Is anyone else glad that there's little to no romance/shipping in the TMNT franchise?

[Pterobat]

Yeah.

Basically, nobody is saying that boys and girls aren't different.

It's just that the reasoning "you can't have too many girls in a show for boys because boys are already confused about life and showing characters who are different from them will confuse them more" is weak.

Everybody is going to experience people who are different from they are, right from day one, and it's no big deal for entertainment to try to reflect that.

Asking why series with mostly-female casts aren't popular with young boys only proves there's a double standard, because plenty of girls, including me, grew up liking TMNT, which was "for boys", and had mostly male characters.

[snake]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

So, children younger than 10 shall grow up with shows representing females as stupid?

That's most of the crap on Disney channel or any of those channels

[Refractive Reflections]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

I find your condescension tiresome.

There is precious little difference between the wants and needs of an elementary school child, regardless of gender.

The only reason children are "confused" is when they're told they can't like something because of their gender expression. If we let kids like what they wanted to like regardless there'd be no confusion.

There's nothing wrong with a boy liking My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It's a good show with solid writing and animation.

Just as there's nothing wrong with a girl liking TMNT, for the exact same reasons.

But you wouldn't know that when you come to places like this. Where talk of "ships" is dismissed as Girl Stuff and made "less than." It's crap, and it should be called out as crap every time it surfaces.

Just because someone doesn't play with your dolls the way that you do doesn't make them any less of a fan than you are. Get over it.
And while you're getting over it, get over the idea, no matter how subtle, that girls/women are less than boys/men. Because that's what this all boils down to.

We're not less, we're equal. And we have every right to be here.

I think the point of confusion was not clearly separating my opinions from societal trends/tendencies. I apologize if it was interpreted offensively, and I do believe in gender equality and I don't think any particular trait/show as "girly" or "manly", but we live in this world that DOES do it. Unlike we as adults who have the knowledge to go beyond it, for children it's difficult because they start with a new slate and sometimes just want to "belong", and fall into that.

As for the "shipping", well I prefer romantic stories that have substance, as I said before, where each other brings out different sides to them that goes beyond the whole infatuation/sexuality aspect of it because there is more to life than just romance with you live with someone. Inevitably you have to relate to that person when the infatuation subsides and learn to grow with each others' strengths, weaknesses, and personalities.

My sincerest apologizes if you were offended.

[The Big Bad]

This seems highly relevant to the discussion: Boys don’t read Girl Books and other lies my Society Told Me

Personally, I'm fine with shipping as a concept. Sure, I don't claim to understand a whole bunch of it, and think there's some problematic attitudes underpinning some of it--mostly the idea that affectionate relationships have to have romantic undertones--but it's too large and diverse a concept to be treated as a monolith. Plus...Veronica/Meg (Veronica Mars) forever, y'all !

Originally Posted by zkarlette

That's true, the OT has a big female following and there weren't many female characters. We don't need this show to become " sweet valley high".

Yes, because this was precisely the problem with Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Hunger Games. Or Kill Bill. Or The Powerpuff Girls. Or Y: The Last Man. Or Beyond Good and Evil. Sweet Valley High clones, all of them. (ETA: I have never read any "Sweet Valley High" books and so cannot attest to their quality. The fact that their subject matter and target audience are girls does not make it any better or worse than any of the other named products, nor is pointing out the difference meant to be a condemnation.)

Yes, these are not all children's products. But all too often, the idea "boys don't consume stuff starring girls" becomes the equally wrong-headed "men don't consume stuff starring women"; the problem is by no means limited by age.

Originally Posted by JLS

Even though the plentiful female characters could "kick butt" still I think boys would abandon it, just because there were too many girls (in their simple minds), and lump the changed TMNT series into the category with other girl action shows like "Sailor Moon" even though the tones for either show are completely different.

We're talking about kids 10 years and younger... We're not talking about viewers older than elementary school.
[...]

Again, Avatar's, commitment to gender parity (or something quite resembling it) did not seem to harm it any, and I'm curious to see where you get this notion that it would from. You seem to underestimate children greatly.

