Female Fans
 

When I was growing up during the heyday of the classic series there didn't seem to be any girls who were fans of TMNT.

But today (I'm 30), there are scores of women I talk to that remember the series fondly; they have a favorite Turtle, etc.

Any one else notice this?

Yeah. I know girls who love TMNT, but would've never watched the shows, or read the comics.

A lot of girls seem to like them because liking "retro" stuff is what's "in".

Yeah, I get compliments from women whenever I wear one of my Turtles shirts.

Not that I'm complaining.

I've been a fan of the TMNT since I saw the very first ep in 1988.

You're a credit to your gender!

:tlol:

Double points for your handle.

Same here... I guess there was just the usual stigma of, "Girls shouldn't be into that kind of thing." If any kids were playing, you usually ended up being put in as April.

I generally ended up as Donatello cuz I was the smart one at school.... :P

I was a big fan from the beginning and I don't exactly recall anyone telling me it was odd for a girl to like the turtles. In fact I remember one of my best friends at the time had a crush on Raphael from the first movie, lol. She also loved it when I had my TMNT juice boxes for lunch and it happened to be Raphael on the box, lol.

I've been a fan since I was 5/6. And the only reason I know this is because all us kids used to play turtles during recess haha.

I was a fan of it ever since I was kid, more so as I got older. However, maybe it was my school or just where I lived but any girls I knew that happened to like "guy" cartoons, (Ninja Turtles, He-man, etc) we usually kept it to ourselves. I really don't know why looking back except that this applied only at school.

Outside of school, my friends and I would talk/play pretty much anything and Ninja Turtles was no exception.

*shrugs* Go figure

Ulisa

Im a declare female fan....And nobody ever told me TMNT was "Not for girls thing" !!!!! ...NO ONE DARED!!!! :lol::lol::lol::lol:

Same here.

While I don't exactly like the ignorance of them, most of them are awful cute, so I can let it go.

I like this topic! :D

Maybe that's the Mikey in me? ;D

I'm pretty sure my girlfriend would have had TMNT toys when she was young, had it not been for her parents and their attitude "That's not for girls" when it came to action figures.

She got her first TMNT figure of me, a Mutatin Donatello

Aww...that's sad... The first action figure I ever had was He-Man.... I was 4 and played with He-Man and She-Ra as much as I played with Barbies (then went to my best friend's house and played with her brothers Voltron figs *lol*) Unfortunatly one of He-Man's legs broke off and I lost She-Ra. I also had a whole box of Matchbox cars....don't remember what happened to those tho. *lol* And despite having boys action figures my room back then was decorated in all things Care Bears. :lol:

My wife says she had all the Turtles but Raph as a kid. As a kid she was a Leo fan...maybe that explains our bickering, since I'm a Raph fanboy. :P

I do remember girls in school liking Turtles to an extent when I was a kid. Nearly everybody loved the Turtles back then. But nowadays, I mostly just come across the girls that think the Turtles are cool cause they are 'retro' and they kinda remember them.

....:trolleye: I find it really amazing to think that some girls just like it because it is some kind fashion "retro" moda.... :teek::teek::teek:

....This Is retro: :lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_JOs...layer_embedded

Hell, I loved TMNT when I was a kid, and some of my friends did, too. I'd play with my brother's action figures all the time with him, and he really was glad I did. I also played with his cars and such. I never thought it was weird at all.

I admit I remember the boys in my class wanting to play turtles at recess and having one girl play April, but then they didn't know what to do if another girl wanted to play. I actually had to remind them that there was another girl on the cartoon! And they were like, "Ooooh yeah Irma!" Sheesh, and the boys called themselves fans?! Hehe :P

I always liked them, though my first turtle memories were the handful of comics that I got for a cross country driving vacatione we took. 5 days of driving to California demands something to keep the kids from killing each other.

Never was really into the old toon.

But I'm not "normal" by any means

she had one action figure that was hers, we found out last year that it was one of the riders in Starla & the Jewel Riders (deluxe Tamara). But the figure is missing somewhere in the basement at her parents place

When I was in Primary school 99% of the girls liked Ninja Turtles. So in answer to your question, no I haven't noticed that.

