Is the New April O'Neil Redhead Erasure? A Ginger Weighs In

By Nate Parker | Film | March 13, 2023 |

By Nate Parker | Film | March 13, 2023 |

Did you watch the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trailer? You should; it looks fun! It has a modern, dynamic animation style that fits the characters. The voice acting sounds good so far. The director, James Rowe, worked on The Mitchells vs. the Machines and Gravity Falls. Producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s library speaks for itself. Writer Brendan O’Brien is responsible for Neighbors and (yeesh) Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. We won’t know how the film is until August 11, but it’s a solid pedigree. So why does the trailer have so many people up in arms? You’ll never guess.

I’m kidding. It’s the same reason as always. It’s the same reason Kevin Smith’s Masters of the Universe series wadded their undies. Some people — by which I mean guys, because it’s always guys — are upset that cartoon character April O’Neil is no longer a skinny white redhead. They are outraged at the “blackwashing” of this fictional character with whom they’d like to have sex. Disregarding the fact that she is not and never was a real person, Twitter and pop culture’s usual suspects are complaining that, in their opinions, she’s no longer hot or ginger.

Far be it from me to kink-shame a lonely adult man who can only be aroused by female representation so two-dimensional they’re cartoon characters. That’s a job for their therapists. That said, I do have an opinion on Hollywood’s erasure of sexy redheaded characters. After all, I am one. A redhead, I mean; I’ll leave the “sexy” determination up to the extremely nearsighted. I was a copper-colored ginger from the day I was born right up until stress and age bleached my beard paler than my skin. My grandfather was a ginger. My kids are ginger. As a child, I endured the jokes about Strawberry Shortcake, carrot tops, and my lack of soul. Historically speaking, we’ve taken a lot of abuse.

So I feel not only entitled but obligated to speak up about this controversy. How am I, a melanin-challenged, middle-aged, redheaded animation enthusiast, supposed to feel about this new April O’Neil? Do I feel excluded? Ostracized? Do I worry about our erasure as a people, or that April’s new ethnicity will decrease our sexual appeal to the rest of the globe?

No, because I’m not a giant f*cking dork.

Look, I understand many people crushed on cartoon characters before they ever did on a real person. Let he who didn’t feel funny when ThunderCats’ Cheetara or G.I. Joe’s Baroness strode across the screen cast the first stone. And it’s not just dudes; there’s a reason Disney’s Robin Hood was the first love of many young women. Their current incarnation on Velma aside, Scooby-Doo characters have inspired sexual awakenings since 1969. At a certain point, most of us accept these characters aren’t real.

Redheads make up about 2% of the white population. It does occur in other ethnicities, but less often. April does appear to have red hair, which makes the selective outrage less about her hair color and more about her body type and ethnicity, no matter how much the detractors wish to deny it. They rarely come out and say it with the bluntness of Cosmic Book above, a site well known for its animosity toward any changes in the racial makeup of fictional people, at least so long as they go from white to Black. Instead, they have to pretend it’s something else.

And one more character is added to the Ginger Genocide list. https://t.co/aJfWQeO6d7 pic.twitter.com/IyUsLMu0wZ

— Bizlet (@bizlet7) March 7, 2023

Ah yes, the tragic Ginger Genocide. So many of my imaginary brothers and sisters murdered by the scourge of modern multiculturalism. The irony is, of course, that most of the outrage around these characters comes from the detractors’ historic fetishization of redheads. They drooled over imaginary redheaded women because they’re unique enough to stand out while still familiar — ie white — enough to be non-threatening. Ginger characters, particularly female ones, were a way to denote outsider status among the otherwise monochromatically Caucasian characters of early comic book and serialized adventures. It was often used to indicate instability or untrustworthiness in women - the Scarlet Witch being a prime example. In males it was a sign of an awkward or generally useless character - think Superman’s Jimmy Olsen or X-Men’s Rusty Collins. We appeared in comics much more than in real life. The reason we’ve been replaced by people of color in fiction is because there were far too many of us to begin with.

No real ginger cares. Why should we? We’re awesome. And despite our low numbers, Hollywood is full of genuine, smoking-hot redheads. Why would I care about losing fictional April O’Neil when we’ve got a real Kate Mara, Julianne Moore, Isla Fisher, Amy Adams, John C. McGinley, Kevin McKidd, Domhnall Gleeson, etc.? That’s not even counting those who aren’t genetic gingers but should be, like Emma Stone and Brittany Snow. We are legion.

Gingers aren’t going anywhere. Our recessive MC1R gene lurks in your genetic code, waiting to burst into vivid color when you make a baby with the right partner. You can’t stop us. We’ll be here, making dorks horny and stealing pieces of your soul, for generations to come.