3. Turning Red, dir. Domee Shi
In March 2022 two movies came out with very similar premises. They were both about conservative Chinese mothers forced to confront the non-traditional life choices of their daughters but finding acceptance with own inner weirdness. One of those was Turning Red, our subject for today, and the other was some... silly movie about bagels or googly eyes or something. I can't really remember the title of that one, probably won't be important. Certainly will not be circling back to that thing at all.
I also do need to comment on Disney's brilliant strategy of releasing their best movies only to streaming. Turning Red was a Disney+ exclusive, and Prey was dumped to Hulu because of a previous deal with HBO Max. I'm glad both of these movies found their audiences, but as somebody who likes theaters and still thinks that's best way to watch anything, it's frustrating. Turning Red was the third Pixar movie in a row to never see the inside of a cineplex, certainly a dramatic reversal of fortune for the storied award-winning studio. Their previous movie, Luca was a fun movie about kids being kids and finding themselves in the world and causing trouble. Turning Red is the same kind of movie, only with middle school girls in Toronto. This is one of most joyful movies of the year. It should have been bigger.
Speaking of kids causing trouble, Turning Red had a bit of a backlash this year. All that was one of those stark reminders that many grown adults in the world refuse to believe that children actually are people that make choices. We're in the midst of one of the largest political and media assaults on a group of people I have ever experienced in my life, an all-out war against trans youths. This bigotry is so barbaric that none of us will be able to explain it to future generations when they rightfully wonder what the Hell we were thinking. Turning Red need not be a metaphor for anything, just the text was too taboo for some. And all Mei (Rosalie Chiang) wants to do in Turning Red is sometimes be a big fluffy red panda sometimes while her mom, Ming (Sandra Oh) forbids it. How dare a movie say kids should be themselves and find identities outside her family unit?
How dare a movie acknowledge that menstruation... exists? I'm sorry I'm so being so negative so far. I really like this movie and everything it stands for. Honestly most of the adults who dislike it seem like they've yet to grow up themselves in many ways.
Now admittedly, Turning Red is severe catnip for me specifically. Red pandas rule. Director Domee Shi has spoken directly about how her inspirations for Turning Red were Sailor Moon and Ranma 1/2. You can see the anime influence in the expressiveness of the faces, which do these huge cartoon reactions. Mei and her friends are all color-coordinated like the Sailor Scouts and often do dramatic sentai poses. Turning Red is set in 2002, right when millennials, such as yours truly, would have been discovering these exact anime show. That includes the director who was born in 1989 and like Mei, grew up in Toronto. It is pretty weird to be old enough now that my middle school can days goldmines for nostalgia. But I'm not complaining. The movie's climax references Mamoru Hosoda's The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, right before becoming a kaiju movie. It is hitting all my weaknesses at once, how do I fight back?
Also, Turning Red proves that more movies need a Double Jump.
I also really loved Turning Red's cast. Mei's friend group all have their own unique silhouettes and energies. Abby (Hyein Park) is this loud angry short king, while Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) is more goth-y reserved, yet all while they show emotion differently, it all reads clearly. Who wouldn't love seeing their emotions of seeing their favorite boy band in concert? I love that Mei has a heroic gang of super aunts in her extended family that can save the day. I love that Turning Red feels authentic to a kind of cultural experience that is not just a generic Disney plot copy-pasted but now with soup dumplings. All this pressure to be perfect, that crushing fear even Ming feels when her own mother gets involved, that feels very specific to a real time and place and culture.
Most of all, I love that Turning Red is a movie that dares imagine that there can be growth and acceptance. An increasingly bold statement in 2022, when people kept choosing ignorance as a weapon instead.
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