This coming-of-age story has the internet by storm due to its wit, truth, and progressive nature. As the firstPixarfilm solely directed by a woman,Domee Shi,Turning Redhas brought attention to new issues while staying in target with the younger generation.
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Following a young girl, Mei Lin, the audience looks into the reality of what it is like for young girls to grow up. While there are many stories that feel that puberty can be too big of a topic to handle,Turning Reddid not shy away from the challenge. But what exactly makes this movie have such an impactful message? These are just a few things that should inspire anyone to watch this amazing film.
4Reality Of Puberty
Puberty is usually a topic that most avoid. It’s complicated, and hormones are hard to handle, let alone predict. Everyone goes through their spurts at different times, and experience various effects. However,Turning Redshowcased this natural occurrence in a brilliant way. Using the red panda, Mei Lin can present her emotions in a whole new, magical light.
But that isn’t the only reality of puberty that is presented. A topic that usually causes whispers and shushing in society is finally spoken about in the movie: periods. During the initial shifting where Mei Lin runs into the bathroom to hide her form, her mother asks, “Has the red peony blossomed?”. While her mother is referencing the red panda appearance, most women who hear this think about their monthly. Another scene is when one of the Collin’s teen daughters catches sight of the huge stack of maxi-pads, exclaiming, “That’s a LOT of pads” in response.
And if that wasn’t enough to showcase the reality of what girls deal with when puberty hits, Shi created Mei Lin to be obsessed over boybands and have a sexy sketchbook.And with the help of Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas, boyband 4*Town was created, causing Mei Lin to experience her first obsession.
3Honest Emotions
Puberty comes with emotions, too many to be honest. And most of those emotions are hard to handle and decipher through. But at least there is not the added stress of worrying if we will turn into a red panda due to these emotions unlike Mei Lin. When feeling these intense, confusing emotions, she shifts, thus creating a whole new level of emotions.
While this was created to showcase the shift in puberty, it also helps tweens everywhere know they are not alone. It can feel like the end of the world when going through this stage, but this open and honest conversation about emotions is not only entertaining for those who’ve been through these stages, but helpful for those in it, or about ready to dive into it.Turning Rednot only highlights these but normalizes the messiness that comes with these emotions.
2Trauma Of Being Perfect
Whether being the only child or having multiple siblings, some kids grow up in a halo of light around them, like they are the perfect child. And with that comes the stress of trying to keep this perfection in place. Mei Lin is no different. When she uses her sketchbook to daydream about her boyband love, or thenot at allcute boy that works at the Daisy Mart, her mother finds it and is extremely disproving. The mother then showcases her artwork to the boy at the Mart, practically traumatizing Mei Lin.
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Due to this scene,Mei Lin believes that she’s at fault, that she’s disgusting and untrusting, and apologizes profusely to her mother’s photo. While this is certainly not true, fans watching could probably recount a time when something happened to them that was as embarrassing as this during their puberty.
Mei’s overbearing mother, while having good intentions obviously, only adds to the stress of what Mei is going through. When Mei first turns into her panda, she berates herself, and could possibly have learned this from how her mother treats her, training Mei to talk to herself the same way.
1Diversity
Domee Shi is Pixar’s the first Chinese Canadian woman to direct a feature film and wanted to showcase Toronto and all its diversity. Shi talks about her friends that ‘looked like’ her and wanted to represent that in the movie since not everyone is so lucky. Due to her growing up in Toronto, Shi was met with a lot of diversity. “From Chinatown, to Kensington Market, to the Greater Toronto Area,” she never felt out of placefor being Chinese.
Not only was Shi able to create such an diverse cast with amazing representation,Pixar created a system to make sure there was more diversity in the background shots. While the background is usually whitewashed, Pixar tried to make sure there was more POC in the background to match Toronto’s diversity. Fans can always see a variety of POC in the background in the movie.
