Was April sexualized too much in this cartoon when she was only 16?
 

There's numerous "ass shots" in various episodes or scenes where April's body is put into question. Keep in mind April is only 16 in this show and not an adult like all other incarnations.

Discuss and debate.

Do you get a boner from seing clothed asses? If that's the case, you'd be pitching a tent everytime you go outside.

In the two previous cartoons, the standard outfit either cleavage or a belly shirt. Seems to me like such outfits are much more clearly meant to be arousing, which is barely to begin with mind you. We also got a variety of outfits for the previous two cartoon versions of April, in both cases we got outfits that showed way more skin than usual. with Nick April we really only got five outfits in total:

1. Her standard one, while a bit tight, barely shows any skin and is quite modest.
2. A pair of simple pajamas, also very modest.
3. A copy of the 1987 costume without the cleavage.
4. The same copy but in black.
5. A very thick hoodie jacket.

They had plenty of chances to give her a more attractive outfit and they didn't. Even her face isn't even that pretty, I remember people saying she looked like boy and you only tell she's female because of her breasts.

So no, I don't think she was meant to look sexy.

This thread brought to us by the guy who thinks that Karai and Shinigami were in a lesbian relationship.

That's practically confirmed.

This. I'm forced to agree.... one thing I've learned about the internet is that often people's observations of social justice or sexualization are actually reflecting their own weird thoughts.

But a lot of people disregard that and get drawn in.

And so I think it's more telling that someone even make this observation. I never once saw April on those shows and made those connections..... ever.

So anyone who gets drawn into that, I would check your own strange urges at the door because you might actually be the problem as opposed to trying to put it on societies entertainment where more normal minds didn't even go there.

More and more I'm finding that the correct answer to cancel culture and these callouts is the same verbal judo you put on criminals and provocateurs - "hm. I didn't perceive it that way. It's weird that you did - so you are telling me that your first reaction was that little girl was sexy?"

As I said.... :)

Very well said. I've thought this for awhile but have had trouble articulating the thought. I find myself often in conversations with people and they bring something up for discussion, whether it's a conversation of politics, race, sexualization, what have you, and they'll ask a question or state an opinion and I'm blown away by the fact they were even able to perceive something that way.

Very well stated. I'm right there with you.

Yup. And being "offended by opportunity" is also a psychological extension of this. It's almost like someone - some psychopath (there are a lot of them wandering around and you wouldn't know) is compelled to vomit out one of those weirdo perceptions you mentioned, and the best way to do that is to act offended - because acting offended allows someone to express their strange opinions while also getting someone else in trouble. It's the perfect tool for a psychopath or terrible person.

And people in charge and in power enable it. You'd get fired from a job that one of these people were at and targeted you. They are empowered and it's dangerous.

So for anyone here that might find themselves in management one day or on top of one of these situations - quite frankly stop empowering these people. The truth is that most of the time the complainers and the easily offended are actually the problem. Fire them. Not the person they are complaining about unless there is some true occurrence of harm. Fire the complainer when they are flinging accusations of opinion.

Leaving April completely out of it, I just wanted to address this one thing:

Yes. :lol:

But then I have a LOT of problems. :tgrin::trazz::lol:

Yeah but see if you were one of these psychopaths then you'd blame someone else for your boner and act offended that they gave you said boner.

I agree with what you're saying, a lot of these sjw types are mostly projecting or starting stuff where there isn't any.

Though you have to admit that one ep where Baxter hogtied April put an awful lot of emphasis on her butt. And it was like 'stop looking at April's butt, well where do you want me to look, it's EVERYWHERE'.

Like what was up with whoever was in charge of the story-boarding or camera angles or whatever of that episode?

Stuff like this is like farting. He or she who smelt it, dealt it. :lol:

Unrealized or maybe even realized SJW logic: "I'm fighting hate, but I'm going to use my own opinions of what someone says or does, add my own meaning to their words and then I'm going to hate them in such a way that causes them harm".

That is cancel culture. All the way.

F cancel culture, just putting that out there. Come at me haha

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

"Come at me, bro!" :lol:

Nah, not really. Well, not in my memory anyway. I do remember one though that had Arpil saying she was going to kick someone's butt and the camera was behind her...but that felt like an ironic joke or something. I don't thinks she did well in that fight and her butt got kicked...or I'm just remembering wrong.

I don't think she was sexualized, though. Seemed pretty normal to me I guess.Only by you, right?:P

I know in-universe she's supposed to be at least cute enough for Donnie and Casey to go ga-ga over her, but sexualized is a stretch, except for that one episode I mentioned.

I do remember the one where April wore the yellow jumpsuit as her space outfit and Donnie and Casey dropped their jaws as if she were the 80's April, even though she doesn't come close to filling out that outfit the way the OG did.

