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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Exposed
Attempts to explain why the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are so popular, argues that they send children the wrong message about violence, and recommends that parents monitor their children's viewing habits
77 pages, Paperback
First published March 25, 1991
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19 people want to read
About the author
Joan Hake Robie
12 books1 followerJoan Hake Robie (1931 - 2011) was an American author who made a living of writing and co-writing books about the perceived dangers of whatever she, a fundamentalist Christian, considered "un-Christian" art, entertainment, or lifestyle choices.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 4, 2019
An alarmist piece of propaganda. Joan would have you believe that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are the sole cause of childhood tantrums, familial strife, societal corruption, wars and plagues.
Unintentionally hilarious and grossly misinformed. It would appear as though her knowledge of the TMNT were second or 3rd hand. Such as claiming Splinter is the turtles god.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she has companion books that are focused on other pop culture icons such as Harry Potter
Unintentionally hilarious and grossly misinformed. It would appear as though her knowledge of the TMNT were second or 3rd hand. Such as claiming Splinter is the turtles god.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she has companion books that are focused on other pop culture icons such as Harry Potter
March 31, 2023
When I wrote my review of STARLIGHT IN TWO MILLION: A NEO-SCIENTIFIC NOVELLA by Amy Catanzano, I said that I was giving it a 1-star rating with the heart of a 3-star rating. Consider this a 1-star rating with the heart of a 2-star rating. There’s a certain aspect of Joan Hake Robie’s TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES EXPOSED! which I can sympathize with—the idea that violent entertainment for children is not great for them. That makes this hit a little differently than the last book I read from this author, HALLOWEEN AND SATANISM, which was uniformly idiotic. However, whatever slight merit there may be in the argument here is poorly developed by Robie, who is a terrible writer, and I was left wondering why the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) are especially egregious to her.
The book begins with a preface in which Robie disclaims any attempt to capitalize off of the TMNT brand, even though that’s obviously what she’s doing, in a garbled sentence which seemingly quotes from a cease and desist letter she received: “Whether by title of this book, or artist rendition of the Turtles, or others, or the name Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or whatsoever, this book, or its cover, or its contents, is in no way intended to ‘cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive’ either the public, or the creators, copyright holders, patent holders, etc., of the registered trademark or logo of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” It reads like Facebook copypasta—you know the kind—where your right-wing aunt announces in all caps that her status updates are copyrighted.
The preface also sets the stage for what’s to come, and based on my previous experience reading her writing, seems perfectly consistent with her style generally. That is to say, it reads like she has a minimum-word requirement she’s trying desperately to meet (that might have actually been the case—the book is a thin 75 pages, and some of those have only drawings of TMNT characters on them). She spends part of the preface identifying ways in which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles differ from regular turtles, because obviously it’s important to distinguish the two lest the reader get confused. She identifies some of the differences as “they are giant-sized, they are green in color, they talk, and they are skilled in the Ninja Arts.” They are green in color! Unlike regular turtles, you see.
As the book proper begins, she adds further description of the Ninja Turtles which is… bizarre. She says that they have “a passion for pizza and banter borrowed from black and chicano cultures.” She describes Splinter as “the most distasteful father figure, an oversized rodent with matted fur, bleary eyes, and a Zen-like aura.” Incidentally, Robie seems to have a special dislike of Splinter. Later in the book she describes him as a god-like figure to the Turtles, although… in what way exactly? It’s not really explained. That doesn’t stop Robie from pleading tremulously, “Should a giant-sized rat become like God? Isn’t this blasphemy?” Part of Robie’s problem with TMNT seems to stem particularly from the word ninja. Even though there are sections of the book which are heavily footnoted (another departure from HALLOWEEN AND SATANISM), there are no footnotes when she claims that a ninja is said to be a warrior, an invisible assassin, and a wizard. She then adds, “To be a wizard is to be able to ‘stop the world’ and see with the ‘eyes of God’.” Said by who? What are you quoting??
