A new April O’Neil action figure from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem film depicts April O’Neil as white and has led to speculation that the character will be depicted as white in markets outside the United States.
This speculation comes from Midnight’s Edge host Tom Connors who was given images of two separate Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Ooze Cruisin’ Figures.
One of the toy sets depicts April O’Neil as the race replaced black character as seen in advertisements, trailers, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem film.
However, in the other set, O’Neil is depicted as white.
As for why the one image features a white April O’Neil, Connors detailed that the source who provided him with the images informed him it could be sold in “another market like China.”
Connors specifically wrote, “The person who sent the image speculated that the ‘variant’ may be for another market like China.”
He later clarified that the white April O’Neil being sold to foreign markets was simply “speculative.”
When YouTuber Heel vs Babyface posited, “America love China money long time!!!!!!”, Connors responded, “just speculative at this point but the lipstick is sus as f**k making you think (much like the poster/gay snafu) this was not an actual ‘mistake.'”
Connors did attempt to get a comment from Playmates Toys after he was provided another example of April being depicted as white next to one of her being depicted as black by Twitter user Monkey_Jeebus.
Connors shared the photo of the two Ooze Cruisin’ boxes and then questioned, “any comment? Playmates Toys?”
Reacting to Connors’ original revelation, Kneon from Clownfish TV speculated Playmates Toys might have messed up on distributing a number of the toys and shipped what could be Chinese or foreign market toys to the domestic United States market.
He said, “If this is the case if there are rare white April’s out there, oh my God, this is going to cause a whole ‘nother set of issues. If this is legitimate and if it makes it way stateside, and this looks like U.S. packaging to me, if it makes its way stateside expect lots of howling on Twitter.”
As for whether O’Neil might be changed from black to white in a Chinese or foreign release of the actual film, Kneon and his co-host Geeky Sparkles dismissed that idea.
Geeky Sparkles questioned, “Why would you have a different version of her?” Kneon responded, “Hey, we know they do all kinds of crazy stuff to appeal to China and this is an animated movie. Animated movies usually do pretty well in China. However, there are certain things that they don’t like in China. Unfortunately, we’ve seen a lot of cases, in the case of Disney especially, where they’ve tried to minimize African American actors, black actors in productions, on posters. ‘We’ve got to hide them, shrink them.'”
Geeky Sparkles then questioned again, “How are they going to change it for the whole movie, though?” Kneon retorted, “Palette swap. I don’t think they’re going to that would have leaked by now.”
She continued questioning, “Then why release the toy over there at all? Or even release the toy over there?”
The action figure set is available at Target in the United States as well as Kmart in Australia. It’s retailing for $54.99 at Target and $85.00 at Kmart.
What do you make of this speculation that a white April O’Neil could be featured in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem?