Just last month, Turning Red released on Disney Plus.
Since then, many have come out of the woodwork to give their thoughts on the latest Pixar film.
Centering around eighth grader Mei, the young protagonist found herself subjected to
not only the typical teenage drama, but also a magical ability passed down in her family.
The movie sparked a LOT of opinions online… and today we want to talk about them.
I’m Caleb with WickedBinge and this is Turning Red : Opinions We Love and Hate.
The first thing that a lot of critisizers agreed on was the found the movie Encourages Rebellion.
In the first few minutes, the movie clearly portrays that Mei did a lot to please her
parents- especially her mother. The fact that Mei clearly respected and adored her
mother wasn’t the issue, however. It was the degree that she took it too.
Many viewers of the movie found that Mei rebelled for no reason,
which we have to disagree with. All Mei had done was finally reach the point where she
realized she should be able to ask for things or feel things without being guilty about it.
It’s not okay for a kid to respond to an embarrassing crush by yelling at themselves
in the mirror about how much they disappointed their parents. It isn’t alright for a kid to cry
themselves to sleep because they can hear their mother fret over something that they couldn’t
help in the first place. We had to place this dismal view o the movie as an opinion we hate.
Next up we have the view of the film being A Love-Letter to Preteen Girls.
The director of this film had wanted to use this story as a way to portray
how chaotic her life had felt undergoing puberty. As Shi is quoted by Den of Geek,
she stated “Making this movie was my attempt to unpack what was happening at the time.”
While there are a few people who found the movie unrelatable, Shi expressed that Mei’s story was
a good portrayal of how her own youth was. Shi stated she was that awkward teenage girl,
and that portrayal resonated with a lot of women who grew up feeling the same way.
The unexplainable facination with boy bands, the rising interest in romance, the need to be given
more freedom even though they were clearly too young…Mei and her friends showed a side that many
young girls felt the need to hide when growing up. The truth is this was a love-letter to the girls
often shoved off to the side growing up, so we have to show our love for this view on the film.
The next opinion is that this movie was Too Mature.
The fact that this movie is very open about puberty was surprising to many.
When Ming was outside of the bathroom and asked Mei what was happening, it was generally seen as
out of Disney and Pixar’s character to have such an interaction. Quite a few parents went up in
arms against the movie when Ming is then giving Mei a lecture about keeping herself clean.
To be fair, it’s an interaction that fans of animated features
would more expect from a company like Dreamworks, but that doesn’t mean it was
too mature. It was more because it was straight to the point. We even see Ming
with pads in the movie, brandishing them as she tried to get away from school security.
Having Mei simply transform without any of this added context would have been an
okay enough storyline, but the fact that the creators made it clear what this change was
supposed to represent was refreshing. Seeing a flawed protagonist deal with everyday chaos
as well as the mess of a magical transformation was a great way to show Mei’s inner turmoil.
The fact is, there are a lot of movies that are great coming of age stories,
but they rarely tackle the actual problems that come with growing up. The most many films do-
especially in Disney and Pixar- is make a jab about acne or becoming interested in romance,
but there’s never much said about everything that happens underneath. The hormones,
the sudden bursts of anger and energy, the changes to one’s body…These are all things
generally ignored in order to make the story “cleaner.” Turning Red was not too mature,
and so we had to hate the opinion that many saw it as such.
There were some reviewers that labeled Mei as “Too Confident.” One reviewer
by the name of Old Outlet made the complaint that Mei was unrelatable,
and not because of her magical gifts. They stated they found Mei to be loud,
disruptive, perverse and arrogant. Old Outlet had made the statement that they felt Mei
had little to complain about and yet did so at length, making her come off as a spoiled brat.
This is an opinion we greatly disagreed with. Mei is in fact a boisterous and outgoing young girl,
yes, but we don’t really see confidence as a reason to hate on a character.
And it became clear as the movie progressed that once she began
exploring the parts of herself she repressed for her mother, she wasn’t as sure of herself.
