In Pixar’s latest animated feature, we follow 13 year old Meilin Lee as she deals with
growing up and certain changes that aren’t exactly typical of teenage puberty - such
as turning into a red panda whenever she gets overly emotional or stressed out.
Like many of Pixar’s other films, “Turning Red” is filled with many lovable characters.
But in terms of morality, which are the most good and which still have some maturing to do?
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge, and this is “Turning Red: Good to Most Good”.
Much like the previously released Disney film, “Encanto”,
“Turning Red” doesn’t really have a traditional villain nor does it have any characters that could
really qualify as ‘evil’. As such, we’re going to be ranking the characters on the scale of good,
starting with the least good and moving our way up to the most good and heroic
characters. Also, in case it wasn’t obvious: major spoilers ahead.
At the bottom of our list, we have the bully turned friend, Tyler. Tyler is introduced as
your typical bratty boy character. He’s a bit of a bully, though not the worst in Pixar’s
line-up - certainly not as bad as someone like Ercole from “Luca” or even Sid from “Toy Story”.
Still, he’s definitely a jerk. Tyler is frequently seen making fun of Mei throughout the first half
of the film, often verbally teasing her. When Mei becomes popular, Tyler asks her to come
to his party in her panda form and blackmails her when she refuses, threatening to tell her
mother if she refuses. Even after Mei complies and makes his party fun, the two have another
fight - leading to Mei attacking him. However, in a surprise turn of events, Tyler turns out to be
a fan of 4-Town and - despite all that he did - becomes a member of the friend squad. It’s a
nice twist, but given that Tyler never apologized on-screen for all the trouble he caused, his shift
from bully to friend feels a bit hollow. For this, we had to put him as our Least Good character.
From him, we move onto Mei’s aunties. Much like another set of characters who we’ll get to in
a moment, these four ladies tend to act as a sort of collective and have very similar personalities.
They’re friendly enough, but can be more than a little overbearing. One of them even looks down
on Mei slightly, suggesting that Mei has gained weight and looks like her father.
The aunties also follow the lead of Mei’s grandmother in that they aren’t quite willing
to let Ming forget about how destructive her panda side was. Still, much like Tyler,
the aunties are partially redeemed in the end when they let their own pandas out in
order to help Ming and Mei. We can’t call them bad characters per say, but since they don’t get much
development - as individuals or as a group - they ended up falling to the lower half of our list.
Sticking with the Lee family, next is Wu, Mei’s grandmother. On the surface,
Mei’s grandmother may seem like your typical stern matriarch. Wu has shades of other stern
grandmother characters in her, such as Abuelita from “Coco” or Alma from “Encanto”. But unlike
those characters, it’s even rarer for Wu to let down her mask and show emotion. When it comes
to her relationship with her daughter, it’s… complicated. We see Wu subtly imply that Ming
isn’t able to handle this change in Mei, and seems to partially look down on Ming for her
perceived failings as both a daughter and mother. As for Wu’s relationship with her granddaughter,
she’s a bit warmer towards Mei and tries to warn her about the panda’s darker side,
not wanting to see Mei and Ming’s relationship be as fractured as her and Ming’s relationship is.
In the climax of the film, however, it’s Wu that leads the charge in helping Ming,
even if it means releasing her own panda. We also see that Wu ultimately forgives
Ming for hurting her as a teenager, and while Wu doesn’t exactly apologize for her own actions,
it’s still a nice scene that implies that their relationship may have a chance of healing.