Other issues Robie has with TMNT beyond the violence include its tendency to rely on stereotypes: “[I]n the series there are stereotypes such as Asian eyes, a giant-sized rat who is a god-like figure, the giant-sized turtles themselves, and an over-endowed female.” I can’t believe TMNT peddles in the old giant-sized rat who is a god-like figure stereotype—so offensive and unoriginal! Robie does bring up concerns about April O’Neil a number of times, both because of her sex appeal and the fact that she is essentially the only female character in the television show. Robie writes that TMNT excludes half the world’s population by its “virtual absence of women”. It’s a legitimate concern, though I question her sincerity in bringing it up—I suspect she’s just looking for any reason to object to TMNT to justify writing this “critical analysis”—although I again find myself wondering what makes this so damning to the author, as TMNT is certainly not the first television show to have only one token female character.
Additionally, she argues that Shredder being described as having a “brilliant criminal mind” suggests that crime pays, and decries the fact that the TMNT movie released in 1990 takes place largely at night. Children are prone to be afraid of the dark, you see. Not only that, “many evil deeds are done in darkness.” She quotes John 3:19 here, the first explicit Bible reference appearing in Chapter 7 of the book. (There are 11 chapters even though it’s 75 pages long!) Once the Bible comes out, the floodgates are open. Although she hadn’t mentioned it earlier, suddenly a major objection she has to TMNT is the fact that “[t]he thought of looking to the higher power and laws of God never enter [sic] the picture.” It’s easy to imagine Robie singing the praises of bleary-eyed oversized rats if they just mentioned Jesus a bit more often.
Parents in their “naivetee” [sic] encourage their children to watch the television show and listen to the rock album associated with the TMNT movie, never paying attention to what it is their children are absorbing. “While most parents can’t fathom their appeal,” Robie writes in my favorite moment of the book, “most kids under fourteen love the Turtles’ cool lingo, slithery look and jovial personalities. They also flip for the way the agile critters bound about despite their clunky shells.” Yes sir, kids absolutely flip their gourds for slithery looks. She writes that though TMNT appeals primarily to boys, it also reaches girls too, perhaps because “the martial arts, based on skill rather than brute strength, have always held some fascination for girls.” Tsk tsk, Joan, leaning into that old girls love martial arts stereotype. Haven’t we progressed as a society beyond this type of thinking?? Although Robie admits that children recognize the origin of the Ninja Turtles (becoming mutated by radioactive ooze) is “fanciful business”, she states that they also “seem to think that such occurrences aren’t particularly surprising in a world of spaceships and atomic energy.” I’m just imagining a six-year old shaking their head wearily at the TMNT origin story and saying, “Yep, sounds about right these days."
There is a chapter titled: “An ‘Innocent’ Fairy Tale?” On subsequent pages, the chapter’s title is written at the top of the page except the question mark is missing so it simply reads “An ‘Innocent’ Fairy Tale”, as though it provides the answer to the question posed. Robie continues her confused diatribe against the Turtles, calling them “latchkey kids with a vengence [sic]. The father in charge serves up a portion of Zen-like advice that sounds like Rambo macho.” This reads like complete gibberish. Let me just add one more thing here, on the rock album referenced above. She complains that children’s music has taken a “drastic turn” since the mid-1980s and that singers are no longer folksy artists like Burl Ives. Instead, children’s music has the “eletronic [sic] rythms [sic], heavy drumbeat, and special effects of contemporary rock music. The new mode is superhuman in its dizzying dance routines and no longer homey.”