Anyways, I have yet to see a sizable proportion of elementary school boys be proud that they watch "My Little Pony". (Ugh...sometimes people forget that we are talking about KIDS watching TMNT and its appeal to them..not grown teenagers or adults here...sheesh)

Question: do you believe this state of affairs is something inherent, or the result of a culture that keeps on pushing a false narrative that "stuff for boys is good, stuff for girls is good enough for them" precisely via shows like TMNT? And if its the latter, why shouldn't TMNT play a part in pushing against those notions? If The Hunger Games can do it, what's stopping TMNT?

[Blossombrooks]

I'm Blossombrooks and i'm a 'shipper'...god this is like an AA confessional.
The notion that none of the members on here 'ship' is obviously wrong (hello, waves) no I don't do 'turtlecest' yes I use an non-canon character. Why?? Because I wanted a female character to kick some ass, not be a member of the foot and have a convincing relationship. I invented my o/c when I was a kid watching the OT, at that age and even now as an adult I still long for balance.

Originally Posted by The Big Bad;1054068

Question: do you believe this state of affairs is something inherent, or the result of a culture that keeps on pushing a false narrative that "stuff for boys is good, stuff for girls is good enough for them" precisely via shows like [I

TMNT[/I]? And if its the latter, why shouldn't TMNT play a part in pushing against those notions? If The Hunger Games can do it, what's stopping TMNT?

Its a vicious circle really, our nature once defined us this way but nurture is now in control and if parents don't allow their children the freedom to make choices irrespective of gender then it will continue. Should TMNT change the boundaries? I don't want to see it change beyond recognition but Nick Splinter and 2k3 Splinter make moves to train April and that gives me hope. She is portrayed as strong, I think there's room for a little Katniss in there.

[Jester]

Splinter training April to be a ninja was started with the Archie books, thank you very much.
As for "shipping" it seems to only further cement stereotypes....not break them down

[BubblyShell22]

I do ship occasionally when I have an idea for it, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it as long as it's done well. It doesn't matter what version it is, as long as it's well-written, I'll read it. And if I have an idea, I'll gladly put it out there and just see how it works. If people don't like it, fine. If people do, that's great.

I haven't done much shipping for the new cartoon yet though I did create an OC for Leo for my story "Truth and Lies." I also ship Don and April in that one. But other than that, not much shipping from me yet. I did ship Leo and Karai in 2K3 and might do it for the new series if it's hinted at more. I want to wait to see what the show does first before I make it official yet.

[Shredded]

Originally Posted by JLS

Anyways, my first comments were just about that..."girls will watch boys and girls, but boys will only watch boys". I was just stating how it is, NOT my personal hardcore beliefs on how it should be. Furthermore, its followed by the fact that kids will play with other kids that they have the most interests with, and usually at that young age and young mentality its with the same gender. What I was expressing is that for a KIDS show to display deeper issues of relating to others outside of their own gender beyond the romance interest is great , but is a tall demand since most kids can't even decide what they want for dinner or what clothes to wear, much less fully grasp the innate similarities/differences between boys and girls, that we do as adults, at such a young age.
...And that adult viewers need to be aware of that.

Furthermore its unfair to place kids shows, like TMNT, as the target for much broader societal/cultural issues of sexism when NOT EVEN our own primetime, adult audience shows can get it right and they take sexism to a MUCH greater extreme.


But I have to point out though, if one were to say that only "boy shows" do that oversimplification to the other gender, isn't entirely true... there are "girl shows" (children and tween shows) that oversimplify boys into the object of "romantic interest" only and that's frustrating also. (That reinforce to girls on those shows the only boys worth dating are the good-looking, popular guys, with many Gary Stu qualities.) Of course the oversimplification/objectification is no where as bad as girls/women, but don't think us guys are immune to it either in the female realm of entertainment.

That's because those shows aren't intelligent and doesn't have good writing, neither does the girl shows presenting boys like that. Those aren't good shows!

