Last Played By Megan Fox, TMNT Just Race Swapped April O’Neil And Made Her Less Fit
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem will feature an April O'Neil who is Black and appears more heavy-set than Megan Fox.
The upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem reboot will feature a version of April O’Neil that is presented as a Black woman, causing some fans of the franchise to be upset by her appearance. The image above from the new trailer highlights New York City journalist/turtle liaison April, who notably differs from the last feature film in which she was portrayed by sex symbol Megan Fox. As one could expect, people on Twitter have very strong opinions on both sides of the immediate culture war.
First things first, the last live-action appearance of April O’Neil was in 2016’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, in which she was portrayed by Transformers actress Megan Fox. As one might expect, given that the most recent TMNT movie is CGI-animated rather than live-action, April O’Neil looks different from Megan Fox. There appear to be two main issues that some people online have with this: this version of the frequently adapted character is Black and she appears to have a larger body type than Megan Fox.
April O’Neil has been portrayed in numerous different ways across media as varied as live-action, traditional cartoons, CGI animation, and various comic book styles. Megan Fox was the most recent live-action actress to portray the character, after Judith Hoag in the first 1990 movie and Paige Turco in its 1991 sequel. Notably, all three live-action actresses so far have been White.
However, as many TMNT fans are already pointing out, April O’Neil was not originally portrayed as resembling the White Megan Fox, but primarily as a woman of color with tightly curled hair. Some commentators online are claiming that the character has been “blackwashed” (which is to say, a character who was originally envisioned as a specific race being portrayed as Black), while others have pointed out that TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman has stated that the character was based on his ex-girlfriend April Fisher, who was herself a mixed woman of color.
Unsurprisingly, Twitter has become bogged down with various people claiming that this portrayal of April O’Neil is offensive blackwashing and a sign that the franchise about mutated turtles fighting with ancient Japanese weapons has succumbed to some kind of leftist cultural pressure. Many are also seizing upon the idea that because April was not originally portrayed as explicitly Black (again, the inspiration was a person of mixed race), that means that she was intended to be a White woman with a perm.
It is the nature of adaptation that characters will be changed in various ways from portrayal to portrayal, from Megan Fox to a flame-haired cartoon in a yellow jumpsuit. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is not even the first project in which April O’Neil has been portrayed as Black, making this particular flare-up of discussion on the subject a little odd. However, people will always have very strong opinions about their childhood favorites and how they look in their minds.
