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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Something I haven’t seen Stede get enough credit for is that he is fully capable of having been a passive aggressive ass to the “upper crust” from the start he may not have always had access to their deepest darkest secrets but he knows EXACTLY how to not just throw their hypocrisy in their face but do it while getting them to join in on their cannibalism and ASK for it to happen to begin with…he wanted to be accepted for himself without having to be a dick but he always knew how to play their games…and play them better than anyone else…
BUT more importantly even with this victory over the very people who have dismissed him he doesn’t actually let it go to his head he revels in it at the moment but he doesn’t see that as his ultimate win…HE apologizes to Ed for the night being a bit of a bust because this night wasn’t for him he stepped up because they ruined it for Ed he would have loved to get to play with Ed but rather than mope around Ed while he’s laughing it up and dancing around he goes and mopes by himself because while he’s sad that seemingly another person finds him lacking and that Ed is being a bit of an ass he ultimately still wants Ed to enjoy himself
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You know what? Fuck it. I hope Sokka was single and had no kids because everyone talks about that like it’s some depressing, sad thing when there’s legit no canon evidence he wanted any of this(probably because he’s a teenager but whatever) or had any of this in TLOK. Sokka living large being the cool uncle, having fun. He wouldn’t have even been alone, he was in SWT as the chief with katara, his nephews and niece, and he probably trained Tonraq to be chief, he clearly was an important figure in Republic City. I bet Sokka had an amazing, fulfilling life, even if it was cut shorter than most of gaang like I wish people would not talk about Sokka not having a mentioned spouse or kids as some tragedy when neither of those things are a mandate or necessity for happiness.
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