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Fictional Women Around the World: April O'Neil · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Sanny and Smitha. I hope this stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told you productive I heeart id you and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: welcome to another subset of sub segment fictional women around
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the world. Today, we are talking about April O'Neill from
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yes, because it is April, and
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I think this it's climate related Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of climate elements. Yes, I can't believe
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I haven't done this one already. I think I had
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: this idea last April and then for some reason I
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: didn't do it, so I had to go back into
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the archives and make sure. But nope, this is an original.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I did grow up with Teenage Mutan Ninja Turtles. My
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: older brother love that. I loved the Turtles and Time
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: video game. Like, if I go to an arcade, that
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: is the one I'm trying to find, I love that game.
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  Speaker 2: Oh that just yeah, that brought an memory back.
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  Speaker 1: Oh. I saw the live action movies and I've even
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: seen the recent animated ones, but the memories are very fuzzy.
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  Speaker 1: So all this to say, I have a lot of familiarity,
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  Speaker 1: but not a lot of specificity with this franchise, so
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  Speaker 1: if you somehow don't know the teenage Mutant Ninja. Turtles
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  Speaker 1: is a franchise fanning television, movies, games, comics, toys, costumes,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: et cetera, centered on turtles in New York who became
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  Speaker 1: humanoid and aware after encountering some kind of sludge, and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: they grew up in the sewers under the tutelage of
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  Speaker 1: a cyniate rat named Splinter. The turtles, Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo,
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  Speaker 1: and Raphael each specialized in a different type of weapon
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and combat style. They also like pizza yep obviously. Obviously,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: their primary nemesis was Shredder, and April was sort of
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: their human foil for the most part, because I guess
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: she turns into a turtle. I don't remember that plot line, but.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: I honestly don't remember that plot line either.
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  Speaker 1: I think it was in one of the off shoes.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: It wasn't anyway. She has been voiced by the likes
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of Sarah, Michelle, Geller, May Whitman, and ao at a Berry. Traditionally,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: she wears a very iconic yellow jumpsuit, white boots, and
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: she has red hair, but her earliest iteration was actually
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: a woman with darker skin and black curly hair. One
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  Speaker 1: of the creators claimed that she was named after his
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: black girlfriend. Other versions of been Latina. She's changed a
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: lot throughout her depictions, and so once again we're not
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: going to go into every version, but just to know
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: she has gone through a lot of changes and one
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: of the reasons for this change into kind of the
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  Speaker 1: fair skinned or a head lady. I wanted to read
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: this quote from a Medium article called the Importance of
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: April O'Neill and the Rise of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: by Cosmo Compendium about the twenty eighteen Rise of the
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  Speaker 1: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to show and why it mattered
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  Speaker 1: that April was black in it quote because these other
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: aprils were white, while Rise April is not. Twenty twelve,
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  Speaker 1: April and other aprils being white gave the turtles a
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  Speaker 1: chance to ascribe to the ideas and protections that being
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  Speaker 1: white slash whiteness often has without the turtles being white.
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  Speaker 1: You can find this white girl in any strange place
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  Speaker 1: that a pure white woman wouldn't be or out of place,
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  Speaker 1: and the instant first thought is to keep her safe
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  Speaker 1: as to protect the white woman's fragility and innocence. Having
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: April being white could offer the boys a chance to
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: assess privileges they would never have had and have an
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  Speaker 1: easier time with her because of a white supremacist institution
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  Speaker 1: that protects and values whiteness and anything that is closely
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  Speaker 1: associated with him. Making Rise April black makes her more
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  Speaker 1: relatable to the Turtles and more so to the audience
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  Speaker 1: and fans, many of whom have been considered as an
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: other by the majority of society. So I thought that
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: was interesting. As I said, this character has gone through
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of changes over time, so bear with me.
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  Speaker 1: April first appeared in the comics in nineteen eighty four
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  Speaker 1: as a computer programmer. Through her work, she realized that
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  Speaker 1: the program she'd helped create was being used by the
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  Speaker 1: company she worked for to drill into bank vaults. I
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: love that. That's such a classic eighties village. Yeah, that's
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  Speaker 1: drill into begging faults. She after discovering this, she's being
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  Speaker 1: chased by robots. She fled into the sewers, where she
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  Speaker 1: meets the turn Turtles and they saved the day, and
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  Speaker 1: they also help her stop the program from going forward.
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  Speaker 1: Looking for a new direction, she pivoted to running an
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  Speaker 1: antique shop that was later destroyed in a battle between
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  Speaker 1: the Turtles and Shredder. I would not be happy. This
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  Speaker 1: whole thing left her with nightmares, and she eventually started
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  Speaker 1: a romantic relationship with Casey Jones, who was a very
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: vengeful vigilante type, and they raised his child from his
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: marriage together. I believe the child's name was Shadow. Just
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: to give you how emo this vibe was happening. The
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: vibe that was happening was then in a wild turn
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: of events, she is captured by her old boss and
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  Speaker 1: injected with nanobots. But then the Turtles inject her with
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: their form of nanobots. But the whole thing left her sterile,
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  Speaker 1: and then she became a vigilante. But it gets wilder.
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  Speaker 1: Samantha this time traveler shared that April is just a
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  Speaker 1: drawing that came to life thanks to a magic crystal.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: Her father somehow jumped the shark in a way that
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: I didn't think could jump the shark For a thing
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: about teenage mutant ninja turtles, I.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Know, I'm very not what I remember at Also continue.
