Was Splinter meant to be gay in the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie?

Conspiracy theories abound over claims that Paramount is trying to cover up the fact that a character in the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) film was originally meant to be gay.

It all began with a YouTube movie reviewer who goes by the username Price of Reason. After watching an early screening of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, he expressed displeasure that Paramount tried to make Splinter, a mutant rat voiced by Jackie Chan, gay.

Related:

Netflix’s “Nimona” is the trans allegory this world needs. It almost didn’t get made.

It’s not a subtle metaphor, and that’s what makes it feel so powerful.

“To add insult to injury,” he said, “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.”

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

“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. 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.”

The reviewer’s evidence lies in movie posters released by ParamountUK introducing each character and the actors who play them. Because Scumbug does not speak, the poster introducing the mutant merely stated, “Scumbug as himself,” thus identifying the character with “he” pronouns. A love story between Splinter and Scumbug, then, would be one between two male mutant animals.

THE DELETED POST: pic.twitter.com/VB7G9Du8Ou

— MEAD The 4K💿 Master (Tom Connors) (@ThomasConnorsJr) August 2, 2023

But in the film, released yesterday, Scumbug is referred to with “she” pronouns, and the poster identifying Scumbug as male has been deleted from social media. This has led many to believe that Scumbug was originally supposed to be male but the studio decided to change course and is now trying to cover up the original LGBTQ+ storyline.

In the comments section of his review, Price of Reason wrote, “When I saw an early screening 5 days ago, to the best of my recollection, Scumbug’s gender wasn’t mentioned one way or another. Knowing this character was historically male, after I had left the theater, I looked at Paramount’s official marketing for the movie. Their official movie character poster describes Scumbug as male and this is STILL POSTED on their official social media.”

“I find it hard to believe that a major studio that’s invested 80 million dollars in producing the movie and another 40 million in marketing it, just mistakenly misgenders their characters on official posters. I am also pretty sure that with 120 million dollars on the line, the TMNT posters had to get approval from several top studio executives before releasing the posters.”

He continued to express his belief that the gay relationship “was initially meant to be more ambiguous in the movie itself or it was toned down very recently and perhaps they also inserted a last minute overdub in the movie referring to Scumbug once as ‘she’ in order to close any loophole that would potentially cause any backlash.”

In the wake of all of this, Paramount did ultimately delete the tweet identifying Scumbug using “him.” Then director Jeff Rowe told Slashfilm that it was merely a “marketing mistake.”

“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.”

And yet, as others have pointed out, the poster was left up for over a month and was only deleted after all of these conversations began.

If the theories are true and Paramount did try to walk back its original commitment to representation, its decision could stem from the right-wing’s determination to boycott any company that expresses support for LGBTQ+ people.

Since spring, conservatives have called for boycotts of Bud Light, Target, Lego, North Face, and numerous other brands over Pride products and LGBTQ+-inclusive marketing campaigns.

In May, two far-right commentators expressed that the goal of all this is to make support for the LGBTQ+ community “toxic” to brands. And as brands like Bud Light and Target have caved to conservative demands, they are also being accused of performative allyship.

“The way that Bud Light and Target are reacting to the far right angry at including LGBTQ+ people is EXACTLY why many of us have railed against corporate pride,” journalist and activist Erin Reed tweeted in May. “If your advocacy consists merely of rainbows that disappear at the first gust of fascist wind, it amounts to net harm.”