Ok so like. Film adaptations of books are not universally bad things on principle. I’m definitely not saying that it’s impossible to produce a good one. But at the same time, film and the written word are different mediums that aren’t necessarily suited to telling stories in the same way.
For example, in a book, especially a highly character driven one, you get to directly see and read a lot of a character’s thoughts. And this has a huge impact on your experience of the story. And sure, you can convey this in a somewhat similar way with a voice over in a film adaptation, but depending on the scene being adapted, this doesn’t always work great or feel natural.
And that’s not a bad thing. It just means that it doesn’t translate to film well because film is a different medium that tells stories in a different way. And there certainly are books that translate well to film. But to be honest? A lot don’t. Especially not in a way that even comes close to touching the original that it is based off of. And that’s fine. Plenty of amazing movies and TV shows wouldn’t translate well into books and most people wouldn’t really want or expect them to.
So no. I really don’t think that “achieving” a film adaptation should be seen as a goal the way it seems to be for a lot of books and I think that seeing this as a goal is often doing a huge disservice to the original work. I think that books that are well served by film adaptations are the exception, not the rule, and that most of the drive to produce film adaptations of popular books is driven by the urge to squeeze every last possible bit of profit out of every single creative idea ever rather than like. I don’t know. Actual appreciation for the source material and a genuine wish to understand it in a different light.
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Thinking about the Don Suave scene and what it means in terms of LGBTQ+ representation because my brain does nothing if not torment me with random topics to ramble about on the regular.
Anyway, I just wanted to ramble about why I like the scene but to get it out of the way - the scene can very easily be interpreted in so many different ways, and all of them are valid. I personally see it as Leo having at least some attraction to a man. And the following is an explanation of my own interpretation and thoughts on it and what it means especially for Leo’s portrayal in the grand scheme of things.
Long-winded interpretation under the cut!
Now, to start with, it’s important to me that in the scene Leo looks at Don Suave in the very beginning and then for the entirety of the rest of the time the man is on screen, Leo’s eyes are closed. Yet, in the end, he is still visibly enamored with Don Suave, happily cuddling up to him as he’s being carried away.
You can very easily interpret this as Leo being spellbound and that’s honestly super valid and I believe he likely was at least somewhat in the beginning, but considering how fast he looked away and how he never looked again, I personally think it makes more sense to read it as Leo just finding the man attractive, at least somewhat. (For the record, I personally headcanon Rise Leo as bisexual with a heavy preference for men, but I want to be blunt when I say that any interpretation is valid. Literally any. Ace, pan, gay, bi, none of the above or a mixture of something new literally all of it is more than okay and fair. Hell you could even interpret this entire scene as more romantic attraction than physical and it would still work. Anything goes!! Don’t bother people, guys, really.)
The main reason I take this scene to be at the very least LGBTQ+ adjacent isn’t just because of how it’s portrayed, but because of who Leonardo is. Not in terms of Rise of the TMNT, but in terms of the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™️ franchise.
Leo’s a character who, while changing with each iteration, has still at his core been around for decades upon decades as “the blue one”. One fourth of the team. He’s the one most are going to look at as the Leader, and oftentimes he is the one closest to having the title of Main Character. Not to say the others aren’t just as important, but Leo’s presence in the A plots of basically all TMNT media is often something very main character-esque.
And that’s very, very important to note. Here we have a Main Character of a prolific and decades long-running franchise distributed by a children’s television network. You can play around with his and his brothers’ characters all you like, but there is always going to be challenges to dodge around, especially since this was still in 2018-2019.
For example, you can play around with their designs so long as they’re color coded turtles, but their sexualities? Now that’s tricky.
“But what about Hypno and Warren?” Not main characters and also they’re Rise originals. They have a lot more room to play around with than a character like Leo does. But even talking about main characters in the franchise, you could arguably have an easier time playing around with Donnie or Mikey’s sexualities than Leo or even Raph, as (unfortunately) the former two tend to get more B plots, so they’d likely have had a little more leeway (still not a lot though.)
So, where does this leave us?
It leaves us in a place where outright stating and/or showing undeniable proof of Leo’s attraction to men is very, very difficult. So, workarounds!
Workarounds like the entire Don Suave situation.
To be honest, as left up to interpretation and lowkey and deniable as it is, this whole scene means a lot to me because of who Leo is as a character. It’s just nice when we get so see even the bare bones of representation with characters that have been such a large part of pop culture for decades, y’know? Even if more would be so much nicer, this is better than I thought we’d ever get for these boys.
And, again, literally nothing I’ve said is the only way to interpret it, I’m more than happy when people interpret media on their own honestly, it’s just something I’ve been thinking of lately and I was wondering if others felt the same way.
Whatever you think when you interpret this scene or Rise Leo as a whole, I just thought this would be interesting to think about, even if it was ramble-y, haha.
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My dad was a fire captain for calfire. I’m a nurse.
Started watching 911 for the bisexual rep that’s cropped up recently, as I’ve watched much worse shows for a lot less. Was really excited to watch a dumb procedural with a compelling bi storyline since I feel like the experience of figuring your shit out/exploring your sexuality older is a distinctly bisexual experience.
My experience of actually watching the show has been a little surprising though. I went into it mostly just stoked for a queer storyline that I could see myself reflected in. But what’s sticking with me more is the way I’m sort of understanding my father.
It took me until I started working as a nurse to really be able to understand even a fraction of some of the stuff I was only peripherally aware of as a kid. The way he resisted to the point of rage when I was insisting on wanting a motorcycle. The way he would angrily tell me how he spent too many nights scraping people off of the freeway for him to ever condone me buying something like that.
When I finally started working in medicine I began to understand some of his trauma, and the way it made him angry. I’ve learned what it’s like not to be able to save people and to watch them die, sometimes horrifically.
I didn’t go into this show expecting any real insights. I just wanted a fun romp with a queer reward. But weirdly the standout character has been Bobby for me. I see a lot of my father in him. The trauma and the fear and the still putting the turnouts back on and going out there under the influence of some drive that’s 1 part naturally-born hero, 1 martyr, and 1 part adrenaline junkie. And the mark that these kinds of jobs leave on the people who do them.
I grew up hearing stories about horrific motorcycle accidents. About how my father wasn’t there to help my mother when I was a newborn, because he was in San Francisco responding to the devastation of Loma Prieta. About how after one particularly nasty stretch, his brand new turnouts were completely black from blood. About how I didn’t recognize him and hid behind my mother’s leg when he came home after months on the line one fire season.
And this shit did take a toll. I’ve seen a lot of his anger, his inability to cry or mourn even when his father died, his tendency to fly into fire captain mode over even really mild emergencies. He couldn’t even finish the movie Seabiscuit because he couldn’t stomach the kid dying in the beginning of the film. Watching similar struggles of Bobby’s character, the PTSD, and the situations that contribute to it, is making me appreciate the life he lead in a way that not even being a nurse can.
Anyway I don’t expect anyone is particularly interested in this. I’m in season 2, and just a little surprised by the way this show is hitting me and just sorta needed to reflect on it.
If anyone is also in emergency/medical (or has a loved one who is) and has had similar experiences watching this show I’d be interested in hearing from you.
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