People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced Wednesday that they are waging a campaign against Nickelodeon’s reboot of the super-popular children’s show, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” because the network refuses to assure PETA that the cartoon mutant turtles will eat only vegan pizza.
In a letter to Nickelodeon issued Wednesday, PETA charges that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way,” apparently not realizing that the Ninja Turtles are, themselves, animals, and begs the network to showcase New York City’s growing number of dairy-free pizza parlors.
“Modern kids are embracing vegan food, so why shouldn’t modern Ninja Turtles?” PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange asks in the statement. “Vegan pizza is popular, and it’s healthier and far kinder to animals than old-fashioned dairy cheese pizza. PETA thinks that’s something the ‘Heroes in a Half Shell’ would support.”
Since they’re cartoon characters, they probably don’t have an opinion on the subject, though, in fairness to the Turtles, this reboot is designed to be slightly “woke-er” than previous iterations, incorporating minority characters and featuring less violent ninja moves. It’s also targeted at a much younger audience, however, who probably won’t appreciate a partnership with PETA, which turns out slaughter videos at such an alarming rate, it’s almost as if they enjoy them.
Of course, this isn’t the first time PETA has taken fully fictitious characters to task for meat and dairy consumption. PETA “waged war” on Pokemon for its “virtual animal cruelty,” they attacked Super Mario brothers for featuring a fur-wearing Tanooki Mario character, and spoke out against the “sexualization of cat girls” in some Japanese anime.