And... ten year old boy have no problem watching girls as long as they actually do some-thing awesome. For just a few examples.

Sailor moon, while they have a 'mostly' female fan-base... 30-40% of the sailor moon fan-base are actually boys!
Why? because they fight monsters and it's awesome, that's why.

"Legend of Korra." the real story is that nicklelodion was highly against having a female main character in that show, using the exact same reasoning you just did. "But we'll loose boy viewers this way!"
.... they didn't, Legend of Korra was the most viewed animated show in all of 2012. When they made a survave afterwards actually asking people what they thought about the lead character being woman, they mostly asked children in the age 12-15 and the answer was astounding..
The children honestly did not care one bit whether Korra was a girl or not, they just thought she was awesome.. cause she was awesome.

"My little pony friendship is magic." is honestly an amazing show, because it's the first all star girls show I can think off actually breaking away from the usual girl stereo-type.
Having female characters not caught up in what producers seems to think girl characters are all about, what producers think girls want to watch, not having them always talk about only;
"Boys, social status and clothes." which seems to be the three major concerns in the regular cartoon girls life.. as if we don't think about other stuff.
(this is also a problem coming from having mostly male writers working in the industry, they just assume what girls want, they don't really know. So having a woman work on girls shows such as Powerpuff girls or my little pony, it turned out different, wauw, who knew?)
And what was the product of my little pony, breaking free of the usual stereo-types? Because it had well rounded good characters, whom were not caught up in the usual "girl syndrom." They were characters with different personalities and back-grounds, whom just happened to be girls, always a character first and foremost.
Boys could identify to! not only twenty year olds, but ten year olds as well, they love the show cause it's funny and well written, they don't care that the main characters are girls, cause they are not caught up in the usual girly context.


Seems to me kids couldn't care less about what gender their characters have, as long as they are fun and exciting.
So it's sad the kids are programmed from such a young age to think. "omg, girls, different species entirely!" when in reality.. we aren't that different at all, we want the same things basically.

Hell the Trekkie culture were created by girls, and it's sad so many girls feels like they have to write "Gender-bend." fan-fictions because they identify better with the males, and wished there was a female some-where like that, same personality as the males, same interests, just being female, that's all we really want.

So well.. boys wont watch girls shows? that's a lie, it's just that most girl shows hasn't been well written at all! and been to caught up in what people think are girls things, for their own good, namely characters whom talks about nothing else then.
"Boys, social status and clothes." which is aggravating for girls to, I liked watching "totally spies." because of the spy missions, I couldn't stand the constant boys talk, none of my friends could, it's just the writers whom assumed that that was the only way to write female characters! Not even girls really like it to be to cherry sweet, no one likes "Bratz." after they turned thirteen-

And this is a problem, medias are labeling girls as being one specific thing and acting in only one specific way.

yeah it's a universal problem! it's even larger in the movie world than the TV world, at least the TV shows consistently tries to do some-thing about it, while the movies really do any such thing.

But if we don't speak up against it, and use success stories to make examples, telling about the problem and spreading the word.. then what?

[Type 97 Chi-ha]

Originally Posted by Zulithe

I guess you could call me a shipper of sorts. I find it amusing more than anything; I'm not that serious about it or anything. Mostly I just read the posts on tumblr and deviantart and it's fun to think about the "what if..." scenarios as well as the kind of stuff that is not likely to ever be explored in the comics or shows.

Like personally I know a lot of TMNT fans would find this reprehensible but I feel like at least one of the turtles should be gay. If it were up to me it would be Raph :p Being gay myself it's always just been something I've offhandedly thought about. Not gonna detail it more than that... I just have my own feelings and theories on it. And yeah I know it is totally ridiculous to even think about these sorts of things when they are the only ones of their kind... well, depending on which universe and whatnot you subscribe to But hey, just because they are mutant turtles doesn't mean they don't have needs!

