“Expect a wild, embarrassing, funny and surprising journey through puberty!”
It’s not quite the response one would predict from ‘what can we expect from this new Pixar movie?’ but for Turning Red’s co-writer and director, Domee Shi, that’s kind of the point: “I wanted to make this movie for 13-year-old me,” Shi says. “Because there just wasn’t and maybe still isn’t enough stories in media that deal with that specific time period of a girl coming of age.”
The girl we follow in the movie is Mei, who thinks her main problems are schoolwork, an overbearing mother and trying to see her favourite boyband, 4 Town.
However, those things fall to the wayside when a family ‘curse’ causes her to turn into a giant red panda when she gets overly emotional. Embarrassed by the changes to her body (a subtle metaphor this is not), Mei has to keep her emotions in check to keep the panda at bay. But how is she to do that when she’s facing bullies, uncontrollable crushes and hormones raging around unchecked in her body?
Yes, puberty certainly is a complicated time, but that chaos is exactly what the filmmakers of Turning Red wanted to capture: “My hope is that audiences embrace all the messiness of life of growing up,” Shi explains. “All of the messy relationships that we have with ourselves and with our parents and to be okay with that.”
Ah yes, fighting with your parents is a common staple of puberty-dom and Mei is no exception. As the line between obedient child and independent adult becomes blurred for Mei, her relationship with her mother gets complicated. The two soon have differing opinions on how Mei should live her life, and they have to figure out a new way to navigate their relationship. But perhaps the red panda could help out with that?
“Our hope is that you’re super invested in seeing this relationship between this mother and daughter,” says producer Lindsey Collins who tells us that their relationship “gets to a place where they’ve evolved a little bit. Not changed entirely, but it’s gotten to a place that it definitely needed to get to and the red panda’s probably the only way it could have gotten there.”
Turning Red will certainly resonate with plenty of people, young and old, who will likely recognise the difficulties both Mei and her mother are having: “I’m a mum of three teens,” Collins tells us, “so it definitely speaks to me that moment of recognising each other as a mum and a daughter for what you are – the kind of human being that you are and ultimately as a mum letting go a little bit. It certainly strikes a chord with me. I’m living it every day!”
It’s not just parents who will recognise elements of the story. The movie depicts an important time in a young person’s life, which is why it was incredibly important for Shi that the movie had a positive message: “I really wanted to make this movie for that [13-year-old] version of myself,” Shi explains. “Just to let her know that it’s going to be okay. That you will survive puberty. That even though your hormones and your emotions are out of control, and you don’t recognise your body and you’re covered in hair and you are fighting with your mum every day and you don’t know why, it’ll all be okay.”
Alongside that positive message, they wanted to educate young people, too, by depicting a warts-and-all tale of growing up: “Animation is unique in its ability to address tricky stories or tricky moments in life in a way that feels more acceptable or palatable or entertaining than if you just wrote it down,” Collins says. “The fact that it allows us to play in these stories or in these moments, in a way that makes it both entertaining and fun to watch, while also really going deep into some of these more painful or emotional or difficult topics, that’s the beauty of it.
“It’s this rare art form that really allows you to tackle some tricky topics in a super accessible way. It’s like a spoonful of sugar!”
For the filmmakers, they just hope that by the end of Turning Red, audiences both young and old will take home a message of hope and also, well, that they call their parents: “Hopefully, as the credits roll, they’re feeling empowered to embrace their inner pandas and their messiness,” Shi says. “And call their mums maybe and have that conversation with them like ‘hey, remember when I yelled at you and you misunderstood this?’. Just hopefully to spark more conversation.”
“Hopefully they’re also singing along to the 4 Town songs too!” Collins adds. “And stay through the credits because there’s a button at the end…”
Turning Red is out now on Disney+. Read our review here.