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Capt. Turanga Leela
In-universe information
Species	Mutant Human
Gender	Female
Occupation	Captain of the Planet Express spaceship
Relatives	Parents: Turanga Morris and Turanga Munda
Origin	New New York City, New New York

Turanga Leela, known simply as Leela, is a fictional character in the animated television series Futurama, voiced by Katey Sagal. Leela is captain of the Planet Express Ship and is the primary love interest of one of the series' main male protagonists, Philip J. Fry. She is originally believed to be a cyclopean alien, but in "Leela's Homeworld" she discovers that she is actually a sewer mutant. In the episode "The Problem with Popplers" her family name, Turanga was used for the first time. The episode "Less Than Hero" establishes that among Leela and her parents, their family name, "Turanga", is placed before the given name.

Fictional character biography

Originally a career placement officer for new defrostees at a cryogenics lab in the year 2999, Leela quit her job after meeting Philip J. Fry, a defrostee from 1999, and Bender, a high-tech job-deserting girder bending robot. Together they are employed as the crew for Planet Express, an intergalactic delivery business run by Hubert J. Farnsworth. Leela serves as captain of the Planet Express Ship, proving herself to be a skilled officer and often rescuing her less-talented coworkers from peril.

Leela's and Fry's relationship is a major plot line that runs throughout the series. Fry constantly seeks her approval, though she turns him down for dates consistently due to his immaturity, yet she has been quoted as saying that she loves his boyish charm. Of course, there are various moments when she does fall for him even briefly, especially whenever he would risk his life for her. She sees him as a true friend and does not want anything less of him, but it constantly appears as if she is hiding (and denying herself) deeper feelings for him. At the end of the film Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, Leela openly admits to loving Fry, and shows greater attraction to him from the episode "Rebirth" onward. In "The Prisoner of Benda" they have sex, albeit in differing bodies.

Character development

Leela's orphan upbringing and mysterious origins have helped fuel the development of her character over the course of the series. Despite her strong-willed nature, she often feels self-conscious about her distinct appearance, and at one point elects to have surgery to give her the appearance of having two normal-sized eyes, though she later has this reversed. In the episode "A Bicyclops Built For Two", Leela enters an unhappy relationship with Alcazar, a cyclops who convinces her that he and she are the last two members of their extinct race, only to discover that he is a shapeshifting impostor. She meets her parents, Morris and Munda, two sewer-dwelling mutants, for the first time in the episode "Leela's Homeworld". Her parents gave her up to an orphanarium with a note indicating that she was an alien, so that she would have a better life than a typical mutant.

Leela's single eye hampers her depth perception and is sometimes exploited for comic effect, for instance, in the episode The Problem with Popplers it is suggested that she actually is crashing into billboards every time in the opening credits, though it typically does not interfere with her ability to pilot the Planet Express ship (beyond crashing into the odd billboard) or her mastery of martial arts. She is very athletic and in great physical condition, with most males (of any species) unable to match her in physical combat.

Leela has pity sex with the pompous, idiotic captain Zapp Brannigan in the episode "Love's Labours Lost in Space"; according to Groening, the episode marked a turning point in the series, as it showed that the writers could degrade the main heroine and still have viewers like the show. Throughout the series, Brannigan brags about his night with Leela and constantly tries to entice her into dates and romantic encounters, much to her disgust. Leela's romantic mishaps continue throughout the series, even as her friend Fry begins to take a serious interest in her. However, from the film Into the Wild Green Yonder onward, she confesses her love for Fry and begins an openly romantic relationship with him.

A committed environmentalist and lover of animals, Leela defies Brannigan's orders in order to save Nibbler from a collapsing planet and adopts him as a pet; later in the series Nibbler reveals himself to be a member of an ancient race of wise, sophisticated beings known as the Nibblonians. Her environmentalist beliefs resurface again in Into the Wild Green Yonder.

Character production

Creation

Although she is described at the beginning of the series as a one-eyed alien who was abandoned on Earth as a newborn, Futurama creator Matt Groening and executive producer David X. Cohen conceived the idea that Leela would later be revealed to be the child of sewer-dwelling mutants before the series was even pitched to executives. Later in the series it is revealed that her parents had given her up to an orphanage (styled an 'orphanarium') in order to give her a chance at living a normal life on the surface, posing her as an alien due to her lack of distinguishing mutant features. According to Groening, the cyclopean but otherwise comely Leela was intended as a subversion of the physically perfect women usually seen in science fiction.

An early file Groening compiled on Leela lists some of her intended qualities: "strong-willed, opinionated, gentle (when not fighting), gives orders, unlucky in love, loves weapons, loves animals." Katey Sagal describes her as a "tough, strong career girl who just can't get it together in the rest of her life...she's vulnerable and hard at the same time."

Leela's name is a pun on Olivier Messiaen's most famous orchestral work, the Turangalîla Symphony.

Significance of the name

Turanga Leela is named after an Olivier Messiaen symphony by the same name where "Turanga" denotes time, surging ever onward, held back by "Leela", which signifies "play", articulating the flow of time with drama. Together they encompass the compound notions of opposition, creation and destruction, and love. Both words are from the Sanskrit language.

Design

Besides her over-sized eye, Leela's other notable features include her loopy ponytail and relatively large (for a cartoon female) nose. The ponytail was included so that Leela, like the other main characters in Futurama and Groening's cartoon The Simpsons, would be recognizable in silhouette. Groening decided to give Leela a large nose just for fun, but the animators initially resisted the idea, believing that it was unnatural. Animator Gregg Vanzo notes that the artists also had initial difficulties drawing facial expressions and moods for Leela because of her single eye. Leela's usual clothing consists of a low-cut white tank top, leggings and boots. Although Groening intended for Leela to be portrayed as attractive and sexy, he later had to instruct the animators to de-emphasize some of her bodily features, saying that "the tendency among the animators was to draw this bizarrely exaggerated female form." What Leela calls "this thing I wear on my wrist" (referred to in another episode as a "Wrist Lojackimator") is capable of minor plot conveniences as needed.

Casting

Katey Sagal provides the voice of Leela.

Katey Sagal provides the voice of Leela. Sagal immediately wanted the role when she was asked to audition for Groening. She is one of the few primarily live-action actors in the Futurama cast. In an interview, Sagal said: "This is acting, but a different type of acting. You're not using your whole tool here — your body and physicality — but it's challenging that way. The animation work is really unusual. I don't have the same experience doing it as the people I work with." Sagal notes that she found out years after accepting the part that someone else had previously been cast as Leela but the creators had decided to replace her. She also notes that she doesn't change Leela's voice much from her own natural voice but she does try to make it a little higher pitched.