
Speaker 1: professional website to be both part academic and part consultant creative. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's Carlos m Camacho dot net. But it is
Speaker 1: a work in progress. Sure aren't we all? You know? Cow?
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at becktel Cast.
Speaker 1: You can go to patreon dot com slash pecktel Cast
Speaker 1: and subscribe to our patron ak Matreon where we do
Speaker 1: to bonus episodes every month, and then you'll also have
Speaker 1: access to our entire back catalog, which is over one
Speaker 1: hundred bonus episodes. And um, we always forget to say this,
Speaker 1: but why don't you, um, you know, like us and
Speaker 1: give us a little you know, five star five nipple review.
Speaker 1: I love her, You're like, we never say this, but
Speaker 1: why don't you like? You like us? Being like the
Speaker 1: verb where you like click a like button, but also
Speaker 1: why don't you like us? But also why don't you
Speaker 1: like us? Why do we ever heard we're so cool?
Speaker 1: They say cow a bunga, But yeah, write us a
Speaker 1: five nipple review on you know, Apple podcasts or whatever
Speaker 1: you're listening platform is, and you can check out our
Speaker 1: merch at t public dot com. Slash the back dol
Speaker 1: cast if you are so inclined. Springs coming. Carlos is
Speaker 1: wearing a queer icon T shirt. Why aren't you get
Speaker 1: it together? Get it together, Jamie. I feel like we
Speaker 1: should also briefly just touch on the shirt that you're wearing.
Speaker 1: I am wearing I don't even know if it's currently
Speaker 1: it might be, it might be rare at this point,
Speaker 1: but I'm wearing a shirt that I co designed with
Speaker 1: super Yocky, who advertises on the show we love them
Speaker 1: so much um and it says Alfred Molina could have
Speaker 1: done it, which is first of all a true David
Speaker 1: and also second of all, today my boss was like
Speaker 1: done what And I was like everything. Alfred Molina could
Speaker 1: have been every Ninja Turtle, both voice wise and all
Speaker 1: of the stunts. Amen, Baby Cowabunga to that Cowabunga ol
Speaker 1: from Molina. Bye,