TMNT: Mutant Mayhem - Splinter's Romance & Controversy Explained
"They turned Splinter gay" sounds like a joke someone might post on Twitter making fun of right-wing hysteria over woke blockbusters, but the new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" movie actually brought on just such a controversy itself, albeit without any intentional effort to turn the Turtles' humanoid rat sensei, Splinter (voiced by Jackie Chan in the movie), gay.
The controversy began with a character named Scumbug, a mutant in the movie who communicates through somewhat Tasmanian Devil-like growls and grunts, and as such has no credited voice actor. The character shares a love-interest dynamic with Splinter, and that combined with a character poster with the heading "Scumbug as Himself" led viewers to make the leap and assume that Splinter and Scumbug were in a same-sex mutant romance.
But in an interview with /Film, "Mutant Mayhem" director Jeff Rowe says Scumbug was never intended to be a male character, and the whole thing was one big mistake by the marketing department that made Rowe and the rest of the crew "furious."
Director Jeff Rowe says it was all a mistake
That's right — they misgendered Scumbug. And director Jeff Rowe wasn't very happy about it. "That was a marketing mistake, and we were furious about it," the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" director explained. "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 so, a particularly silly internet controversy churned up by possibly even sillier people who would get upset if the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' mentor turned out to be gay was born, despite the fact that it all came from a basic marketing mix-up. And fans eager to see Splinter's first queer romance in "TMNT: Mutant Mayhem" will just have to wait for the sequel.
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" is in theaters now.
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