Like every red-blooded male under thirty I am excited about this new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie that’s coming out. Although, if I’m being honest, my blood is more of a cerise, or dark magenta possibly.
The older I’ve gotten, though, the more conflicted I’ve felt about the Turtles. To my eight-year old self they seemed the happiest, freest guys on Earth. At this point they seem like tragic representations of humanity’s loneliness and isolation more than anything else. Waking up daily in their dark, dank sewer with damp running down the walls. Can you imagine the cold of the sewers of Manhattan in winter? The smell would be relentless. Nothing to eat but the piss-poor dregs of the worst fast-food the city can offer. No future, no past. No prospect of ever getting their hole. Ever. Probably the most isolated intelligent beings on the planet.
So they go out and beat up thugs and break shit to try and silence the wailing emptiness of their lives. They brand themselves superheroes but tow a fine line between petty criminals and reckless vigilantes. The only kindred spirits they find are psychotic, violent Casey Jones and April O’Neil, who uses them to get closer to potential news stories. April, whom they each covet from a distance, never touching, never planning to touch. Quietly lusting from their cold, empty beds while they curse the smooth and featureless groins of their grotesquely deformed bodies.
Heroes in a half-shell!