Not reprehensible, just pointless. Why should there be a gay Turtle anyway? To make the others feel uncomfortable? To act like a gay stereotype? (Raphael having a collection of Barbara Streisand records?) Or if you want gay sex involving the Turtles...well, you don't have to look far for that.

[Refractive Reflections]

To "The Big Bad",

All I was ever trying to say...was that kids at a young age relate to other kids of the same gender more than of a different gender. We can see that in playgrounds when 70-80% of the kids stick with their own gender. So in these kids' minds, as limited as they are, if they see more and more female characters in a show, the boys will feel alienated since it "appears" to be catering to girls more than boys (the "sorority house" reply). (And culturally, kids are immediately informed about their gender differences.)

Of course it would be great to have depthful and plentiful female characters in a TMNT cartoon...as I said before, but you have to ask the question is do you think kids have the cognitive ability to transcend above those gender differences and see their character? Remember now this is the age of "cooties", can't even plan their day out, have temper tantrums, and the same stage of life were bullying is rampant.

If kids we're able to really look beyond the superficial more boys would appreciate "My Little Pony" and enjoy it with its good themes/morals. Furthermore, if kids were so mentally capable of appreciating diversity we wouldn't have the problem of bullying in our schools. So that's why I "underestimate" (as you say) children.

Let's not forgot the added pressure of pop culture telling those children what's "traditionally" male or female in terms of interests.

Therefore after all of this, it makes sense that a children's franchise would mostly have an all-female or all-male characters because its difficult sometimes to have an equal proportion of both boys and girls enjoying it (without being primarily comedic).

Originally Posted by Shredded

Sailor moon, while they have 'mostly' a female fan-base... 30-40% of the sailor moon fan-base are actually boys!
Why? because they fight monsters and it's awesome, that's why.

C'mon now Shredded , I have a feeling those male fans are teenage boys and older because of the "enticing" microskirts those girls wear. Now if they had full length dresses or pants I could see your point, but that anime show definitely has some Lolita imagery. (I'm surprised more parents didn't complain about that show.)

---
In the end, as much as we may want to help our children grow to appreciate diversity through TMNT or other kids' shows, the big question is...CAN kids mentally process that (Without directly instructing them like Sesame Street does.)? I mean the OT show constantly hinted about the problems of racism (with the Turtles and Splinter being ostracized/persecuted by society), but I never saw or heard a kid (KIDS only now) come away from that show consciously thinking about it and applying it to their own life and being against racism.

I'm going to end my replies here on this thread.

Sorry CyberCubed, I didn't mean for pointing one societal tendency to be twisted into an explosive issue of a misogynistic opinion (which I never had and apologize to anyone if it was interpreted as such); it was unfair to your thread here CyberCubed.

[Shredded]

Originally Posted by Type 97 Chi-ha

Not reprehensible, just pointless. Why should there be a gay Turtle anyway? To make the others feel uncomfortable? To act like a gay stereotype? (Raphael having a collection of Barbara Streisand records?) Or if you want gay sex involving the Turtles...well, you don't have to look far for that.

Just because a person is gay doesn't mean he falls into any gay arch type.

homo-sexuals of either gender are just people whom happens to have a sexual preference different than the norm. They are still as different as every-body else, they don't necesarily like Barbere Straisand or any-thing like that.

And it's only natural for any-one whom stands a bit out-side of the norm to want some-body to identify with in their favourite franchise, that's all natural, that's the same reason I keep shouting. "More women!" at every-thing.

Also the reason I keep on shouting. "Woman whom is a bit of a dork, awkward in conversations, doesn't fall in the regular smart girl gender-role." ... cause that is the woman I would be able to identify with..

[Blossombrooks]

Originally Posted by Jester

Splinter training April to be a ninja was started with the Archie books, thank you very much.

Ah ok, fair enough. I haven't read any archie, just mirage, but good for them.

