|
03-26-2017, 11:25 AM | #1 |
Devil's Advocate
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 2,121
|
Is April kind of a loser?
In many versions of TMNT, April has so little going on that she can accept four mutated turtles and a rat into her life, take them into her apartment, and hang out with them constantly, apparently with no one noticing. In Mirage she tries to break free from the madness in City at War, only to realize that there's not much for her in the human world and she might as well go back to the Turtles. She then proceeds to date and then marry a violent alcoholic (I know that there is absolutely no reason to believe he is ever violent to her) who is quite the loser in his own right. Seeing as she is endlessly smarter than Casey in all incarnations, it seems that their attraction is based on some sort of bond regarding the Turtles and the fact that they can never have normal lives after meeting the Turtles.
In the Nick cartoon she is pretty open about not fitting in and being a misfit, but I don't think it's acknowledged very much in other interpretations. In the Fred Wolf cartoon she does have quite her own life outside of the Turtles and never bonds with them as intensely as in the other versions. I just think it's interesting that the Turtles' main links to the human world are two people who are totally incompatible with it. We do get to hear April's opinions about this sometimes, but I think that the franchise as a whole does not really focus on the feelings of its main human character and the fact that she is a total misfit. Usually I think the image that the casual fan gets of April is that she is an attractive, spunky, happy person--somehow. I don't mean that she's a loser in a judgmental way. Just saying it needs to be called as it is.
__________________
Thanks evan2000 for the sig! |
03-26-2017, 11:29 AM | #2 |
Overlord
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 41,031
|
This thread is anti-feminist and if it was posted on tumblr you'd get a 10 page rant from females saying how much of a positive role model she is.
|
03-26-2017, 11:32 AM | #3 |
Devil's Advocate
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 2,121
|
I am a feminist. My point is not that, because she is a loser, she should be ridiculed for that. I find her hugely sympathetic and think there should be more focus on what it's like to be in her shoes, as someone who literally can become BFF with four Turtles and a rat and no one in her life notices, because she hardly has anyone in her life. I think she could be a positive role model for girls, I just am surprised that she isn't considered more of a woman that misfit girls who have trouble making friends and go their own way can relate to.
__________________
Thanks evan2000 for the sig! Last edited by Rooish; 03-26-2017 at 11:38 AM. |
03-26-2017, 11:47 AM | #4 |
[sic]
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 15,098
|
Yeah, I always wanted to see a version of April that was new to NYC and from a suburban/rural-ish area. She doesn't fit in or particularly like life in the big city, then boom: she meets the turtles.
She's never portrayed as antisocial, so it is pretty weird that she apparently has no friends or life outside work. |
03-26-2017, 11:52 AM | #5 |
Overlord
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 41,031
|
I don't get it, wasn't Irma her friend in the OT? They went out to a lot of places together and also had dinner together in Irma's apartment in Season 2.
|
03-26-2017, 11:54 AM | #6 |
[sic]
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 15,098
|
April was a self-centered asshole in the OT.
|
03-26-2017, 11:55 AM | #7 | ||
Devil's Advocate
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 2,121
|
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
Thanks evan2000 for the sig! |
||
03-26-2017, 12:29 PM | #8 |
Control Your Narrative
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: New England
Posts: 1,763
|
I do feel the exploration of the human characters, especially April, to be rather underutilized. At least with Casey beginning in 2k3 has the Hun establishment (Hun even being his father in IDW). O'Neil on the other hand lacks a decent narrative most of the time, her backstory at times different especially.
If possible, a dynamic I thought that'd be nice is for Casey to be introduced to the Turtles first, not April like in most TMNT media. Outside that, it'd be interesting to have April either be graduating around the first season of a TMNT show or beginning college. Here, she could show she's got strong intelligence and work as Baxter's assistant as an intern. With crime running rampant, she could take an interest in photography/criminology. Combines both worlds together in terms of occupation. Additionally, if later in a series, it'd also be worth having Shadow finally appear in animated form. Besides having the big sister angle with the Turtles, it could also increase bonds with other characters if Shadow were babysat by the Turtles and lead to interesting possibilities. Lastly, just give April a fun episode once in a while; Karai's Vendetta from the Nickelodeon series is a good example of April being handled decently as the solo focus, just depends on writer and story. Granted, most of what I said is primarily wishful thinking but it'd be nice to expand the horizons more for not just April, but human characters, both male and female, altogether a bit more.
__________________
|
03-26-2017, 01:01 PM | #9 |
Emperor
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Portugal
Posts: 8,909
|
Well, I think it was a realistic portrayal of journalists, actually. They do tend to be stubborn and always looking for stories, since it's their job.
I was like 5-6 years old when I first watched the FW series. I saw the TMNT as if they were cool older brothers and April more like as an adult who happened to be their friend. I didn't see her as a "girl". When you're a 5-6 year old boy you think girls have cootie but not grown women. That being said, obviously April wasn't my hero nor could I relate to her. |
03-26-2017, 01:14 PM | #10 | ||
PerfectlyTunedFightEngine
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: The Upsidedown
Posts: 7,926
|
I don't think Mirage April is a loser. I don't think there any arguing that she's lonely, but I don't think she's a loser.
When we meet her she's got a job with Stockman, and is arguably a grad student of some kind. She lives in what was once her now terminally ill father's building which houses his slowly circling the drain business. And she's the only one left to do all of this, because her sister is in California. That's a lot of heavy stuff for one person to deal with with little to know support system. Then the turtles show up and she's got a support system in them. Then the turtles bring their own drama into her life and she loses everything she has and then goes into hiding. I do wish more was done with her, because...that's the making of a really compelling story, but unfortunately when you're the token female of a property you don't get to be just any woman, you've got to be EVERY woman.
__________________
------------------------------------------------------ Quote:
Quote:
|
||
03-26-2017, 01:42 PM | #11 |
Annalist
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 16,435
|
Mirage April was anything but a loser.
Mirage Casey? Total loser. Fun character, but in the real world, a broken useless loser.
__________________
ALL THEIR DAYS ARE NUMBERED
|
03-26-2017, 01:57 PM | #12 |
Overlord
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 41,031
|
I hated April's hair in the Mirage comics. It was so hideous looking.
Thank god her hair changed to more natural looking hairstyles and colors in recent series. I also find it funny now April is always a redhead when originally she had curly black hair. |
03-26-2017, 02:01 PM | #13 | |
Will not be censored
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: The Farm That Time Forgot
Posts: 8,841
|
Not really... Casey refuses to bail on a woman who is pregnant with another man's child, marries her, and them raises her child into a fairly well-adjusted adult after her mother dies. A lot of men in today's world don't even want to take responsibility for their own children.
Casey is rough around the edges and has a lot of deep-seeded emotional problems, but he has a big heart and is always trying to do the right thing. He's only violent towards men if the deserve it, and I can't recall him ever being physically or emotionally abusive towards a woman. He has no choice but to love them and try to save them because he desperately needs the validation.
__________________
Quote:
TheGreatestTMNTurtlesSellerEVER on eBay International shipping assistance: DARTHCJJ@GMAIL.COM |
|
03-30-2017, 09:36 AM | #14 | ||||
Foot Elite
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 2,514
|
Quote:
Quote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshU58nI0Ts Quote:
Quote:
|
||||
03-30-2017, 02:52 PM | #15 | |
Foot Soldier
Join Date: Sep 2016
Location: Nottingham, UK
Posts: 245
|
I wouldn't be against a show about baby turtles if it focused on Splinter trying to raise them. There have actually been a few great fanfics about that but I don't think it would be interesting to kids.
Quote:
Whenever anyone brings up this kind of discussion I always want to refer to the 80's Beauty and the Beast series because it basically has the same plot (woman is rescued by a mutant who lives under NYC in the 80's) only April is way better than Catherine (I'm still a bit annoyed with her after last episode, unvaccinated swine). |
|
04-06-2017, 10:06 AM | #16 | |
Foot Elite
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 2,514
|
Quote:
I don't think it was so much Elias Koteas wasn't allowed to be in the second film, it was more a problem of logistics. His Casey knows Hoag so pairing him after just a year with Paige Turco was a bit too soon. Plus it's possible Koteas was busy with another movie. Getting him back with the third movie was probably down to actor availability and story reasons. |
|
Tags |
april o'neil |
|
|