Disney Store Official Turning Red Deluxe Figurine Playset, 9 Pc., Moulded Character Toy Figures for Kids, Includes Mei Lee and Friends

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For all that we measure out recognition in pangs, the experience of seeing some fragment of yourself onscreen is usually assumed to be a positive one. But the rush of familiarity brought on by Domee Shi’s 2018 short, Bao, made me feel bad in ways I struggled to articulate. I welled up from almost the first frame: The eight-minute film, about a Chinese Canadian empty nester channeling her feelings about her estranged son into an anthropomorphic dumpling, is astonishingly efficient at extracting tears. But I resented as much as admired that effectiveness. It’s hard not to begrudge something that shows you what an easy mark you are when it comes to diasporic pain points so classic as to also be clichés — the controlling first-generation mother, the rebellious Westernized kid, the guilt, the sacrifice, the disappointment. The story is set in the early 2000s, and it follows a 13-year-old girl named Meilin Lee, voiced by Rosalie Chiang, who lives in Toronto's Chinatown. Mei is an obedient overachiever, a straight-A student who spends her free time helping her parents run a temple built to honor their Chinese ancestors.

And that is the genius of “Turning Red,” a radical, brazenly hormonal PG movie that instantly fills a huge void in the lives of awkward, novel female teens who might just be starting to crawl out of their childhood cocoons with a disharmony of mystifying awakenings and sexual feelings. That achievement is perhaps no surprise coming from Pixar, a studio that can always be trusted for a generous dose of reflective, grown-up nostalgia as well as a good old-fashioned coming-of-age saga. After all, weren’t some of the best characters of the fiercely inventive animation house—from the talking dolls of the “ Toy Story” franchise to the corporeal feelings of “ Inside Out,” the rebellious princess of “ Brave,” and the aspiring young musician of “ Coco”—gloriously defined by its signature preoccupations? Still, “Turning Red” (which deserves a lot better than the straight-to-streaming fate Disney has bestowed upon it) feels pioneering and surprising even for the shop behind the groundbreaking animated sci-fi “WALL-E.” For starters, never before has a Disney female ever been asked, “Has the red peony blossomed?” as an inquiry about the start of her menstruation. The controversies, such as they are, range from claims that this film isn’t relatable to insistent discomfort with the depiction of a young woman in puberty, a child having autonomy, and the very reality of — yes, sometimes cringeworthy — 13-year-old girls. The conversation about disobedience is explicitly tied to Mei having autonomy over her own body, mental health, and spiritual nature, so it’s important to be blunt here: It’s Mei, not her family, not even her parents, who has the right to decide how she handles those things. And at 13, she’s arguably old enough to make such major choices, even if there is, currently, a huge wave of bigoted abuse disguised as legislation across the US arguing otherwise — legislation that attempts to deprive kids of their voice in exactly this kind of situation.

But the buzz around the movie in the days since its March 11 release has been tinged with drama, and might well give you the impression that Turning Red is Pixar’s most controversial film since — maybe ever. While that’s probably not true, the dust-ups around Turning Red keep gaining attention and going viral — maybe less because lots of people are mad than because the things a few people are mad about are just ... kind of weird.

Effects supervisor Dave Hale and his team studied live concerts to help build the effects for the concert sequences. “We did a bunch of stage fog, pyrotechnics and vapor geysers,” says Hale. turning red is cringe because 13 year old girls dont--" let me stop you right there when i was 13 i wrote a story about how legolas fell in love with me and how i went to middle earth and then aragorn also fell in love with me. we are cringe we are legion— neon any prns! (@neon_heartbeat) March 13, 2022It’s certainly a delight to follow Mei once she discovers her inner red panda and figures out that as long as she keeps a cool and collected demeanor sans emotions with a little help from her friends, the pink brute won’t take over. Who knows, she could perhaps even lead a normal life and even have some fun along the way. But that’s easier said than done when you’re a teenage girl defined by your wobbly mood swings and the time you spend with your equally frenzied group of friends. In Mei’s case, her girlhood clan consists of the sharp-tongued Abby ( Hyein Park), nonconformist Miriam ( Ava Morse), and the nonchalant Priya ( Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). Together, the celebrated quartet swing from one trouble to the next, trying to do everything they can to see their dreamy boy band 4*Town in concert. (The five-member band does have some actual bangers in the film, written by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell.) But with Mei’s plush red panda slightly altering their plans, the friends finds themselves at a crossroads that directly concerns the young Mei’s future.