"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", 2012 or 2018: Mikey finds a Boyfriend

 

I've never been particularly interested in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies or tv shows.  Mutated turtles who talk like valley dudes and are named after Renaissance painters?  Too weird, although  I did review two of the movies a few years ago (See Which of the Ninja Turtles is Gay?)

But I was drawn into a promo on Netflix that featured "Mikey" overtly in love -- eyes turning into little hearts -- with a guy!  

It's Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2018-2021), originally on Nickelodeon, with the premise and character personalities slightly altered.  The turtles are young teens with Anglicized names: Leo the leader (Ben Schwartz), Donnie the tech guy (Josh Brener), Raph the muscle (Omar Benson Miller), and Mikey (Brandon Mychal Smith), "an affectionate and sensitive artist" (lots of gay code words there).  The "overtly in love" scene is from Episode #4.

Scene 1: Evil black-skull ninjas practing.  Master Shredder enters and congratulates his "greatest pupil."   He announces that he's found an old enemy, Hamato Yoshi, hiding in the sewers of New York, transformed into a giant rat named Master Splinter.  He wants Black-Skull to destroy him and his turtle-ninjas.  A switchblade-wielding thug named Xever will assist, since he knows the area.

Scene 2: The Turtles patrolling on the rooftops of New York.  Mikey wants to return a lost cat to its owner, but the others warn: "You can't show yourself to humans.  They'll freak out."  Mikey doesn't listen, and the owner freaks out.  "The humans will never understand you!" 

Suddenly Mikey sees a poster advertising an appearance by martial artist Chris Bradford.  "That guy will understand me! He's my soul mate!  Maybe he'll show me his secret kata."  Only if you buy him dinner first.  

His brothers disagree: "He's a famous celebrity!  No way will he be interested in you!"

They're attacked by Black-Skull and his team, but everyone scatters when the police arrive.

Scene 3: Back in the sewer, Mikey reads about Chris Bradford in a magazine and makes "yummy" noises.  "I wish we were friends!"  Their human ally, April, points out that she is his friend.  "You don't count -- you're a girl."  

April suggest "friending" him on social media.  Mikey tries it, his eyes turning into little hearts.  Bradford accepts the friend request immediately! '

 "Don't get your hopes up," April warns. "He's probably got thousands of friends."  "But none like me -- we're soul mates!"  

Scene 4: Bradford leaving his boxing club.  Mikey appears; Bradford attacks, but calms down when he announces that they're social media friends.  They shake hands; Bradford invites him in.

Later, Mikey enthusiasticlly describes their date to his bored brothers.  "And then he put on his akama..."  So before he was naked?  Did they hook up on the first date?  

Raph jokes: "Maybe he'll wear it when he takes you to the prom."  This seems to be a homophobic jibe, implying that Mikey's interest in Bradford is romantic, therefore "wrong."

Scene 5: Bradford boxing.  Mikey appears.  He rolls his eyes and recoils at a hug, but pretends to be happy to see him.  "Now tell me everything about you, including your sensei." Uh-oh, ulterior motive!

Scene 6:  Out to dinner (actually, pizza on the roof).  Bradford continues to feign interest in Mikey while pumping him for information.  "Tell me about your sensei."  But Mikey won't talk about Master Splinter; it's a secret.

Later, in the bedroom (what, precisely, are they up to?), Bradford promises to show him his secret Death Dragon move, if he doesn't tell anyone else about it.

Scene 7: Mikey describing the Death dragon move to his brothers.  Bradford texts and asks him out; he leaves. 

Cut to Bradford -- have  you already figured out that he's Black-Skull?  -- telling his associate Xever: "The freak is on the way.  The trap is set." 

The other turtles are practicing the Death Dragon move.  Master Splinter sees them, and remembers his arch-nemesis Shredder using it, back when he was human.  They realize that Bradford is Shredder's associate, using Mikey to get intel on Splinter.

Scene 8:  Mikey arrives at the darkened dojo for the date.  Bradford and his associate Xever attack, subdue him, and tie him up.  "You actually thought that someone like me could be friends with someone like you?" he sneers.  

Scene 9: The other turtles to the rescue!  A very quick rescue -- they don't realize that Bradford planted a tracking device on Mikey, and now knows where their secret hideout is. 

Except the turtles do know.  They capture all of the ninjas except for Bradford and Xever.  After a battle, they flood the tunnel so the baddies are swept out into the sewer.

