Pixar's Turning Red and Learning To Exist With Yourself
& the relatable experience of being a 13-year-old girl
With scenes like a giant, lovable red panda jumping on the rooftops of Toronto, Turning Red, the new Pixar movie, has everybody buzzing excitedly about it– whether it be on social media or otherwise.
Domee Shi, director of Bao, an Oscar-award winning short that brought a dumpling to life, directs this colorful, nostalgic movie. Mei Lee (Rosalie Chiang), Mei Mei, our lovable protagonist, is quirky, creative and confident– very typical attributes of a 13-year-old girl.
The movie explores themes such as complex mother-daughter relationships, the process of dealing with strong, overpowering emotions, and early-adolescent friendships. This movie is different, and unique. The message of the movie is a necessary one– not only for children, but for everybody. Learning to express strong, overpowering emotions in a healthy way that does not cause harm to you and the people around you is a difficult lesson to learn, but embracing these emotions is necessary and, unfortunately, practically unheard of.
In this, I’d like to talk about Mei’s character in specific.
Critics have spoken about Mei’s behavior towards her mother, and how the movie is ‘promoting disobedience to parents’ but… this isn’t the first time Disney has had a movie that features complex relationships with parents. Nemo and Brave are good examples of this.
This could very well be an issue of racism– you could ask yourself: why are there complaints on this movie specifically? Do people want Mei to be presented to us as a respectful, obedient stereotype that badly?
In my opinion, people fail to see Mei’s point of view. The ritual to take out and lock away the red panda is painful and it is to, essentially, rip a piece of Mei’s soul out. I think that warrants disagreement. This can be applied to real life if you link it to an actual problem in today’s society– say, conversion therapy.
Further, critics have complained about how Mei’s depiction was not representative of how actual 13-year-olds act and people on Twitter spoke out about what they were doing at thirteen, generally and under the hashtag #at13. There were stories about embarrassing fanfiction, and yes, 13-year-olds do act like that.
To briefly touch up on Mei’s mother, there is powerful scene at the end that stuck with me. Mei’s mother was a young girl, unsure and scared, and she reveals why she is so afraid of her own red panda, why her relationship with her own mother (Mei’s grandmother) is so strained. She’s unsure and scared, and she doesn’t have all the answers. The mother’s character is reminiscent of Abuela’s character in Encanto– we understand why the character acts the way they do, and we are able to empathize, even if they have done things that we don’t necessarily agree with.
The movie is wonderfully colorful, the music by the movie’s boyband, 4*Town, is memorable and catchy, and the themes are dealt with in an incredible, fresh way. So, yes, I do recommend Turning Red.