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  Speaker 1: This is from the comics. I think most of us
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: are familiar with the TV show.
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  Speaker 3: I know, the cartoon, yes, and then the movie like
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: this Still Eyes is a part of this situation.
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  Speaker 1: So this was news to me as well, Samantha. I
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: was reading this jaw drops, yes, but okay, Magic Crystal
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  Speaker 1: brought this drawing to life. Her father drew her before
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: he had his non drawing daughter, but he used pin
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: instead of pencil, which meant that she stuck around. I
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: guess like if it'd been in pencil, she could have
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  Speaker 1: been erased. Anyway, it was all so overwhelming. She moved
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: to Alaska for a while to cope with things, and
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: then she came back to New York City. So that's
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  Speaker 1: kind of the early comic. That was her first debut. Now,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: when April debuted in the nineteen eighty seven animated series,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: things were different. She was a twenty eight year old,
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  Speaker 1: persistent news reporter in New York City who had her
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  Speaker 1: own apartment by the way, willing to take some risks
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  Speaker 1: to get the story. She's a very low slane type,
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  Speaker 1: right right, I know, yes, not the drawing that came
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  Speaker 1: to life thanks to Magic Crystal. Okay. The audience is
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  Speaker 1: introduced to her before the Turtles, and she is covering
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  Speaker 1: a spate of violent crimes in New York and ends
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  Speaker 1: up being chased by a gang into the Sewers, and
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  Speaker 1: she says, this is great. I must really be onto
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: something hot if they're trying to kill me. There, she
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  Speaker 1: encounters the Turtles and initially freaks out, but pretty much
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  Speaker 1: accepts the Turtles and Shrine. It's like, oh okay. From here,
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  Speaker 1: she becomes their human confidant and ally helping them with
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  Speaker 1: their crime fighting and investigation. Since she's human but also
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  Speaker 1: someone determined to get to the truth of things and
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  Speaker 1: to get justice, she often is there a link to
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  Speaker 1: the human world. In the third live action movie, listen,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: if we had all the time in the world, I
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: would go into these live action movies. But in the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: third one, April is somehow trapped in feudal Japan and
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the Turtles have to go back in time to bail
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  Speaker 1: her out. I have to say, I don't remember that.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: I don't remember that. Maybe I didn't watch the third movie.
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  Speaker 3: I feel like I've watched the first two and that.
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  Speaker 2: Was the end.
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  Speaker 1: That might have been enough. I think you too, Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we bailed on the second one. In the two and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: three series, April's look totally changed and it followed. Her
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  Speaker 1: story follows similar plot lines to the comics. She married Casey,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: she learned some basic ninja skills, and in the twenty
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: twenty three CGI film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Turtle Mayhem,
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  Speaker 1: she is a plus sized black girl with glasses who
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  Speaker 1: wants to be a journalist but gets shy cameras are involved,
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  Speaker 1: so she puked publicly and her classmates started calling her
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  Speaker 1: April o'puke. Newer iterations have her as a scientist or
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  Speaker 1: having psychic powers, but the core remains that she is
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  Speaker 1: a curious, intelligent woman who is the human link for
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  Speaker 1: the turtles. And you know, with a lot of these
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  Speaker 1: kind of hero stories, there is that idea of othering.
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  Speaker 1: The turtles feel very other. They can't they feel like
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  Speaker 1: they can't leave the sewers, and she was somebody that
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  Speaker 1: was there for them. She also felt kind of other too,
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  Speaker 1: because she wanted She had all these ideas and these stories,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and she saw this injustice and wanted to do something
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  Speaker 1: about it, but was being ignored. She did, i have
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: to say, often end up being kidnapped.
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  Speaker 2: Like most yes women only in the comics, and yes.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, but she was really loyal to the turtles,
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  Speaker 1: and she protected them, she defended them. I'd say it
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: is a climate episode, as I mentioned, just based on
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: the number of chemicals she was tracking. She was always
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: like that, what's in the sewer?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: What is it? Things in the water? Stuff like that.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: She's the researcher. She's your researcher character, but who isn't
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  Speaker 1: afraid to get into the action.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, let's talk about the turtles themselves.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, they were kind of like the epitome
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  Speaker 3: because they I remember an episode somewhere distinctly where maybe
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  Speaker 3: it was because they did a special for the planet
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  Speaker 3: awareness stuff, but then being like swimming in trash with babies,
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: like that's something that I have memories of.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I'm just saying no. I think I think
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: it's got a lot to say about the environment and pizza.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's delicious. What can we say? What can
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: we say? It's a very successful franchise, Like the movie
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  Speaker 1: that just came out made a ton of money, so
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  Speaker 1: it still is hitting. It was a big one too.
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  Speaker 1: It has a lot of big actors in it. It
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  Speaker 1: was animated. But yeah, so I think we're gonna keep
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  Speaker 1: seeing a lot of this in future. I don't think
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  Speaker 1: it's going away, and I don't think April O'Neil is
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: going away. I do want to mention, depending on which
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: version you're talking about, people have very strong opinions about
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  Speaker 1: her as a character. But I think she's she's got
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: she's got gumption, she does all yes, yeah, m hm,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and I love a yellow jumpsuit. Not many people could
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  Speaker 1: pull it off. Only her, only her. Well listeners. If
• 12:12
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• 12:14
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• 12:17
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• 12:27
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• 12:30
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• 12:33
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