Turning Red: Another Step Forward in Asian Representation

“The number one rule in my family: Honor your parents. They’re the supreme beings who gave you life, who sweated and sacrificed so much to put a roof over your head, food on your plate, an epic amount of food. The least you can do in return is everything single things they ask”

(Disney)

Sound familiar?

Right off the bat, Turning Red felt relatable to my childhood. My friends and I were looking forward to the release of the movie, and it did not let me down. The director of the film is Domee Shi, who also directed the Academy-winning short film Bao, another story about a Chinese North American family. Remarkably, Shi is the first woman filmmaker with sole directing credit on a Pixar feature. According to a New York Times article, this feat was going to be taken down by the previous director of the movie Brave, Brenda Chapman, who was kicked out of the project before it was finalized (Barnes, 2022). Another admirable feature of the movie is its cast.

First, Rosalie Chiang makes her debut in this film, playing the main character called Meilin Lee. Sandra Oh, a long-time celebrity from Grey’s Anatomy, plays the main character’s mother, Ming. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, the star of the Netflix series Never Have I Ever, plays Priya, one of the girls in Meilin’s friend squad. Eva Morse and Hyein Park play Miriam, Meilin’s best friend, and Abby, the fourth person in their squad. To make things even better, the original songs were written by Billie Eilish and Finneas, now Academy-winning songwriters. Finneas even voices one of the 5 members of the boy band called 4-Town, reminiscent of other bands in the 00s such as NSYNC, that the 4 friends fangirl over.

Now, let’s turn to the plot of the movie. Spoilers ahead (obviously).

Summary

Meilin, also called Mei, is a Chinese Canadian girl. She’s thirteen years old and lives in Toronto. Mei is a confident, loud, and enthusiastic girl. She not only has good grades, but she also does many things outside of school, such as temple duties in the temple her family owns in Chinatown. Interestingly, in her family ancestry, one of her ancestors is Sun Yee who is said to be the guardian of the red pandas. (If you don’t know, red pandas are a real species of pandas. They are smaller than black-and-white pandas, resembling a cuter version of raccoons.) Mei’s family is matriarchal, very much like Mei’s extended family too. Her mother is the stereotypical, but very real, overprotective, all-around caring but sometimes overbearing. Her father, on the other side, is quieter, occupied by making supper and comforting Mei when she needs it or when she and her mother are fighting.

The drama begins when Mei transforms into a giant, furry red panda. This transformation is a metaphor for getting hit with puberty, but it also signified something else as we’ll discuss later. Meanwhile, she discovers she becomes the form of a girl again when she’s calm. So, she tries to be zen no matter the situation to control the inner panda. When Ming and Jin, the father discover what has happened, Ming reveals that every woman in the family goes through a period during their life when they become a red panda when they feel strong emotions. Luckily, there is a cure: at the next red moon, the red panda spirit will be sealed into a necklace. However, the stronger emotions Mei feels, the harder it will be for her to undergo the ritual.

Mei’s friends—Miriam, Abby, and Priya—come to visit her the next day to tell her that 4-Town is having a concert in Toronto at the Skydome. When they see her in her panda form, Mei starts crying because she won’t be able to go to the concert. However, when her friends comfort her, she suddenly turns back to her human form, which makes her realize her friends somehow neutralize the panda. When she asks her parents to go see 4-Town, Ming says no immediately. Jin proposes that they let her go, but Ming doesn’t see why Mei likes the boy band who wears “glittery delinquents” (Turning Red Movie 00:38:23-24). Right after, the Lee family receives a phone call from Mei’s grandmother, who is coming to Toronto to organize the ritual.

It turns out that all four girls’ parents denied them going to the concert and, while they were thinking of ways to get the money for tickets, classmates spot Mei in her panda form and say they would pay to see her as a red panda. This is their lottery ticket! While pretending to join the mathletes at school, the squad organizes photo sessions with the panda at school, where students at Mei’s school get to take pictures in exchange for some money. They also create red panda merch for extra promotion, which just proves to what extent girls’ ingenuity can be spurred when the right motivation is found.

To make up for the last hundred dollars they need to go see 4-Town, Mei goes to a classmate’s birthday party as the red panda. Mei doesn’t show up on time because her grandmother and aunties show up unexpectedly early to help with the ritual. After escaping from her family and lying about going to bed, Mei goes to the party, and everything goes perfectly. Just when the girl squad thinks they’re going to the concert the next day, the radio announces the concert to be on the same night as the ritual, contrary to what Abby said. Mei is torn between going to the concert, which they have been working incessantly towards for the last few weeks, or the ritual, which her whole family’s sanity is depending on.

