April O'Now What?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a property that’s had many highs and lows. On one hand, it’s had success in TV, movies, gaming and comic books, spurring multiple classics. On the other hand, the franchise has sold out more frequently than a hot dog stand at half-off. Essentially, the IP’s a lottery of quality. Which leads me to the trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.

Teenagers in a half-shell, bro! (Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.)

There’s a lot here that I like. The animation style evokes a comic book come to life, complete with jumpy frame-rates and action speed-lines. The energy of the trailer’s consistent, so it’s never boring. The turtles behave like teenagers, and their VAs are teens themselves. And there are plenty of quips and jokes one would expect from teenagers. Add in that Seth Rogen is responsible for its existence, and it’ll be a good time.

I could end this here, but that’s not happening. I can’t leave on the positives, I have to delve into the “controversy”. And it involves April O’Neil. That’s right, the character classically depicted as a white redhead is now a black, slightly-heavyset teenager with glasses. Cue the fauxrage, as well as my patience diminishing.

Yes, April being black is cause for alarm now. And yeah, it’s a departure from what people normally expect, I won’t lie. But is that worth the anger and bile? No, it’s not. To further explain why, let me deconstruct how nonsensical this is:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a transient IP, constantly reimagining itself. It’s not based in reality, as evidenced by the leads being talking turtles trained in martial arts from a rat. In that sense, April being black doesn’t matter. Because she’s not real. We good?

Assuming people need more convincing, minority representation isn’t on par with modern sensibilities yet. Sure, there are many black characters in media, far more than 20 years ago. But it’s pittance compared to white characters, who’ve been dominant for longer. It’s the snowball effect in motion: the black snowball’s getting bigger, but it has lots of catching up to do to overtake the white snowball. Even if you remove some snow from the white snowball and give it to the black snowball, the white snowball’s still bigger. This transfer of snow’s called “equity”, something we need more of in entertainment.

But wait! What about April being canonically a redhead? While it’d seem like a redheaded character being made black would be a “problem”, redheads aren’t only white. Because they comprise approximately 1.3% of the global population, or 104 million people. Even though most are white-skinned, there are exceptions. Erin Kellyman, for example, is a biracial redhead. Red hair’s a naturally-occurring, if rare, hair pigment, and it doesn’t discriminate.

I also never see this complaint when white people replace redheads. Matt Murdock and Elsa Bloodstone from Marvel Comics are redheads, yet The MCU portrayals of them have brown hair. To take this complaint seriously, Charlie Cox and Laura Donnelly should’ve dyed their hair red. But they didn’t. What gives?!

Even focusing specifically on April O’Neil, she’s been black in the comics. She was based on the biracial wife of one of the original creators. Ergo, April being a white-skinned redhead is whitewashing. By making her black again, she’s being reclaimed. That’s fair, right?

I’m avoiding the biggest, most-pervasive issue: racism. The reason why redheads being played by minorities gets flak is because of racism. Never mind that white people with brown hair are never criticized for taking roles from redheads, or that white people often stand in for minorities, this is about racism. You know why? Because whenever a minority role is created from scratch, people still complain. We saw that with Reva in Obi-Wan Kenobi, after all. April O’Neil being black as a controversy is about racism.

This nonsense not only creates free marketing, it also distracts from legitimate criticism. Like how Ariel from the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid being black distracts from the movie being yet another soulless attempt by Disney to capitalize on nostalgia. Or, in this case, it distracts from Seth Rogen’s baggage. (Google how the animators of Sausage Party were treated for proof of that.) There are real issues getting ignored for fake ones, which this is.

Honestly, I want to have fun with this movie. And I’m hoping it delivers. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hasn’t had a great track-record films-wise, with only a select few being good. This looks to be one of the exceptions, but trailers can also be misleading. I only wish that isn’t the case here, or I’ll have defended it for nothing.

Ultimately, I don’t get what the deal is. So April O’Neil’s black? So what? Is it the end of the world? Will one character being black counteract all of the white characters that exist in entertainment already? The answer to all these questions is “no”. And the sooner this is understood by everyone, the better.