As for "shipping" it seems to only further cement stereotypes....not break them down

You can't tar it all with the same brush, some fics which use relationships are well thought out (not mine I hasten to add ) and handle the theme in a way that shows the characters at their best and worst. It really is down to the author. Not all 'ship' fics are about damsels in distress swooning, and if they are well each to their own, no one is forced to read it but I don't personally want to see that type of ship included in canon.

[Loudo]

Originally Posted by Type 97 Chi-ha

Not reprehensible, just pointless. Why should there be a gay Turtle anyway? To make the others feel uncomfortable? To act like a gay stereotype? (Raphael having a collection of Barbara Streisand records?) Or if you want gay sex involving the Turtles...well, you don't have to look far for that.

Why shouldn't there be a gay turtle? I can understand if you tell me "I don't care about the romance, I just want to watch the Turtles fight". But if a turtle can be straight, he can be gay.
And why should having a gay turtle make the others feel uncomfortable? Let me rephrase that. Why do you think that is a legitimate response? If some of the turtles feel uncomfortable having a gay brother, that's their problem to overcome (and it could potentially make an interesting story to tell).
And, you know, you don't have to fit a gay stereotype to be gay. Raphael can be gay without changing one bit of his personality or musical tastes.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying there should be a gay turtle, but there is no reason why there shouldn't be one. Especially in the continuities where the turtles show some form of sexuality.
If Archie Raph can have a girlfriend and Nick Don be a creepy stalker, then I don't see why we can't have a Archie/Nick gay turtle.

[CyberCubed]

Nobody wants to see a gay turtle because that implies Turtlecest. People only do that to pair the Turtles to each other.

The only other male turtle is Slash and he's usually never around.

[Shredded]

Originally Posted by JLS

To "The Big Bad",



C'mon now Shredded , I have a feeling those male fans are teenage boys and older because of the "enticing" microskirts those girls wear. Now if they had full length dresses or pants I could see your point, but that anime show definitely has some Lolita imagery. (I'm surprised more parents didn't complain about that show.)

---
In the end, as much as we may want to help our children grow to appreciate diversity through TMNT or other kids' shows, the big question is...CAN kids mentally process that? (Without directly instructing them like Sesame Street does.) I mean the OT show constantly hinted about the problems of racism (with the Turtles and Splinter being ostracized/persecuted by society), but I never saw or heard a kid (KIDS only now) come away from that show consciously thinking about it and applying it to their own life and being against racism.

I'm going to end my replies here on this thread.

Sorry CyberCubed, I didn't mean for pointing one societal tendency to be twisted into an explosive issue of a misogynistic opinion (which I never had and apologize to anyone if it was interpreted as such); it was unfair to your thread here CyberCubed.

I know plenty of adult men whom has fond memories of Sailor moon and talks exstremely fondly of it, as fondly as they talk about "Dragon Ball Z"
just saying.

And no, I am not talking about adding pressure to the children, I am talking about having more girls merely present and merely play more vital parts, having girls being more diversed and also being presented as flawed complex beings, whom also make mistakes and learn, and also are relateable.
Just having them present, as characters, would make the world of a difference.

Avatar the Last airbender all-ready proved that it is possible having a cast of almost 50/50 percent boys and girls, without any-one even noticing, we were just happy to have the interesting girls there.

Harry potter is a franchise every-body also adores, whom has a huge presentation of diversed girls, and the main girl Hermione, neither falls into the pitt of being the regular girl stereo-type, in this case having a female author probably also helped a lot.

Heck, Josh Whedon sat out to specifcially prove that you can have an action TV-show geared towards teens and young men with a female lead, that is still popular because of the story.. and he did, that's how Buffy the Vampire Slayer came to be.


The big issue, the big thing is that... we shouldn't sepperate things into. "This is for girls" and "this is for boys." at all..

Our society are moving forward, the lines between being female or male is whisked away, gender matters less and less for what interests you happen to have and honestly.. it shouldn't matter at all. To call teenage mutant ninja turtles a. "Boys show." is shooting yourself in the food, it's a kids show, geared toward all kids, boys and girls a like.

