Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Archetypes of a Generation

PART I

In my childhood, there were many action/adventure teams on television for imaginative young lads like myself to insert themselves into. There were the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, the Rugrats and countless others. But the one that had the biggest impact on me (and, in some way, everyone born between 1980 and 1995) was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT). Even as a 5 year-old, I was able to easily identify each turtle with a unique personality type and see how each was an important part of the whole.


Cut to 15 years later. I was a budding pretentious intellectual obsessing over foreign film and Hunter S. Thompson, I stumbled across the works of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. One of the most interesting ideas first posited by Jung and later used in Campbell's theory of the monomyth is that of archetypes. Archetypes are mental images inherited from the earliest human ancestors, and supposed to be present in the collective unconscious.

Carl Jung (left), founder of Analytical Psychology and all-around influential thinker.
Joseph Campbell (right),  American mythologist known for his work in comparative mythology and religion.

In mythology and religion, each character can be seen as an archetype representing an aspect of the individual. The "hero" depicts our aspirational self, the qualities that give us potential for greatness; the "villain" embodies the negative aspects of ourselves we are ashamed of or frightened by; and so on. This concept forms the foundations of everything from screenwriting and narrative structure to dream interpretation and the language of the subconscious. So, naturally, I thought of the Turtles.


You see, for as long as I can remember I've had this... gift: Within minutes of meeting someone in my approximate age-range, I can accurately determine which Ninja Turtle was their childhood favorite. It seems to me that each of the heroes in a half-shell represent a different personality type,  each with their own skill sets and quirks that are essential to the ideal group dynamic. TMNT (specifically in the live-action films and animated series of the late '80s to mid-'90s) divided the wide range of human temperaments and dispositions into four distinct character archetypes: Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael.

(left to right) Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, and Raphael

As a result, anyone who grew up watching the Turtles immediately latched onto the one that rung truest to our own subconscious perspective. Without really knowing or understanding it, our preference of testudine kung-fu warrior was actually our way of identifying which type of person we were and would be through adulthood. It didn't make us who we are, but it provided a rudimentary outline of the four subjective approaches to life and its challenges. Somewhere in our tiny developing minds, we each recognized ourselves reflected in one of them and learned to appreciate its unique strengths. More importantly we learned how our subjective approach, while totally radical in it's own awesome way dude, is only capable of true greatness when working in conjunction with the other three.


The subliminal force that draws us to one Turtle over another is part of the same basic, inborn element influencing the ways in which we choose to carry ourselves in the outside world and interact with others. It all leads back to the building blocks of our individual personality. I propose that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are the Jungian archetypes of my cultural generation; the allegorical heroes in the mythology of the Information Age.




Tomorrow in Part II: Prepare to delve even deeper into an already well over-thought subject as we examine the core characteristics of each TMNT member and the personality types they represent!