We finally come to one of the major characters of the film - Mei’s mother, Ming. Ming is an
incredibly loving and incredibly overprotective mother who tends to expect perfection from her
daughter. Though we doubt that Ming is purposely trying to hurt her daughter with this demand for
perfection, this combined with her tendency to be overbearing can paint her in a bit of a negative
light. Along with being stern, Ming also dismisses Mei’s interests, like her love of boy bands, and
frequently bad mouths Miriam, one of Mei’s best friends. She also didn’t prepare Mei for the panda
curse, although we’ll cut her some slack for this one, as parents often make this mistake and it’s
usually out of naivete rather than malice. Without a doubt, one of Ming’s worst scenes is when she
confronts Mei’s secret crush, Devon, accusing him of essentially ‘corrupting’ her while at the same
time showing Mei’s embarrassing drawings to the entire convenience store. We also can’t forget
how Ming let’s her anger towards Mei’s rebellion get the better of her, leading to her attacking
and nearly destroying the arena where 4-Town is performing. But despite this bombastic climax,
we can’t call Ming a monster. Despite all her faults, Ming still cares a ton about her daughter
and only does what she does because she’s afraid of their relationship breaking. In the end,
Ming is willing to make a change and give Mei more freedom to be herself, and that’s not nothing.
Next up is the first of Mei’s friends, Abby. Abby is a Korean girl and is certainly the spunkiest
out of her friend group. She can be incredibly overzealous and can be more than a little
over-the-top due to this. Abby is also the one who seems to love Mei’s fluffy panda form the most,
even encouraging her to transform so that she can hug her. We also see a bit of Abby’s more selfless
side later on when, after it looks like the girls won’t have enough money for concert tickets,
she’s willing to give up her chance to see 4-Town and is even the first to volunteer
to give up her ticket. While her occasional tendency for violence may be a bit concerning,
it’s hardly enough to overshadow all of Abby’s good traits.
Following her is another one of Mei’s friends, Priya. While Abby may be over-the-top and
excitable, Priya is much more lowkey and deadpanned. She’s the quiet one of the group,
and rarely shows her emotions. But hey, who said that was a bad thing? While it would have
been easy to make Priya seem uncaring and bored all the time, she’s just as enthusiastic about
her friends and their shared interests as they are. She also quickly accepts Mei’s panda side,
even complimenting Mei’s tail. Additionally, just like Abby, Priya also volunteers to be
the one not going to the concert when it looks like they won’t have the money. It just goes to
show that you can’t judge a book by its cover - or a teen girl by her deadpan expression.
Up next is the local shaman, Mr. Gao. Looking like an ordinary elderly neighbor on the surface,
Mr. Gao serves a fairly big purpose in the film, even if he doesn’t get a ton of screentime.
Being a shaman, Mr. Gao is the one who leads the panda banishment ritual - and is incredibly
skilled at it too. Because of this, he’s shown to be a great family friend to the Lee Family.
He’s friendly to Mei, and isn’t at all frightened by the family’s big and furry secret - in fact,
he doesn’t seem bothered by it at all. In a community, neighbors and allies can be
extremely important, and Mr. Gao manages to be both a great neighbor and a great shaman.
Next, we have Mei’s father, Jin. With Mei and Ming taking the spotlight, it may be sort
of easy to forget about Jin - but for what it’s worth, he’s a good father and husband.
Sure, he may get pushed to the side at times, often letting his wife handle things - whether
that’s talking to her daughter about periods or deciding whether or not Mei can go see 4-Town.
In these moments, he may come off as a bit passive in his role within the story. Still,
we had to give Jin kudos for being the one to see the positive side of the family’s panda
curse. After seeing Mei’s video, he lets her know that he supports the more panda-ish side of
her and doesn’t see her silly or more emotional traits as a bad thing. Out of both her parents,
he’s the first one to encourage her to be herself and doesn’t expect the same level of
perfection that Ming does. Jin also isn’t afraid of his wife’s panda side, and is very respectful
and loving towards her. While we couldn’t put him any higher due to his more passive moments
We finally come to the main girl herself, Mei. Mei is a confident 13-year-old girl,
and while her panda-side does turn her life upside down for a bit, Mei’s true personality still
shines through. She’s shown to be determined, energetic and caring towards those she loves.