I completely agree. I remember before on a blind gossip site, someone was saying that Miley Cyrus was pole dancing and being sexualised and how disgusting it was that her parents gave her a standing ovation after this performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDGL...l=FormHaekawee

If a young girl can't hold on to a pole to keep her balanced makes you think of pole dancing and something sexual, I'd be more concerned about the viewer who projects that than the girl holding on to a pole. That was not pole dancing.

Miley Cyrus literally went crazy just a few years later though. Not the best example to use.

That's a great example.

Because it shows how people are primed for confirmation bias to serve their agenda.

Miley Cyrus has tried to be a "shock star" for years. And in this case she essentially does nothing, but even then the on-boarders assign her actions to the first association in their peabrains.

Now put that on the scale that we saw with everything over the last few years. That is what tribalism is - it's people getting into a "tribe" based on whatever heuristics can make them part of the group either for survival or for power. Now take that reasoning (e.g., survival or power), and it shows you how many weak kneed drones there are out there given all of the power plays we've seen in recent years.

And finally here's why you can't change these people - for the same reasons that they operate this way in the first place. They are the weakest of the weak and this empowers them. And so, by explaining the things that I try to explain here, not only does that wisdom potentially rob them of their power, but then it challenges them to look at their own weakness and they can't do it. It's reciprocating causation and then they turn on you for explaining this to them and weaponize it by calling you a racist.

It's the ultimate circle of power-stupidity.

You gave a perfect example with the Miley Cyrus event as a catalyst to unpack all of this. But there are people here who will say it's a bad example, through their confirmation bias and poor critical thinking, because Miley Cyrus "does things like that". Therefore fulfilling the psychology I've just described. And what's more - these circular thinkers would make that stereotypical observation to condemn Miley, yet then go on later to say somewhere that "stereotypes are evil and wrong". These are the dumbest, worst people that humanity has ever produced.

I mean... I don't know, in Miley's case.

Given the fact that Miley has since then taken to everything from simulated sex acts on stage to bouncing around wearing a strap-on in public... I kinda think that the pole thing was merely "foreshadowing". Maybe pretty benign in and of itself, but... when people tell me who they are, I listen.

I don't think there was necessarily a wide bridge between "Miley and a Pole" and "Miley and her Bouncing Dildo". Call me crazy, I just kinda think she was sort of forewarning us for what was yet to come. At least a little.

Maybe there's a little bit of projection based on what we now know and what she's since turned into, but... I'unno. The pieces fit.

Most teen singers who become popular when they're young like Britney Spears or Miley Cyrus always go through this "I'm not innocent anymore, I'm going full sexual to show I've grown up" phase when they hit 18-22 or so. Because when they're underage they're not allowed to go full nude or sexual during their music videos or during live performances, but after they're 18 all those restrictions end.

Then when they hit their mid/late 20's they either go through mental breakdowns or "calm down" because well...they become adults. And then the whole "wild sexy teen" thing dies down. We see it with female singers and pop stars all the time.

Cocaine is a helluva drug.

And it's no coincidence at all that the second these girls start sticking that crap up their nose, all of a sudden they "go nuts" and turn into skanks. The two kinda go hand-in-hand. That happens even when you're NOT famous. It's just worse when you are famous.

I am not really surprised by this topic. People tend to sexualize everything and also take sexualization into account when they analyze things. Hell, people tried hard to sexualize the Battle Angel Alita stuff after the live action movie and it was mostly men wishing their views on others based on an out of context opinion. Sadly, the entertainment industry (music, sequential art, animation, video games, movies, etc.) has been dominated by men for as long as they have been around. With an overbearing presence of men, the subject manner will always be catered towards men and will depict women in a way that they believe other men will want to see them. That spreads across cultures and waters. Japan, France, England, the USA, India, Russia, etc. all seem to have those issues.

If you guys are, for the Miley example, focused on the fact that "she sexualizes herself" and that diminishes the example for you, then you have completely missed the point. Like, literally 100% utter fail in understanding the point of that example.

I mean.... women are horny AF too you know..... You act as if 'sexualization of things' would cease to exist if women were in charge. Far from it. If anything, things would be MORE sexualized.

uh-huh. Well, considering that we have over 70+ years of history in all of those artistic fields, you can be entitled to your opinion on the matter.

I agree with Coola. It's thanks to women that we have both the Twilight and 50 Shades franchises. Both objectively terrible, both only existing so that chicks can be moist. Both worth billions, despite an inherent lack of quality or substance. Not to mention that "Aquaman" made over a billion dollars; that has very little to do with the movie's quality - it's good, I'unno if it's THAT good - and a LOT to do with Shirtless Kal Drago.

Speaking of that, both Game of Thrones and Spartacus did huge numbers, mostly among women. And while those shows actually ARE pretty good, some of it - especially on Spartacus - is literally just "porn for people who are too pretentious to actually watch Real Porn". My wife and most of her friends who watched Spartacus openly admitted that all the uncensored D and graphic sex scenes were at least half of the reason they watched it. Lucy Lawless was a producer on that show, and has said that it was the kind of show she always wanted to make; I doubt it's any accident that she gave herself quite a few graphic sex scenes, as well. Makes you wonder what kind of show Xena would have been if it had come out on Starz or Cinemax, don't it?

Anecdotally, I have a friend who writes novellas for sale on Amazon, mostly porn-type stuff, and she's part of a circle of women who do the same. Some of them do that weird "women having sex with dinosaurs" stuff which is, shockingly, a thing women read about and apparently get paid a decent bit of money to write about. Men, I'll remind, did not create this phenomenon. :lol: Turns out that a LOT of women watch "Jurassic Park" for MUCH different reasons than you or I do. :trazz: My friend, bless her heart, is honest enough to admit "It's mostly crap, but it pays good money. Women will read anything as long as it gets them moist, and they'll pay for it." I do not doubt her sincerity in this statement.

Again, anecdotal, but back in the day one of my favorite porn mags was one called Fox, which was incredibly graphic. Most of the production staff were women, including many of the people who staged the scenes, took the photos, and did the layout. And they made some very "interesting" choices, let's put it that way.

So again, yeah, I agree with Coola. The narrative is that it's men who are huge perverts - to be fair, We Are - but there is a strong case to be made that women are actually "worse" and they just keep more of a lid on it.

As for that comment that save from her breasts April basically looked like a boy...

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/1c...4b33a1759e.jpg
Narrow waist, wide hips, she DID have feminine shapes.

Although not nearly as much as Renet...
https://64.media.tumblr.com/85ada4a0...vt5b9r_500.png

Now that you mention it, the women on TMNT '12 did tend to look like Gumby. Was there even a single example of an attractive or sexy woman on that show? Honestly, I don't remember....

Fifty shades of what now? I mean sure, women might keep it quiet but given full reign without the fear of being shamed, they'd be pumping out stuff that would make Fifty Shades look lame in comparison.

Look at OnlyFans, once the word got out that you can make big bucks, hundreds of women quit their day jobs to sign up and make money the easy way, all while calling it 'empowerment' to get around the fact that they're purposely doing the one thing they complain men do, objectify themselves.

Humans are humans and humans are horny creatures. I believe humans are the only species that has sex mostly because 'its feels good' rather than the intended purpose of reproducing in the animal kingdom.

Maybe April's mom but I forgot what she looked like. Or maybe some of the random women extras walking through town, idk. The main characters, not so much. They really did a number on poor Renet.

LOL one thing I remember clearly about that show was the budget was stretched so much that New York had like.... four people walking on the streets like a Kansas suburb.

And often they were the same four people, lol!

Y e a h, as a native Northeasterner who's been forced to visit NYC more times than I ever would have chosen to do so willingly, that sh*t always annoyed the crap out of me. Even if you go out at night, the streets of NYC are constantly packed. There's not a corner of it that would look that deserted, not at any time of day.

"Skyscrapers" do not "a city" make. Most of that show seemed like it took place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where everyone had died except for the Main Cast and Five Extras. Like it was a biological disaster and all the people died but the buildings stayed up. I couldn't get over it.

Some of the randos I don't mind, but when they used people that were at least at some point actual characters it would bug me. Like the ep where there were pizza-covered zombies or something like that and one of them was clearly Pre-mutated Spider-Bytes model, and the fact that Chrome Dome was just pre-mutated Bradford. Very annoying, very distracting. Especially Chrome Dome since he was used more and Bradford was a bigger character.

OHh yaaaa.... I forgot all about the Bradford/Chrome Dome model swipe! I really wish they'd release that show on 4k or HD disc and give me an excuse to watch it all over again.

It'd be even better now because you could easily pound out 4 or 5 episodes a sitting and get through the series in no time.

rofl... that artist doesn't count, lmao.

Yeah, what kind of art people draw of her doesn't matter if it's not actually part of the show. What matters here is, did the show itself make April out to be sexy? Which as far as I can tell, no it did not. Someone might think that of her and draw something like this, but the show itself did not seem to intend for it.

That's true of young actresses, too, like Lindsay Lohan.

I was really holding out for a long time that Amanda Bynes would be the one of the bunch to emerge unscathed... but nope. She's like the nuttiest of the bunch now.

You're not a fan of the face tattoo that looks like something she got done in prison? :lol: