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Does Splinter Kiss A Male Cockroach In The New Ninja Turtles Movie?
Conspiracies surround the marketing for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Is Paramount covering up the fact that Splinter is gay in the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie? That’s certainly the conspiracy theory flying across the internet.
This all started when YouTube movie reviewer Price of Reason went to an early screening of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem — which premiered on Aug. 2 — and was angered that the movie portrayed the mutant rat voiced by Jackie Chan as gay.
In the film, a romance blossoms between Splinter and a mutant cockroach named Scumbag. “To add insult to injury,” he said in the video, “at the end of the movie Splinter is seen making out with Scumbug and then professing his love for Scumbug who he seemingly enters into a relationship with.”
You may be asking yourself how he came to this conclusion. Well, it’s all based on a series of movie posters released by ParamountUK that introduced audiences to each character. For the poster featuring Scumbag the text read, “Scumbug as himself,” meaning that Splinter was having a make-out sesh with a male cockroach.
“Now that in and of itself is already out of character for Splinter as we’ve known him for years, as it just doesn’t seem like something he would do,” he said. “But then later after researching the character posters for this movie and also consulting with Tom from Midnight’s Edge, I’ve come to the conclusion that they’ve decided to present Splinter in this movie as an LGBT character, a creative decision that I disagree with since he’s never been presented that way in the 40 years that this franchise has existed.”
Splinter is not canonically queer in any of the various movies, TV shows, or comics, in fact, little attention is ever paid to the talking rat’s romantic life. And despite the pronouns on the poster which imply Splinter has a gay romance in the film, Scumbag is portrayed as a female cockroach throughout TMNT: Mutant Mayhem.
The misleading poster has since been deleted from social media, leading some to believe that Paramount may have originally intended the romance between Splinter and Scumbag to be queer, but have since walked it back because of the backlash.
PARAMOUNT IS TRYING TO COVER UP THE EVIDENCE THAT THEY TRIED TO MAKE SPLINTER GAY! https://t.co/aJ8LrDscgw
— MEAD The 4K💿 Master (Tom Connors) (@ThomasConnorsJr) August 2, 2023
In a recent interview with Slashfilm, director Jeff Rowe confirmed that the pronoun on the poster was incorrect. “We were furious about it,” Rowe said. “They put that out, I don’t know who did that or how that happened, but we were immediately like, ‘That’s not true. Don’t put that in the world,’ and that will now be on the internet forever. But that was never the intention. That was never the character. We always imagined her to be a female cockroach. And that one poster was a slip up.”
However, the poster was left up for over a month and the studio only changed it once a homophobic YouTuber started complaining. In light of the backlash and boycotts other companies have faced recently for including LGBTQ+ representation, it wouldn’t surprise us if a major studio changed their mind about having a gay romance in their money-making franchise.
But regardless of the original plan, it seems ridiculous that right-wing homophobes are up in arms about the sexuality of a cartoon rat and cockroach.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is currently in theaters.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