As I’ve intimated, though, the majority of Robie’s rejection of TMNT has to do with its emphasis on violence as a solution to life’s problems. “While the names of the [T]urtles remind one of artists from the Renaissance, their behavior does not,” she states matter-of-factly. Again, I’m poking fun but I do sympathize with this line of thinking. She claims that according to the Nielson [sic] Index, the average American child (as of 1991) witnesses 18,000 television murders before graduating high school. “What type of adult will a child become, who lives on a diet of violence?” she asks. It’s tempting now 30+ years in the future to say, well, I watched TMNT as a child and I’m not violent, therefore these fears are overblown. Perhaps most children weren’t turned into blood-crazed madmen (speaking of blood-crazed madmen, read the last chapter of HALLOWEEN AND SATANISM—Robie is fucking obsessed with bathing in Jesus’ blood), nevertheless I can’t imagine it’s controversial to say that observing violence on-screen has the overall effect of desensitizing us to violence in real life. Robie claims there is an “extreme amount of violence” in the movie, and worries that for children the boundary between reality and fantasy is often unclear. In one of her weirder asides, Robie claims, “The comic strip frame by virtue of its stillness on the page offers a flatness and compression. These often don’t translate well into three dimensions with the result being that a ‘live’ movie seems somehow less real than the animated version.” I guess she’s trying to argue that the “real” Turtles in the movie, committing violence, make real-life violence appear more cartoonish in children’s eyes? I’m stretching to make sense of it, though, because it’s truly nonsense.
She goes on to point out that the focus of the TMNT toys is on fighting; that’s what children are supposed to do with them: re-enact scenes of violence. Incidentally, the commercial nature of the television show is a separate complaint she has about it, which is again actually a reasonable objection. She surprised me by acknowledging that the commercialization is the natural effect of President Reagan deregulating the broadcast industry, which led to toys and television shows being created as a package. She states that Reagan was protecting the rights of toy manufacturers to profit off of children under the guise of “free speech”, not the rights of children and their parents. Given the god-like status Reagan has attained among right-wingers (Should a giant-sized rat become like God? Isn’t this blasphemy?), I was kind of impressed that she was willing to criticize this action. As I was saying, though, she quotes a bevy of teachers and daycare workers who claim that children are karate chopping each other and pretending to play with swords, sais, and nunchuks as a result of watching the TV show. Despite my inclination to agree with the concern about violence in children’s entertainment, I have to again wonder what it is about TMNT that particularly gets Robie’s goat aside from the opportunity to capitalize off their popularity? Little boys in her romanticized Burl Ives heyday didn’t have nunchuks and sais—they had fake guns and bow-and-arrows as they played “Cowboys and Indians”, the predominant children’s entertainment of the Boomer age. My impression is that Robie believes the violence of TMNT is a new phenomenon. That self-delusion or intellectual dishonesty tarnishes what might otherwise be a somewhat compelling (although, again, extremely badly written) message.
The most revealing moment comes in Chapter 8, when Robie writes, “The overwhelming majority of parents and colleagues questioned could not find anything definitely traumatic about the contents of the comic books or television show.” It’s odd she included this statement because it really undercuts the whole theme of the book that TMNT are somehow egregiously toxic. She even admits that there is not much blatant gore in the series, which similarly undercuts her claims about the “extreme violence”. Because she is allergic to developing an idea, she flails around for other reasons to hate on the Turtles, including the idea that some parents do not see their children saying “cowabunga” and “awesome” as innocent fun. Are you serious? Another objection is that the television show sells a “polarized ‘us vs. them’ message [with] no shades of gray.” Okay, yes, sure, probably—but what television show doesn’t? In fact, I’m pretty sure in her chapter defining fairy tales (literally an “According to experts, a fairy tale is defined as…” chapter), she speaks favorably about the tendency toward simple good/bad binaries, referencing the wolf of Little Red Riding Hood and the wicked stepmother of Cinderella. The idea that stories are stronger with nuance is legitimate, but to suggest that TMNT is somehow uniquely wrong for having “good guys” and “bad guys” is an absurd bit of dishonesty.