When it comes to her family, Mei not only cares about her mother’s approval but also just wants
to honor her family as much as possible since the love she has for both them and her friends is
genuine. It would have been easy to paint Mei as a “rebellious teen” who suddenly hates her mother,
but it never gets to that point. Though she wants to have fun with her friends and is willing to
sneak around, you never get the feeling that she’s trying to hurt her mother or that their loving
relationship is one-sided. This is seen when she ultimately tries to help and comfort her mother
even after the two of them have a huge fight. As for Mei’s more negative traits, she does have some
anger issues and can be seen sometimes lashing out when she’s angered - especially when in her
panda form. This led to her attacking Tyler and hurting her mother, though she instantly
regretted both of these instances. Along with the previously mentioned sneaking around,
Mei also threw her friends under the bus when she had to make a choice between defending them
and possibly losing her mother’s approval. Again, Mei regretted this and apologized,
so we can’t take too many points off for it. Simply put, Mei is far from perfect,
but that’s okay. There’s still a lot to like and admire about her,
making Mei not only a great main character but also a person with a good moral compass - give
or take a couple lapses in judgment. For these reasons, she nearly makes it to our Top 3.
Earning the Bronze Medal of Goodness is Mei’s final friend, Miriam. Out of all Mei’s friends,
Miriam seems to take up the roles of being both the leader of the group and Mei’s best friend.
Whenever Mei is stressing out or upset about something, Miriam is the first to reach out
and try to comfort her as she offers support. Miriam is also the one who encourages Mei to
be herself the most, telling her how great her panda-side is and telling Mei that she
deserves to do her own thing instead of always needing to do what her mother wants. Even after
the two have a brief falling out, due to Mei not defending her when Ming verbally attacked her,
Miriam still takes it upon herself to feed and take care of Mei’s Tomodachi pet so it doesn’t
die. Even while mad at Mei, Miriam still tried to be a good friend and even forgives Mei once
she genuinely apologizes. While all of Mei’s friends are pretty great, it’s kind of obvious
who her best friend is and we felt that Miriam more than deserved to rank third on our list.
For our Silver Medal of Goodness, we’re giving it to not one but FIVE characters - the boy band,
4-Town. Now, it may be a bit strange to give such a high ranking to a boy band of all things,
but hear us out. No, they aren’t the most developed characters in the film. They’re just a
group of talented pretty boys that are reminiscent of real-life boy bands like N*SYNC or the
Backstreet Boys. But for what it’s worth, these guys do seem to genuinely care about their fans.
This is ultimately shown in the film’s climax when they use their singing to help power-up the panda
ritual. Since the ritual only works if the people surrounding the circle are singing from the heart,
it’s safe to say that these boys aren’t just singing for the paycheck. We also have to
commend them for even participating in the ritual in the first place. Given that they have no idea
who Mei or her family are and their concert was attacked by a Godzilla-sized red panda,
we wouldn’t have blamed them for refusing to help or running away.
All these reasons easily earn them a surprise spot near the top of our list.
Finally, our Gold Medal of Goodness is going to Mei’s ancestor,
Sun Yin. Though she’s another minor character, we just couldn’t ignore the actions she took
while she was alive. As the legend goes, during times of war when her home was left defenseless,
Sun Yin wished for the power to become a giant red panda in the hopes of protecting her daughters.
Her wish came true, and Sun Yin was able to use both this new form and her own strong emotions
of righteous fury and love to protect her family. While she may have been the one to
pass along this so-called ‘curse’, we can’t forget that Sun Yin originally meant it as a blessing,
not wanting to see any of her future family members defenseless.
Moving ahead to the end of the film, Sun Yin gives her approval to Mei’s choice of keeping her panda
side in what is a really lovely moment. Given that she’s essentially the hero of her family,
we could think of no one more deserving of the title of Most Good “Turning Red” character.
With our morality spectrum wrapped up, let’s award some sinner medals.
We’re going to give The Pride Medal to Mei, because she’s a very overly confident 13 year
old. And she also earns the Lust medal if only for how her hormones literally trigger her Panda form.
The Sloth Medal has to go to her Dad… Only because he isn’t exactly able to
keep up with his wife in any regard. And he pretty much ust defers to her.
Ming gets the Wrath Medal strictly due to her
turning into a Godzilla sized Panda at the end of the movie.
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 our Good to Evil playlist,
where we break down the morality of the characters in your favorite cartoons,
shows and movies. But most importantly, stay wicked.