Scene 10: Pizza back at the lair.  Master Splinter is despondent: "Shredder now knows that I'm alive and training ninjas, and he'll try to destroy us again."  

Mikey is despondent, too.  "This was all my fault.  I should never have tried being friends with a human."  "You're an awesome guy.  You deserve better friends than Bradford."  Mikey unfriends him.  The end.

Is Mikey Gay:  There are many hints that Mikey has a romantic interest in Bradford (and a few hints that he has an erotic interest), but he uses only "friend" terminology throughout.  His brothers tease him about having a romantic interest, but don't seem to think of it as a real possibility.  Therefore I doubt that Mikey is canonically gay, but the subtext is obviously intentional.  

Whoops, I made a mistake.  When Netflix shows you something on the home page, you naturally assume that it's new, not something that's been in their vault since the Stone Age, but this is actually a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle series from 2012-2017, starring Jason Biggs/Seth Green, Rob Paulsen, Sean Astin, and Greg Cipes. 

No one in that group is particularly gay-friendly, so I doubt that they would approve of making Mikey canonically gay.  Besides, the fans would start screaming:  "Why does eve single character on every single show have to be gay? Leave us at least one straight guy!"  Right, "every" means "more than zero."

We'll have to make do with subtexts.

Which of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was Gay?

I'll bet you never thought you'd be reading about the ancient Greek drama Alcestis and The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the same blog, on the same day.  But my search for beefcake and bonding takes me everywhere.

During the late 1980s, pundits often pointed to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when they needed a quick, easy example of tv being a "vast wasteland" responsible for turning kids into brain-dead zombies.  They probably never watched the cartoon series or read the comic books: the title was enough for them.

TMNT began as a comic book in 1984, and moved into cartoons and extensive marketing tie-ins by 1987.  By 1990, everyone, even pundits, had heard of the four slacker-talking, pizza-obsessed ninja turtles named after Renaissance artists (two of whom, by the way, were gay in real life).
1. Leonardo, the leader.
2. Michelangelo, the fun-loving trickster whose catchphrase is "Cowabunga!"
3. Donatello, the technological genius and computer whiz.
4. The brooding Raphael, who has a Brooklyn accident.

They live in the sewers of New York with their beset-upon sensei, the mutant rat Splinter, emerging only to pick up the pizzas they ordered and to fight crime.  They have two human allies, tv reporter April O'Neil and hockey-mask wearing vigilante Casey Jones.

The cartoon series lasted for 10 years, and new versions are in the works.  A series of films began in 1990, with sequels in 1991, 1993, and 2007.  I've seen the first two.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) gives us the turtles' origin story, and introduces them to April (Judith Hoag), Casey (Elias Koteas), and their arch-nemesis, Shredder, an evil Darth Vader clone who heads the evil Foot gang, comprised entirely of teenage boys.

April's boss happens to have a sullen teenage son, Danny (Michael Turney), who is secretly working for the Foot gang, and eventually gets big-brothered and rehabilitated by the turtles.

Surprisingly for a movie about turtles, there is significant beefcake, in the older members of the Foot gang, and in Casey Jones, who displays biceps and a prominent bulge.

Casey and April embark on a bickering "I hate you!" hetero-romance, like that of Sam and Diane on Cheers, David and Maddie on Moonlighting, and practically everybody else in the 1980s.  But otherwise hetero-romance is limited.  Of the turtles, only Michelangelo expresses heterosexual interest.  The others enjoy surprisingly open physicality, touching, hugging, grabbing each other at will, and Raphael obviously prefers the company of men: he spends most of the movie buddy-bonding with Casey.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze (1991) casts a new April, and eliminates Danny, Casey, and every hint of hetero-romance.  There is none.

Instead, the turtles face a restored Foot gang and discover the secret of their origin, with the help of a befuddled scientist (David Warner, who had a romance with Gregory Peck in The Omen).  This time Raphael buddy bonds with and rescues a new teenager, pizza delivery boy/martial arts expert Keno (Ernie Reyes Jr., who played another hardbodied martial artist in Surf Ninjas).

What are we to make of this pleasant lack of hetero-horniness?  The fact that the dudes are turtles in a human world is irrelevant; anthropomorphic animals from Bugs Bunny to Howard the Duck have often been portrayed as overwhelmed with desire for human women.
The intended audience of preteens is also irrelevant: movies during the 1990s often promoted gushing prepubescent hetero-romances.

For whatever reason, the Turtles were spared.  Cowabunga, dudes.

See also: The Omen; Surf Ninjas