Practically everyone at this point has probably heard of Pixar’s Turning Red which was released on Disney+ in March, as well as the discourse surrounding the film. Since the first trailer, people online have been on a tirade against the film claiming it to be “ugly” or “cringe.” I personally got a massive headache from slamming my skull into a wall watching old crusty cis dudes on Twitter claim the main group of thirteen-year-olds were “unrealistic.” Then came articles and reviews like ones from CinemaBlend, which were pulled off the internet after making the legendarily narrow-minded statement that “By rooting Turning Red very specifically in the Asian community of Toronto, the film legitimately feels like it was made for Domee Shi’s friends and immediate family members.’ Eugh.
With all this drama leading up to the release, I decided I definitely needed to give this movie a watch and walk in with an open mind.
I haven’t cried watching a movie in years, but I got very close during this one.
Some context is needed. I came out as trans two years ago at age eighteen. I lived through most of my pre-teen and teenage years presenting as a girl, yet not identifying as one deep down. I’ve always hated media that portrays trans people’s individual journeys with our gender identities as ones motivated solely by pain and misery. On the other hand, I would be a liar to claim that puberty was easy. The age of thirteen came with the typically rough awkwardness and the resulting growing pains that snowballed by a million due to a hatred for my own body. The minute I escaped that stage of life I mostly decided to keep all of those memories of my experiences as a pre-teen deep in my brain to ferment, avoiding remembering all of the dysphoria during those years. However, watching the main character Meilin “Mei” Lee going through the ups and downs of puberty herself with the help of her friends and family helped me reminisce on a version of myself that I haven’t touched with a ten-foot pole for a good two years. Turning Red is the first movie I’ve seen that has ever spoken to thirteen-year-old Ashton in a compassionate and honest way.
So many aspects of this movie really encapsulated that coming-of-age experience, with audience members like me greatly appreciating the attention to every detail. The magazine that Mei pulls out with 4-Town on the cover looks exactly like the type of Tiger Beat magazines my mother would buy me every single week, so I could stare at pictures of Taylor Swift without knowing at the time that my manner of staring wasn’t a particularly heterosexual kind. One particular scene where Mei draws her crush in her notebook has resulted in masses of people on Twitter sharing their own art from when they were around that age to showcase the similarities. While I’m not down with sharing my cringe doodles from when I was thirteen at the moment, I can confirm that my old Sonic and Five Nights at Freddy’s fan art was drawn eerily similar to Mei’s drawings as well. The discussions surrounding menstruation and period products reminded me of when I first started dealing with periods at that age. I often struggled to tuck away and hide my pads while at school, since my classmates would freak out at the sight of what I now recognize as a completely natural thing. I’m thankful movies like Turning Red finally exist, where representation around periods doesn’t portray it as gross or scary and instead opens a dialogue about menstruation being normalized.
One of the most significant out of all of these details is the realistic yet heartfelt portrayal of Mei’s mother, Ming Lee. I was also a kid who was raised by a helicopter mom, so many of Ming’s actions towards her daughter directly mirrored the relationship my mother and I shared at thirteen. It’s been extremely aggravating to say the least to see a review by someone who very obviously grew up without experiencing this type of parenting calling Ming’s character “unrealistic” and “overly cartoonish”. A lot of Ming’s supposedly “unrealistic and cartoonish” actions would’ve been, like, an ordinary Tuesday in my house growing up. The frequent and surprise visits to school, followed by yelling at staff and students if someone got in the way. The hatred of any and all of their child’s friends because none of them are good enough for their perfect little angel. The dismissal of their child’s current music tastes as “trashy.” The perception of their child’s personality slowly growing apart from who their child actually is as a person, causing family tension. The resulting panic and confusion of how to go about forming your own identity as a growing young adult when so much of your life has centered around the influence and approval of your parents. I couldn’t help but see my own journey with my gender identity in some of these fights between Mei and Ming. Coming out as trans to my family resulted in us facing the fact that I wasn’t exactly the perfect image of the daughter they had expected me to grow into. Everything about my gender identity until age eighteen wasn’t my own, instead being that of my parents and what I was “supposed” to be as AFAB. When I rebelled against that image they had of me, there were fights. There was yelling and hurt feelings, and even though there weren’t giant red pandas the size of a stadium, the final act of the movie still resonated with me and mirrored my own experiences with coming out. The conflict between Ming and Mei was extremely well-written and realistic, almost a little too real at times. With this movie, I truly felt seen in so many different ways that diving into each one would take hours. It makes sense to hear that director Domee Shi wrote a lot of the events in this movie based on her own personal experiences growing up, given how accurate so many details are.
I’m really thankful I gave this movie a try. It’s been a while since I’ve had an experience this personally moving while watching a film. And no, you don’t have to like this movie. I understand not every movie is going to fall within every single person’s own tastes. However, many of the complaints I’ve seen have come from people who simply do not understand the many different perspectives within this movie. Instead of emphasizing with the story anyway, they use this disconnect under the guise of a valid complaint to bash the movie and its writing. People have pointed out how many of the negative reviews of this movie from old cishet white dudes have been less “reviews” and more in-depth rants on how watching movies that aren’t catered specifically to them makes them uncomfortable.
I recommend everyone at least give this movie a shot and see for yourself what you think. You might come out of it pleasantly surprised like I did. Be careful and considerate when discussing and critiquing this film, or any film for that matter, and make sure to ask yourself “Is this an actual problem with the movie or do I just not get it?.”