Turning Red, the newest movie from Disney/Pixar, debuted today on Disney+.
So, let’s talk about it.
Turning Red is the story of a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl named Meilin Lee, who’s starting to gain an interest in boys and is a fan of boy band 4-Town. One day, in a frenzy of repressed sexual energy, she draws a bunch of doodles of her being smooched by the cute 17-year-old who works at a convenience store. Her mother, a Tiger Mother if ever there was one, finds it and confronts the boy in public, in front of the school bully, much to Mei’s shame.
The following morning, Mei finds that she’s poofed into a giant red panda, as her mother did before her when she was young, as all the women in her family have done dating back to an ancient ancestor who asked for this blessing to protect her family back in China. The panda comes out during times of big emotions, but Mei finds that she can change back by thinking of her love for her three best friends.
In order to raise money to see the 4-Town concert that none of their parents want them to see, Mei and her friends decide to monetize Mei’s gift, and things go awry.
I enjoyed the film. It was cute, and the metaphor for “turning red” as another way of saying “having your period” is very obvious-- in fact, Mei’s mother thinks that’s what’s wrong at first, and is ready with about 12 different kinds of pads.
Not peak Pixar, IMHO, but though I didn’t think it started off strong, I think I liked it better than other recent Pixars, such as*Luca", Soul, and Onwards.
Also, I don’t know what I expected the climax of the movie to be, but I wouldn’t have guessed that it included a twerk attack against a kaiju.
Also, it is interesting how so many US-released CGI films recently have been panda-ing to the Asian market. Duck Duck Goose, Abominable, Over the Moon, Wish Dragon, Reya and the Last Dragon, this. I have no real complaint, I just wanted to say “panda-ing to the Asian Market”.
CinemaBlend managing editor Sean O’Connell wrote a negative review of the movie that was highly criticized by the Twitter mob, some of whom are calling him racist and calling for his head (or at least his job). CinemaBlend took the review down and apologized for it, but the Wayback Machine saved it.
Liberals are awfully quick to call people racist, aren’t we?
Overall pretty good but yeah not one of the greats.
I’m a little put off by the plays into cultural stereotypes: really? The four brainy hard studying nerd girl friends are of Korean, Indian, Chinese, and Jewish ethnicities?
I like writers telling stories about what they know (specificity ends up making a story more universal) and Asian stories getting more representation (especially in a time period of increased hate crimes against the group). I wish they didn’t tend to so consistently reinforce ancient inscrutable Chinese mystical magic as their premise. At least this wasn’t another magical dragon?
Watching it now and near the end(at “the concert” event).
We like it quite a bit. I wish it was funnier, to be honest. If this movie was as funny as some of Pixar’s best, it would have been a huge hit.
Why did they release this to Disney + instead of theaters?
Racist seems a bit much, but holy hell that review is tone deaf. “This movie might appeal to women and/or Asians, but that seems like a very small audience.” Oof.
Eta: my (teenage) kids couldn’t stop making furry jokes. That the movie had so much “furry” subtext without addressing it is my biggest qualm.
Really? Have you missed the past couple of years?
I’m sure he was even more confident that Encato would be a bust!
I enjoyed the film and also the fact that I could watch a documentary about the creators right there in Disney+ Although I was planning to see it in the theaters, (I can’t remember during which movie I saw a preview for it), having quick access to the documentary right afterwards made seeing it a home better. I often want to know more about a movie after seeing it and I did not have to wait for a car ride home to do so.
There many moments in the film that made me cringe, not because they were bad, but because I could just imagine the embarrassment they would cause. And I could also relate to not wanting to displease your parents, even if you had other thoughts on whatever the matter at hand is. This is even true today where I don’t agree with my parents on certain things, but I just don’t tell that I don’t agree.
I also felt that it was a bit slow to get started, and as I think back on it, maybe it is because of the narration. I feel that even though it is a short way to give back story it can take you out of it because then it is just someone telling you something rather than have you experience it. Once it got going, then it was fine.
On the whole I enjoyed it and may even watch it again.
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The narration wasn’t really back story, even though it seemed like it. It was really laying out the belief Mei had that she was living her own life, when in fact she had no freedom to be herself at all. It was full of her justifying the strict rules she was living under, laying the groundwork for who the villain in the story was.
Which is actually back story. She is telling you about how her life is now, rather than it being shown by actions in the film. Yes, she is expressing her beliefs, but rather than doing so by actions the narration is telling us and that has, in my opinion, a way of taking you out of the story. This is different from when her mother takes the time to explain why Mei became a panda. It is background information, but we learn it at the same time as Mei.
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Yet the same initial narration of the back story, part by Abuela and part in song by Mirabel, works well in Encanto. It just wasn’t done as well this time.
I find it interesting btw that both of these movies not only share the use of representing some very specific ethnicities to make a universal message, but have as a main theme the coming of age woman wanting to make the family matriarch proud, feeling that they are failing, and rebelling against that oppressive expectation while still loving them. With the films both messaging that coming of age women can and must demand that the matriarchs in their lives see them and appreciate them for who they are, not just as extensions of the family traditions. And the controlling matriarch learning to do so.
Luca OTOH still had the matriarch who was the more controlling one but was not primarily bound by trying making his family proud;he was trying to sneak around it. Ariel, Merida too … there was conflict with controlling parents but they both were more explicitly pushing back, not trying so desperately to gain the approval by being dutiful.
Once upon a time the formula was to have parents for some reason absent and/or parent figures be explicitly malicious (evil stepmother, the Dursleys …). Even recently Raya went with a father who accepted who his daughter was but was taken out of the story which forced Raya on her quest without a parent.
Am I reading too much into this?
This movie just gave a whole new generation an excuse to wear raccoon ears and tails in public, and I think that’s hilarious and fantastic.
I really liked the animation. Seems like every Pixar movie the animation moves up a notch.
I also liked the “nerd girls” friend group. Each of the girls was different and weird, and also fiercely loyal.
I enjoyed watching the documentary after the film. It was nice to see who the people were that developed it, and why it came out the way it did. I love getting a peek into the lives of people who are different from me (but the same in some ways too!)
Do we know that her three friends are also brainy hard studying nerd girls?
I enjoyed it quite a bit, although I don’t think it was absolutely peak Pixar. But better than Luka, which I thought was pretty forgettable.
Tyler calls the group of them “dorks”, generally a term used to derisively refer to the nerds.
Miriam is with Mei in an eighth grade algebra class learning about the quadratic formula, an advanced class for eighth grade especially in that era.
The natural after school cover story for their panda activities was mathletes.
When Mei rants after the dodgeball incident about her having been her mother’s perfect little MeiMei with temple duties and grades her friends chime on with violin and tap dancing.
And let’s face it. A nerd would be hanging out with fellow nerds as friends.
Maybe not all hard studying? Maybe one just gifted and didn’t really work hard. But high achieving nerds seems pretty clear.
Hey hey, don’t downplay our readiness to call people sexist! Which I am happy to step up for in the case of that linked review. I don’t think it was maliciously or aggressively sexist, but definitely, as steronz noted, rather tone-deaf:
Sheesh. Female audiences for literally millennia have been expected to be able to identify with male protagonists bonding over their music preferences or expressing their heated lust for female love interests, for example. Nobody declares that the audience for those artworks is “relatively small” because they’re about the experiences of men.
It is LONG past time for male audiences to get over their fragile panicking about being asked to identify with female protagonists (and not just female protagonists playing traditional male-warrior-hero roles, either).