I bought this book because I thought it would be hilarious and it definitely met my expectations there. It caused me to laugh out loud reading it and that quote about the Turtles’ “slithery looks” still makes me chuckle thinking about it now. In many ways, it’s a stupid, stupid book. One chapter spends three pages just listing TMNT toys by name, apparently in an attempt to show their “bitter satire and violence”. There’s a tiny grain of something worthwhile here in concerns about violence as entertainment, female representation in cinema, and the shamefulness of commercialization. Robie is not a writer capable of tackling these topics with any skill. In the end, this book is not as bad as the previous book I read by this author, but let’s not kid ourselves: that’s not saying much.
The book begins with a preface in which Robie disclaims any attempt to capitalize off of the TMNT brand, even though that’s obviously what she’s doing, in a garbled sentence which seemingly quotes from a cease and desist letter she received: “Whether by title of this book, or artist rendition of the Turtles, or others, or the name Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or whatsoever, this book, or its cover, or its contents, is in no way intended to ‘cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive’ either the public, or the creators, copyright holders, patent holders, etc., of the registered trademark or logo of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” It reads like Facebook copypasta—you know the kind—where your right-wing aunt announces in all caps that her status updates are copyrighted.
The preface also sets the stage for what’s to come, and based on my previous experience reading her writing, seems perfectly consistent with her style generally. That is to say, it reads like she has a minimum-word requirement she’s trying desperately to meet (that might have actually been the case—the book is a thin 75 pages, and some of those have only drawings of TMNT characters on them). She spends part of the preface identifying ways in which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles differ from regular turtles, because obviously it’s important to distinguish the two lest the reader get confused. She identifies some of the differences as “they are giant-sized, they are green in color, they talk, and they are skilled in the Ninja Arts.” They are green in color! Unlike regular turtles, you see.
As the book proper begins, she adds further description of the Ninja Turtles which is… bizarre. She says that they have “a passion for pizza and banter borrowed from black and chicano cultures.” She describes Splinter as “the most distasteful father figure, an oversized rodent with matted fur, bleary eyes, and a Zen-like aura.” Incidentally, Robie seems to have a special dislike of Splinter. Later in the book she describes him as a god-like figure to the Turtles, although… in what way exactly? It’s not really explained. That doesn’t stop Robie from pleading tremulously, “Should a giant-sized rat become like God? Isn’t this blasphemy?” Part of Robie’s problem with TMNT seems to stem particularly from the word ninja. Even though there are sections of the book which are heavily footnoted (another departure from HALLOWEEN AND SATANISM), there are no footnotes when she claims that a ninja is said to be a warrior, an invisible assassin, and a wizard. She then adds, “To be a wizard is to be able to ‘stop the world’ and see with the ‘eyes of God’.” Said by who? What are you quoting??
Other issues Robie has with TMNT beyond the violence include its tendency to rely on stereotypes: “[I]n the series there are stereotypes such as Asian eyes, a giant-sized rat who is a god-like figure, the giant-sized turtles themselves, and an over-endowed female.” I can’t believe TMNT peddles in the old giant-sized rat who is a god-like figure stereotype—so offensive and unoriginal! Robie does bring up concerns about April O’Neil a number of times, both because of her sex appeal and the fact that she is essentially the only female character in the television show. Robie writes that TMNT excludes half the world’s population by its “virtual absence of women”. It’s a legitimate concern, though I question her sincerity in bringing it up—I suspect she’s just looking for any reason to object to TMNT to justify writing this “critical analysis”—although I again find myself wondering what makes this so damning to the author, as TMNT is certainly not the first television show to have only one token female character.
Additionally, she argues that Shredder being described as having a “brilliant criminal mind” suggests that crime pays, and decries the fact that the TMNT movie released in 1990 takes place largely at night. Children are prone to be afraid of the dark, you see. Not only that, “many evil deeds are done in darkness.” She quotes John 3:19 here, the first explicit Bible reference appearing in Chapter 7 of the book. (There are 11 chapters even though it’s 75 pages long!) Once the Bible comes out, the floodgates are open. Although she hadn’t mentioned it earlier, suddenly a major objection she has to TMNT is the fact that “[t]he thought of looking to the higher power and laws of God never enter [sic] the picture.” It’s easy to imagine Robie singing the praises of bleary-eyed oversized rats if they just mentioned Jesus a bit more often.