Ming discovers that Mei isn’t in her bed and arrives at the party, seeing Mei as the red panda, ready to pounce on the host of the party, a boy she especially despises. The party is ended then and there, and when Mei thinks she is about to be grounded, Ming walks past her and blames Miriam, Priya, and Abby for manipulating Mei and putting bad ideas into her head. Because Mei is too scared of destroying her mother’s perfect, good-girl impression of her, she doesn’t deny that she was manipulated. She betrays her friends at that moment for the sake of her own skin. They go home.

On the night of the red panda ritual, Mei is led to another realm of reality. To separate her panda from herself, she needs to walk through a penetrable mirror. She struggles and almost gets through it, but when she thinks of all the memories she had as the panda, she decides to keep the panda. To everyone’s disbelief, she says she wants to keep the panda and runs to the concert.

Ming’s necklace which contains her panda spirit, at this moment, cracks and Ming becomes a twelve-stories high red panda. Just as the concert begins at the Skydome, Red-Panda-Ming makes a disturbing entrance and interrupts the whole concert in search of Mei. Her whole family is there in an attempt to turn Ming back into her human form. Mei knocks her mom out and as the other family members are singing incantations, she and her mother enter the other realm. As Mei decides to keep her panda, she confesses to her mom that at the same time as finding her true self, she’s scared that it’ll take her away from Ming. Ming tells her daughter to go as far as she can in life, and the farther the prouder she will be. In the end, Mei keeps her panda spirit, with her mother’s and family’s blessing.

My Impressions

This story is largely a mother-daughter story. As we see in the array of characters, they are much more women than men, and women play a much more dominant role. Furthermore, a large part of Mei’s troubles is rooted in her mother’s intentions set out for her. We also see that Mei’s grandmother has a similar relationship with Ming. Ming is always fearful of talking to her because of her words of criticism. But as we see later, it is not a mother’s wish to torture her daughter with perfectionism.

Here comes the question of what does it mean to honour your parents. In the process of finding who you are, how do you keep up with the expectations other people already set out for you? It is hard to ignore the fact that your parents make sacrifices in their lives to give their children the best, even more so for immigrant families. In a behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Turning Red called Embracing the Panda, Domee Shi says she was also confused about how to honour her parents at the same time as honouring herself. Shi also said that it took her and her team many tries to arrive at an ending for the movie because she was personally figuring out how to be a good daughter to her parents. This reminds me of something someone resembling a mentor to me said, something many young adults feel the need to hear before being able to do.

“Be worthy of others at the same time as yourself”

She said.

Apart from that, Turning Red is also about growing up, figuring out who you are, and embracing it. As Mei thinks she’s got everything under control, puberty hits her as it does to normal teenagers, although in a very drastic way. At first, she is horror-stricken and sees the red panda as everything she absolutely despises. However, with the panda within her, she starts to lead a life of her own, doing the things she wants to do and not always following her mother’s rules. When she gets to banish the panda within her once and for all, she decides not to because the memories she has of being the panda are in fact fun and enjoyable. Something that the women in her family saw as a dark side of themselves, Mei sees it as a true part of herself she needs to accept.

Other aspects of the film I loved

In the documentary, Rona Liu, the production designer of the film, said it’s the first time in her career that all the key leadership positions are occupied by women. Remembering that Shi is a first-time feature director, it is remarkable enough that Shi and her equally talented female coworkers’ careers have reached these heights at Disney. The final product of the movie cannot disregard the fact that the main positions are occupied by women in the writing and producing process. For example, it would be hard for male writers to offer a good representation of the complex relationship Mei has with her mother.

Moreover, the visuals of the movie are amazing. A few people have commented on how the cartoons are too bubbly. The truth is that it was the intention of the director and her team, who wanted to integrate elements of anime, such as those starry eyes Mei has when she goes to the 4-town concert. Shi talked about Sailor Moon, which was a big influence on Asian teenagers.

Lastly, I love the attention to detail, incorporated into the characters, such as how Mei plays the flute at school, just as I did in high school.

Finally, there is no doubt that this movie marks itself in the history of Disney and Pixar productions. Both the progress of dismantling the bamboo ceiling and the glass ceiling set a higher standard of diversity for future movies.