My little pony succeeded because it seized to try and be "A girls show." but just wanted to be. "A show." that is good in its own right, that just happens to have an all female cast.

There's no such thing as. "This is a boys club only." or "this is a girls clubs only" and it's also highly sexiest towards either gender to force that down on us.

The geek pot is just that, a pot of geeks, coming from all over the world being all genders.

This is a continuating problem, in all big franchises, and it wont go away any time soon, it's a left over from ancient times where females indeed only did have specific roles in the old stories, and the males had to be the heroes and main characters. All greek stories are like that, all shakesperian plays are like that. It's our modern very new culture that wants it different.

People have trouble writing women or including women for what-ever reason, some even views us as a different species entirely, which is frustrating for us.. I could write a whole essay about Christopher Nolan and his odd way to represent women in his movies.. it's really odd ones you start thinking about it.

How-ever, this show has proven itself competent in writing a female whom breaks away from the boundary, Karai, she's more character than she's female.. she just happens to be female! and that's a good thing so really, I can't complain about this show at this point.

It has an all-star male cast, safe April, because that's how it's always been! it's going to include more women in coming episodes, that much is certain, I cannot complain at all! it is doing some-thing! and so did the 2k3 show, it tried, it really did, and I can only commend both shows for it.

[Loudo]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Nobody wants to see a gay turtle because that implies Turtlecest. People only do that to pair the Turtles to each other.

The only other male turtle is Slash and he's usually never around.

So Raph can have a fox-lady girlfriend and Don like human girls, but a gay turtle must desire his own brothers?
What is that, another stereotype "Girls can fall in love with monsters, while boys can't"?

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Loudo

So Raph can have a fox-lady girlfriend and Don like human girls, but a gay turtle must desire his own brothers?
What is that, another stereotype "Girls can fall in love with monsters, while boys can't"?

What would be the point? Michaelangelo falling for Mondo Gecko or something?

For the record I never cared for the Raph/Ninjara pairing either.

[Loudo]

The point would be the same of having Don drooling every other episode after April, Leo falling in love with Radical and Don acting dreamy with alien princesses: things like that make the characters more real.
Clearly, like every element in a show, they can be developped well or badly (cough... Nick Don... cough...).

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Loudo

The point would be the same of having Don drooling every other episode after April, Leo falling in love with Radical and Don acting dreamy with alien princesses: things like that makes the characters more real.
Clearly, like every element in a show, they can be developped well or badly (cough... Don... cough...).

I remember Greg Weisman wanted Lexington to be gay in Gargoyles. Makes no sense as previous episodes showed him drooling over female Gargoyles.

[Shredded]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

What would be the point? Michaelangelo falling for Mondo Gecko or something?

For the record I never cared for the Raph/Ninjara pairing either.

The point is that people whom just happen to have a different sexual preference rarely have any good characters they can actually identify with, as gays usually presented in any visual media are horrible stereo-types.

The point is, many uses their favourite franchises as a point to identify with characters with, and it feels frustrating when there is no one to compleately identify with and you just have to make some-thing else up.

Now, there is a difference between wanting some specific shipping, or simply just have a character being gay, just to have some-thing identifiable.

But you know, shipping in reality, is just a guilty pleasure for lots of people, often awkward teenagers, whom just tries to get their confused feelings and dreams out of the way.

It's not real, most grow out of it.

Would I want to personally want to see one of the turtles being gay? .. not really, gotta be honest. I view them in a specific way, and I don't want them to change.
Would I get angry about it? no.. not really, for me it would just sort of be there.

It would be cool though if some-one some-where, would actually bother to make a new original adventure show, and have a gay character whom does not fall into any prior gay stereo-type, but is just a good character in his own right, whom happens to be gay.

Also who really cares if Michelangelo is gay? it doesn't matter to the story at hand, it doesn't matter to the here and now situations, and if no one is ever going to specify it.. who is going to tell? thus far he didn't have a love interest, so who knows.. and who cares at this point?

Maybe the only thing he can ever love is Pizza? he is pizza-sexual.