Parents in their “naivetee” [sic] encourage their children to watch the television show and listen to the rock album associated with the TMNT movie, never paying attention to what it is their children are absorbing. “While most parents can’t fathom their appeal,” Robie writes in my favorite moment of the book, “most kids under fourteen love the Turtles’ cool lingo, slithery look and jovial personalities. They also flip for the way the agile critters bound about despite their clunky shells.” Yes sir, kids absolutely flip their gourds for slithery looks. She writes that though TMNT appeals primarily to boys, it also reaches girls too, perhaps because “the martial arts, based on skill rather than brute strength, have always held some fascination for girls.” Tsk tsk, Joan, leaning into that old girls love martial arts stereotype. Haven’t we progressed as a society beyond this type of thinking?? Although Robie admits that children recognize the origin of the Ninja Turtles (becoming mutated by radioactive ooze) is “fanciful business”, she states that they also “seem to think that such occurrences aren’t particularly surprising in a world of spaceships and atomic energy.” I’m just imagining a six-year old shaking their head wearily at the TMNT origin story and saying, “Yep, sounds about right these days."
There is a chapter titled: “An ‘Innocent’ Fairy Tale?” On subsequent pages, the chapter’s title is written at the top of the page except the question mark is missing so it simply reads “An ‘Innocent’ Fairy Tale”, as though it provides the answer to the question posed. Robie continues her confused diatribe against the Turtles, calling them “latchkey kids with a vengence [sic]. The father in charge serves up a portion of Zen-like advice that sounds like Rambo macho.” This reads like complete gibberish. Let me just add one more thing here, on the rock album referenced above. She complains that children’s music has taken a “drastic turn” since the mid-1980s and that singers are no longer folksy artists like Burl Ives. Instead, children’s music has the “eletronic [sic] rythms [sic], heavy drumbeat, and special effects of contemporary rock music. The new mode is superhuman in its dizzying dance routines and no longer homey.”
As I’ve intimated, though, the majority of Robie’s rejection of TMNT has to do with its emphasis on violence as a solution to life’s problems. “While the names of the [T]urtles remind one of artists from the Renaissance, their behavior does not,” she states matter-of-factly. Again, I’m poking fun but I do sympathize with this line of thinking. She claims that according to the Nielson [sic] Index, the average American child (as of 1991) witnesses 18,000 television murders before graduating high school. “What type of adult will a child become, who lives on a diet of violence?” she asks. It’s tempting now 30+ years in the future to say, well, I watched TMNT as a child and I’m not violent, therefore these fears are overblown. Perhaps most children weren’t turned into blood-crazed madmen (speaking of blood-crazed madmen, read the last chapter of HALLOWEEN AND SATANISM—Robie is fucking obsessed with bathing in Jesus’ blood), nevertheless I can’t imagine it’s controversial to say that observing violence on-screen has the overall effect of desensitizing us to violence in real life. Robie claims there is an “extreme amount of violence” in the movie, and worries that for children the boundary between reality and fantasy is often unclear. In one of her weirder asides, Robie claims, “The comic strip frame by virtue of its stillness on the page offers a flatness and compression. These often don’t translate well into three dimensions with the result being that a ‘live’ movie seems somehow less real than the animated version.” I guess she’s trying to argue that the “real” Turtles in the movie, committing violence, make real-life violence appear more cartoonish in children’s eyes? I’m stretching to make sense of it, though, because it’s truly nonsense.