Even in the final minutes of the movie, Mei clearly expressed that she still had doubts
about the path she was choosing. She was scared about what it meant to become a person her mother
didn’t recognize, but went through with it because she knew it would be better to grow
as her own person. We hate the idea that Mei was suffering from “too much confidence.”
Next we have the claim that Turning Red is A Good Representation of Chinese Culture. Fans
of the film praised this story for how it tackled representing Mei and her family, and it’s really
no wonder. The director- Domee Shi- worked on this movie to show her own adolescence growing up.
According to an article posted on Den of Geek,
Shi explained how the movie was her way of showing how she herself struggled to relate
to her mother as she grew up. Shi’s mother was a Chinese immigrant in Canada, and so many
of the things Mei is shown doing in the movie come directly from Shi’s own life experience.
On top of her own childhood being an influence to the story, Shi decided to incorporate her
love of anime into the feature. It’s easy to tell while watching just how much Shi used
this love of anime to design the film, with Ming even resembling mothers from some of the older
anime titles and the characters having more detailed and exaggerated expressions. There
was also the nice touch of more detail being put into the tears when a character became emotional,
which is a definite staple in anime. Overall, we love this outlook on the film.
The next review is Friends as Your Identity.
Shi did confirm in interviews that Mei was being led away from her comfort zone
due to her red panda and her friends, but that doesn’t mean they were Mei’s whole identity.
Many viewers hesitant to accept this movie appeared to have misunderstood
the moments between Mei and the other girls. Yes, they could be overdramatic
in their declarations of unwavering love and support, but we have to remind everyone that
Shi was heavily influenced by not only past Disney and Pixar films,
but anime. These titles are infamous for bold and over the top speeches declaring friendship
and loyalty. Heck, that’s been an on-going joke with the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom for years!
The truth was, Mei’s weren’t her identity. They were her support system. It wasn’t as though
she hated her parents, but she was constantly worrying about letting them down in some way.
With her friends, however, they embraced the awkward and dorky parts of Mei’s personality.
They didn’t show any judgement when Mei transformed. Their undying care
for Mei was what led to Mei being at peace enough to control her red panda. In the end,
we had to label the whole idea of Mei’s friends being her entire identity as an opinion we hate.
Finally we have the last opinion on this list: Great Use of Color Theory. An article
on CBR.com went into detail about the use of color throughout this movie. First, the main
cast typically stands out from the rest of the world, with the background characters and settings
generally relying on a blue and gray palette while everyone else is dressed in bolder colors.
Second is the obvious use of red. Not only did this come up with the red panda forms,
but what Mei wears of that color as the movie goes on. After she first turns into the red panda,
Mei is seen covering up in red, clearly not wanting to risk being found out by her peers.
As the story progressed, Mei is seen wearing more relaxed attire,
with red shirts and even the kimono she is wearing as she rushes towards the concert.
How the rest of the cast is dressed in comparison to Mei is also something to note. Ming and Miriam,
for example, are both wearing green. They both compliment Mei in different ways,
so it was an appropriate choice. Priya and Abby are dressed in colors that are also complimentary,
but don’t draw the same amount of attention as Miriam and Ming. Mei’s father is adorned in white,
showing him as a truly neutral character, able to see things for what they are. Wu
and the Aunties are all dressed similarly, in deeper set greens that match Ming’s attire.
There’s also something to be said for how red is generally used in the movie. Mei’s father calls
it a lucky color, which lines up with how it is seen in many traditions in Chinese culture.
There’s also the fact that red is typically used in story-telling to convey a sense of danger
or alarm, which helps add to the tension when Mei is conflicted about
repressing her own red panda and when we see Ming’s form storming through the city.
Unsurprisingly, Shi admitted to using her inspiration from anime to help compile the
color palette for this movie. It paid off as many have applauded the subtle messages
each character was able to convey just through how they were dressed. It’s something that is
typically put as a second thought unless the story in question revolves around a fantasy setting,
so to see it utilized so well in a film meant to take place in the early 2000s was a nice touch.
This was an outlook on the movie we loved. But let us know in the comment section
if you agree with our ranking. And tell us what we should cover next. Remember to hit
that notification bell and binge more of our videos. But most importantly, stay wicked.