#i'm complaining about people who are misogynistic towards female characters for being sexualized instead of criticizing the author

[lightofjedi]

I wish people understood that a female character being written by a dude who objectify and sexualize her is not her fault but the writter's, and that going on about the importance of not sexualizing female characters while simultaneously using said sexualization as a reason to sprout misogynistic remarks about and dehumanising sexualized female characters just shows your hypocrisy and how little you actually care about women.

[beetlegoose01]

In Defense of 2012 April

TW for mentions of sexual harassment and misogynist slurs 

I'm back here for another semi long post. I want to discuss TMNT 2012's version of April O' Neil (perfect timing with the month and all)  and why I personally think the hatred that goes towards her is …excessive to say the least, and frankly makes little to no sense. 

Before I begin, I would like to say I do think there are valid critiques of April as a character. Some of them I will mention here because even with characters I like, I will always point out flaws to not be a hypocrite. However, many of those complaints can be attributed to poor writing and lack of a woman's perspective when creating female characters. 

Let's step back for a moment and think. If April was not April, say she was August, or heck if she and Casey Jones swapped roles, would she get the same amount of hate? Well she sure as hell wouldn't get sexualized as much by the animators I'll tell ya that.

The truth is, I'm not really sure of the answer to that question. I do think there are double standards when it comes to guy characters vs girl ones. A guy with psychic powers but is prone to emotional outbursts sounds cool, right? 

I know there will be people that argue with me in the notes saying there isn't an unconscious bias towards gender, and clearly I'm being over dramatic. Well, I might as well go through the common complaints about April instead of stalling lol

1. She gets kidnapped too often! 

Starting off with probably my favorite complaint. *GASP*  April O' Neil gets kidnapped too often in a superhero cartoon where kidnapping is the most life threatening but still kid friendly crime they can do!

In early 2021 I rewatched 2012 and recorded a tally chart. For those who aren't in the server don't know, it's basically a count of every single instance a character got kidnapped. April got captured a total of 20 times. Sure seems like a lot.  But you know who got captured more times than her?

 Mikey, Donnie and Raph.

In fact, Mikey got captured more than 30 times! Yes, I counted and yes I'm aware I have no life. Yet I haven't heard anyone complain about those dudes in distresses getting their asses rescued by literally everyone. 

Like I said. It's a superhero cartoon. Kidnapping is…kind of a thing that happens. Everyone gets captured in this show, it really isn't that deep.

2. April is rude to Donnie!

Alright, this one legitimately gets me frustrated. 

If you are being harassed and stalked, you absolutely have a right to be rude to the person harassing you. Abusers do NOT deserve kindness, especially when they won't leave you the fuck alone. 

Now you may be wondering, what does this have to do with April? I'll tell you. 

That's the entire Apriltello arc in a nutshell. She is repeatedly harassed by Donnie and to a lesser extent Casey (and yes, Donnie did stalk her, no matter how good his intentions were it's fucked up). There is no win to this scenario. If this was real life, she would be called a bitch for rejecting such a "nice guy" . If she accepted him…well you know how some guys aren't always as nice as they seem…

If she was nice, she's a slut and trying too hard, if she's cold and upfront she's a bitch. I know this because I had to deal with the exact same thing April was going through during the early seasons of 2012. 

Now that the heavy part is out of the way, I would like to clarify I don’t hate 2012 Donnie. In fact, he’s my favorite Donatello. But I’m not going to say his actions were excusable. 

In regards to general rudeness, most of her comments ("Nice catch Donnie!") are just snarkiness typical of a teenager, and the boys have actually said and done a lot worse.

3. The Kiss (es) 

Yeah okay I agree with this one. It doesn't make any sense, especially in the episode a Foot Too Big. I think it would be nice to have her not kiss him, but keep the speech there. And after that ironically, Donnie mellowed out with his crush. 

I guess I can only really blame poor writing on that. 

4. She's a Mary Sue 

So in terms of her psychic powers, I think if they were explained a bit more, it would make more sense. If there were scenes of her practicing, or heck, the origins behind it beyond "she's part Kraang". Actually, come to think of it, wouldn't it be awesome if she actually had some Kraang-like appearances to her design? Maybe as her powers got stronger? 

As for her becoming a kunoichi, it was obvious that she was not as strong of a fighter as the turtles in several instances. The only times I can think of where she saves them involve her powers, not her ninja skills. She graduated the first part of being a ninja in Season 4, she didn't automatically become an expert. 

5. Uh didn't she kill Donnie-

Oh my God. NO SHE DIDN'T. Okay, am I the only one who finds this "reason" to be stupid? She was under control of an aeon crystal! Za-Naron 'killed' Donnie, not April.

In conclusion? April deserves better and stop reblogging my April appreciation post with hate. Thank you.