She goes on to point out that the focus of the TMNT toys is on fighting; that’s what children are supposed to do with them: re-enact scenes of violence. Incidentally, the commercial nature of the television show is a separate complaint she has about it, which is again actually a reasonable objection. She surprised me by acknowledging that the commercialization is the natural effect of President Reagan deregulating the broadcast industry, which led to toys and television shows being created as a package. She states that Reagan was protecting the rights of toy manufacturers to profit off of children under the guise of “free speech”, not the rights of children and their parents. Given the god-like status Reagan has attained among right-wingers (Should a giant-sized rat become like God? Isn’t this blasphemy?), I was kind of impressed that she was willing to criticize this action. As I was saying, though, she quotes a bevy of teachers and daycare workers who claim that children are karate chopping each other and pretending to play with swords, sais, and nunchuks as a result of watching the TV show. Despite my inclination to agree with the concern about violence in children’s entertainment, I have to again wonder what it is about TMNT that particularly gets Robie’s goat aside from the opportunity to capitalize off their popularity? Little boys in her romanticized Burl Ives heyday didn’t have nunchuks and sais—they had fake guns and bow-and-arrows as they played “Cowboys and Indians”, the predominant children’s entertainment of the Boomer age. My impression is that Robie believes the violence of TMNT is a new phenomenon. That self-delusion or intellectual dishonesty tarnishes what might otherwise be a somewhat compelling (although, again, extremely badly written) message.
The most revealing moment comes in Chapter 8, when Robie writes, “The overwhelming majority of parents and colleagues questioned could not find anything definitely traumatic about the contents of the comic books or television show.” It’s odd she included this statement because it really undercuts the whole theme of the book that TMNT are somehow egregiously toxic. She even admits that there is not much blatant gore in the series, which similarly undercuts her claims about the “extreme violence”. Because she is allergic to developing an idea, she flails around for other reasons to hate on the Turtles, including the idea that some parents do not see their children saying “cowabunga” and “awesome” as innocent fun. Are you serious? Another objection is that the television show sells a “polarized ‘us vs. them’ message [with] no shades of gray.” Okay, yes, sure, probably—but what television show doesn’t? In fact, I’m pretty sure in her chapter defining fairy tales (literally an “According to experts, a fairy tale is defined as…” chapter), she speaks favorably about the tendency toward simple good/bad binaries, referencing the wolf of Little Red Riding Hood and the wicked stepmother of Cinderella. The idea that stories are stronger with nuance is legitimate, but to suggest that TMNT is somehow uniquely wrong for having “good guys” and “bad guys” is an absurd bit of dishonesty.
I bought this book because I thought it would be hilarious and it definitely met my expectations there. It caused me to laugh out loud reading it and that quote about the Turtles’ “slithery looks” still makes me chuckle thinking about it now. In many ways, it’s a stupid, stupid book. One chapter spends three pages just listing TMNT toys by name, apparently in an attempt to show their “bitter satire and violence”. There’s a tiny grain of something worthwhile here in concerns about violence as entertainment, female representation in cinema, and the shamefulness of commercialization. Robie is not a writer capable of tackling these topics with any skill. In the end, this book is not as bad as the previous book I read by this author, but let’s not kid ourselves: that’s not saying much.
September 15, 2012
Hilariously bad alarmist book about how Ninja Turtles will corrupt your children. Dated as hell, but a fun artifact from when TMNT were all the rage.
July 2, 2017
What an alarmist, ridiculous piece of garbage. The author was clearly clutching her pearls extra tight while writing this pamphlet
December 31, 2022
Poor perverted Joan Hake Robie.
If you have five dollars, they would be better spent on a cup of coffee.
The title of this book brings up visions of Joan sneaking up when the turtles have their little shells off and using a Polaroid. In reality, she thinks of them as Disciples of a god that she could not appreciate.
I am not a turtle fan however Freud could have a field day with Joan.
If you have five dollars, they would be better spent on a cup of coffee.
The title of this book brings up visions of Joan sneaking up when the turtles have their little shells off and using a Polaroid. In reality, she thinks of them as Disciples of a god that she could not appreciate.
I am not a turtle fan however Freud could have a field day with Joan.
July 2, 2022
Has anyone else mentioned that his book is alarmist? Clock alarms, Security alarms Fire alarms.. she hates them all
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews