Assignment 1-3 article analysis

The article titled, “Turtle Power!: How Four Mutant Teenagers Nuked the Entertainment Industry, is aimed at a general audience. This article explains the history of the mutant turtles, referring to the movie and comic book of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. Many people can relate to this article because at some point in their life, they were introduced to the turtles. The article goes on to explain how there are different events in the movie of the turtles that relates to how society sees how the world is around them.
According to the article, the movie takes place at a time when people feared what a nuclear spill would do. The movie makes up a story about how four turtles and a rat in the sewer were exposed to this nuclear waste spill and became strong heroes that defended the villains of New York. This thought takes away from people’s beliefs that nuclear waste or power causes such illnesses as leukemia (Bisges). The article also discusses that because the turtles have been exposed to nuclear waste and it resulted in a positive effect, then countries who have nuclear weapons feel often like the turtles do; powerful.
The article gives descriptions on how the movie relates to teenagers today. It describes how in the movie, there is a group of teens who are thieves and cause havoc on society. This group is drawn in by showing the kids how much fun they can have at the “lair”. The evil side encourages teens to join the group through things that interest teens in the real world; video games, loud music, skateboarding, cigarettes, and girls. The leader of this group also has the teens believing that they are not liked by the “outside world”, which the author of this article compares this to how communist dictators would behave. This type of talk is also what Americans believe to be evil, which relates back to good versus evil in society. The article addresses how good \verses evil is perceived in the movie, the turtles being the good guys and considered to be heroes. Quoting the article, “radioactive waste in the heart of New York to its salvation from an evil force, not the deaths of thousands of citizens”, is a powerful statement comparing how society can relax about their fear as well as view it in a comical view (Bisges).
The article also discusses how the movie of the turtles changed the way people say things, such as toys. Before the turtles, all toys related to heroes were of military background; GI Joe, etc. But the article compares the release of the movie as being a time when people were able to look past the period of war and move on to more interesting characters as heroes. Another part of the article discusses how the language is used from the movie. The language the teenage turtles use is considered to be slang, using phrases such as dude and radical, which appeals to teenagers. According to the article, the movie was directed more to teenagers, but it mentions many different real life situations that people can relate the movie to.
The main idea of the article is to show people how a cartoon movie may have changed how entertainment addresses activities and fears that people may have in our society. It talks about people’s fears of radioactive substances and how other movies played into those fears and maybe created more fears by showing dramatic affects of what these substances could do to humans. According to the article, this is a comical approach that has animals being exposed to these substances and how they got big muscles and became highly intelligent. The article also discusses how since the end of the cold war period, people have been viewing movies, shows, and reading stories about how heroes are military like and before the creation of the turtles, nobody would have ever had any thoughts of how anything else could be considered a hero. The way that the movie has changed the entertainment is showing a good versus evil scenario, adding a little touch of culture to the background (mainly Japanese), and some comical approach of how some feel about police and how they handle crime.
The article seems to be organized; it talks about the first movie and then goes into information about the second movie. It gives a lot of detail about what happens in the movie and scenes that lead of to why the author feels that the actions in the movie relate to events that happen in real life. I think that for the most part the article was on target to sticking to the main idea. There are a few parts that I feel drifted of and maybe they were giving more of a report about the movie, but that helped make the article more readable and keep the reader into the article. The main idea is present as long as you read the title. I do not believe that if you just read the paper you would know they were talking about how the turtles changed entertainment, but more about how it relates to how teenagers behave. The article discusses several different things that would attract teenagers to behave this way; video games etc., which could allow some to take a different view on the article than what the author’s title says the point should be.
One key idea I think that I would take away from this article is that movies are created because of the fears, beliefs, and attractions people have in society. I never looked at the movie “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” as being a film based on good versus evil, heroes, or related it to how it changed the attitude of how Americans felt since the war. This article also reminds me of how nuclear power is important to some countries, and the fears of these substances are blamed in health concerns as well as a fear of devastation from other countries.

Bisges, John. Turtle Power!: How four mutant teenagers nuked the entertainment industry. The Journal of Popular Culture, 41(6), 918-933. doi: 10.111/jpcu2008