12/28/2022 0 Comments Tmnt secret of the oozeHanne Sonquist, a member of the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s governing board, agreed with Levin’s findings at the time. Speaking with the Associated Press, Levin claimed that “the Turtles encourage violent and anti-social behavior among young children and have a disturbing effect on learning, behavior and play.” Yet a concurrent survey of teachers and a later interview with Judith Hoag, the actress who originated the April O’Neil role in the live-action series, both suggest that Golden Harvest and New Line would have had a hard time ignoring the criticisms directed at the first film.Īccording a 1991 survey co-authored by Diane Levin, then an associate professor of education at Wheelock College, the worries on display in the previous year’s Times article weren’t wholly unfounded given young kids’ reactions to the film. Neither the studio financing the films nor the filmmakers involved ever admitted on record that the reaction to the first film’s violence led to the second film’s altered tone. Hence why, in the mind of Alvidrez, other caregivers and parents who witnessed similar behaviors at home, the characters’ ninja-fighting ways weren’t the best thing for young children to watch and emulate.Ĭounterarguments about correlation and causation notwithstanding, two pertinent pieces of evidence reveal how disconcerting these parental complaints were. How is a 3-year-old supposed to know this is a joke?” How are kids supposed to understand the (difference between the) costumed and the real people? In the movie, they have adults going down into the manhole. “These turtles are interacting with live people. So, when these kids watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was rated PG, their minds were blown. Or as Lieberman put it: They’re still developing, especially when they’re as young as three. This is something any sane adult should know, but as Lieberman and other specialists interviewed by the Times argued, children aren’t always able to distinguish fact from reality. Of course four walking, talking and fighting turtles do not and cannot exist in reality. “It gets other kids more riled up and play turns more aggressive.” In other words, the violent behaviors of children that caregivers, doctors and parents were witnessing were due to their “reaction” to the fantasy characters. “Kids become more violent in reaction to the Turtles,” she told the Times. They were very much into fantasy play.”Ĭlinicians like psychiatrist-to-the-stars Carole Lieberman, whose expertise came up more recently in discussions of video game violence, agreed with the daycare bans at the time. The older kids would do karate on the younger ones. They would play Turtles and imitate them. In an interview, Mary Alvidrez, a West Los Angeles child-care provider, said: “My decision was based on the children’s actions, the way they were playing. “No more Turtle T-shirts or toys no more words like ‘cowabunga (a Turtle favorite).’ Turtles are fine at home, but not at Mary’s.” “We’re saying goodbye to the Turtles,” she recently announced to her 12 charges. Or as child-care provider Mary Alvidrez put it: Kids were becoming so infatuated with - and eager to imitate - the animated TV series and the live-action movie that daycare centers were banning or limiting all things Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In the summer of 1990, months after the first film was released in theaters, the Los Angeles Times published an article about concerned doctors and parents who didn’t think young children should be exposed to the turtles. All of the second movie’s major action sequences feature hand-to-hand combat, but even these battles take the form of extended conversations rife with one-liners and the occasional escape plan. As for Michelangelo’s nunchucks, they generally stay at his side - except when he replaces them with sausage links in the opening scene for comedic effect. Sure enough, Leonardo’s katanas and Raphael’s sais only leave their slings to serve as threatening decorations. And because the filmmakers wanted children, their target demographic, to fill seats again for the sequel, they toned down Secret of the Ooze. That’s, from all evidence, because parents and others reacted so strongly to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles‘ violence the previous year. Except for Donatello, who brandishes a traditional staff called a bō, none of the turtles use their designated weapons against their opponents. If you celebrated the 25th anniversary of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze this week by watching it and its predecessor back-to-back, you probably noticed a startling discrepancy of the sort adults see whenever they watch movies or cartoons from their childhood.
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