Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or TMNT, as I affectionately called them in second grade, represented everything that was exciting and adventurous to me as a child. I desperately wanted not only to hang out with Michelangelo and Donatello, but to actually be Raphael (Leonardo was a bit stuffy for my taste). Why Raphael, who, aside from being a turtle, was also male? Why not their female (and human) action-news reporter friend, April O’Neil? She even had red hair!

I didn’t have to be a feminist to know that April was simply not as exciting as Raphael or even boring Leonardo. She participated in only a handful of the Turtles’ actual adventures; most of the time she just cleaned up the mess they left behind with her production crew. This is, for me, the most affecting example of the Smurfette Principle. I identified with a male, mutant reptile over a perfectly un-mutated human of my own sex, because that’s how boring she really was. I saw women being so thoroughly undervalued that I didn’t just feel lousy about it, I detached myself from the sex altogether. I wanted to be male. And a turtle. Yikes.