Unfortunately, I don't ever remember any girls liking TMNT! :( I wish I could meet at least one, someday! It was like during kindergarten, the teacher divided the boys into "Ninja Turtles" and the girls into "Care Bears", so unfortunately it seemed to resenate what was appropriate, and I would think that would be what was "sexually correct", and it seemed to show through elementary school. I've watched some My Little Pony and Gem episodes lately now as a man and don't see any problem with that now, especially as a grown man.

I've known females who read the original Eastman and Laird comic series. Why would they like the TMNT? One admitted to me that she thought turtles were cute. So that would explain the gender-crossing appeal.:tcool:

Exactly! Hehe :D

There does seem to be quite a number of adult girls who claim to have watched the original cartoon. And they probably did. I just get the feeling that they didn't watch as frequently as many of us did. I think that most of us here probably made it a point to watch the show every time that it aired. Most girls (not all, but most) probably caught an episode here or there, but didn't make it a point to catch every episode.

Wow....the gender stereotyping here is really...kind of painful.
I'm not an "adult girl" I'm a woman, and I've been reading comics and watching the cartoons for the better part of the last 20+ years. It wasn't easy to be a geek girl in the late 80s and through out most of the 90s. Comic Shops/conventions weren't exactly welcoming to chick fans. Add to that the fact that mainstream culture agreed that girls couldn't like comics.

Have more than a few memories of having New Kids on the Block shoved down my throat when all I wanted to do was catch up on X-Men or pick up the new issue of Wolverine.

Things got better for female fans when the internet became more easily accessible. Chick fans didn't have to run the gauntlet of haters to get their nerdy fix.

Though...last year I had an 8 year old girl tell me I, as a 34 year old woman, couldn't like the turtles because those were for boys.

Even back in the late 1980's, I swear I got the impression that the girls liked the TMNT as much as the boys. And I took that to be because turtles were quite acceptable for girls as well as boys to like. Also the TMNT were strong but didn't have an excessively "macho" image, though all of them were guys.

Judging from the letters printed in the archie comics, there were lots of female turtle fans.

Girls can't like Turtles cause it's for boys, and besides they'd get their cooties on it.

Do I get a prize for being the most childish?

Maybe not for being the 'most childish', but def for being my favorite response in the whole thread! :tsmile:

Girls don't really have time to be into Turtles, they should be busy training to cook and clean and take care of babies. And you can't put make-up on a Turtle, it doesn't look right.



::damage control:: that was a joke.

Some girls just never get the Ninja Turtles. I vaguely remember one time my cousin Jennifer was playing with her Barbies and she used my TMNT action figures for babies.

About 10 years ago it seemed like I was virtually the only male TMNT fan online.

Um, I can assure you I probably knew more about the OT and the movies than most of the boys! :P

While we're talking about gender, it was and often still is difficult to convince "fan boys" that "fan girls" are worth talking to about their favorite subjects. It's like you have to "prove" your dedication first simply because you're female.

I hear you, and it drove me crazy. I wasn't into them at all and everyone thought I was just weird.

I've always considered "fanboy" to be a gender neutral term. The same goes for fangirl, what differentiates them, in my mind, is the focus of their fanaticism.

So while I'm a chick, I'm a fanboy, but I've been known to fangirl on occassion. ie: squee

::shrugs:: Whatever works for you. ;) I do get fangirl being associated with overexcited squeeling and all that, I can't deny it, lol. But I'm not crazy about fanboy being automatically associated with the more serious stuff, heh.

No I totally agree with you, the terms are...problematic at best, but they're the best I've got to go with.

Though I will say that I hardly consider fanboy territory "more serious". If anything I'd say the difference is between the forest and the trees. Fanboys nitpick, fangirls are more concerned with the gestalt.

Though...that's hardly perfect either.

Actually yeah I've thought that as well. I mean I've nitpicked certainly, but I also concentrate a lot on the "unified whole" as they say, lol.

All I know is that GK is a fangirl, by any definition. ^_^