Turning Red

One of the biggest misconceptions I see repeated about Domee Shi’s fantastic feature film debut is the idea that Meilin Lin’s red panda spirit is meant to represent puberty and that the metaphor of the red panda shifts partway through the film. While I can see how that could be the perception one has of Turning Red’s central metaphor due to the number of jokes about periods and womanhood that are made, the red panda represents individuality first and foremost. It wasn’t puberty that triggered the transformation, but rather Mei acting in a way counter to that of how she was raised, the expectations placed upon her by her mother ms upbringing. This fight for individuality is one that a lot of first generation Asian Americans and children of Asian immigrants are very familiar with. The stark individualism of western countries goes against the grain of the more communal values of eastern cultures. Filial piety, reputation, honoring your elders, etc. are concepts that are shared throughout a lot of them. Turning Red examines this exclusively through the metaphor of the red panda. We see Mei’s bombastic personality early on, with the first scene having her talk directly to the audience to hype herself up and introduce herself. This is a side of her that her mother, Ming Lee, doesn’t get to see, at least not in full. The red panda is explicitly a side of her that Mei feels she cannot show to her parents. The shame of being known as an individual outweighs any freedom that unleashing it would grant - at least until she shares it with her friends. Is it any wonder that Mei looks happiest when with her friends, much like most other children? As Mei and her friends put together a plan to raise money so they can attend a concert for their favorite boy band, she starts customizing her appearance more and hiding away these alterations whenever home. Her sweater is removed, she takes less care about her the proper way to wear articles of clothing, and she starts wearing stickers on her earlobes akin to earrings, all changes that are minimized or removed upon returning to her parents. This tug of war between eastern values and western values is the exact reason why Turning Red works so well on several levels. The animation of the film is led by an art design that mixes the rounded and textured Pixar style with that of anime and manga during a time when North America was seeing a huge shift in the kind of media made available to them. The early 00s sensibility of graphic media noise vomit for media aimed at children, teens, and young adults is dripping everywhere in the film and is juxtaposed with imagery befitting something like A Touch of Zen or Last Hurrah of Chivalry, still quiet moments that are more in line with that style of cinema over the boisterous joviality of a cartoon. I’ve cried every time I’ve watched this film. A lot of my other Asian friends have as well. It’s weird how this film has healed a tiny bit of us, a part of us that all of us had. The assertion of the self is hard when you know how much your parents have given up of their own selves - their individuality - to come live in a strange new place and start a family. There are things said in this film that I wish I said to my own parents and things that I wish they said to me. Domee Shi tapped into that shared experience, presented a story wholly unique to her life yet understood by many, and gifted it to the world.