"The new Disney film Turning Red hits gold after a lot of good reviews, but after a few weeks, the movie deals with some controversy."--Jayden baasansuren, 8th grader
“Turning Red” is the latest animated movie to come to Disney Plus. It was directed by Domee Shi, the writer of the hit short animated story Bao.
Mei Lee is the main character of the Asian film Turning Red, where we follow Mei in her struggle with puberty and becoming a 13-year-old girl. We see a lot of metaphors in this film with the panda symbolizing puberty, like changing yourself.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!
Mei Lee is a perfect daughter and student, she recently turned 13 and we see her go through puberty as a whole. She goes through a little inconvenience during the story—being able to turn into a red panda, or as a metaphor for dealing with puberty with her unpredictable emotions throughout the film. Her bloodline gifted her to turn into a red panda after her village got attacked by soldiers, so she prayed to the red moon wanting to be a red panda to protect her children. Mei has to hold her emotions in and if not, she would turn into a red panda. Her mom and dad told her the reason why she has to deal with this is the god Sun Yee or her ancestor.
Mei later realizes that she could make money off of this situation to see her favorite boy band, 4 Town, but after asking her mother, she gets a firm no because of her emotions and red panda. She decides to go along with her plan anyways, and after selling merch and pictures with the red panda she starts to slowly climb to the goal.
She would have to wait until the red moon to remove her red panda. After not going through with the ritual, her mother gets angry and her emotion breaks her totem and releases her red panda.
Disney dealt with a lot of controversy with the film after adding every stereotypical thing into the film with being boy crazy and acting childish as a teenager. With the stereotypical Asian mothers: helicopter mother and expecting you to have perfect grades. Generally, a lot of teenagers didn’t relate to the film with the whole coming of age arc, a lot of people say they really over-dramatized the film. They really just added every trope that a cheesy film does: having girls act boy crazy over guys twice their age. The film really struck hard as a lot of people say this film is a childish film not really representing coming-of-age children.
Many see a resemblance between Turning Red and Never Have I Ever (another coming-of-age story), starring Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, the voice actor of Priya, Quirky coming-of-age storylines.
My review is really mixed. The movie was really childish with her being 13 and acting nothing near that age-—as well as a little stereotypical with the hovering Asian mother.In the end, Turning Red wasn’t relatable whatsoever to me—a 13-year-old Asian boy.
Mei Lee is the main character of the Asian film Turning Red, where we follow Mei in her struggle with puberty and becoming a 13-year-old girl. We see a lot of metaphors in this film with the panda symbolizing puberty, like changing yourself.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!
Mei Lee is a perfect daughter and student, she recently turned 13 and we see her go through puberty as a whole. She goes through a little inconvenience during the story—being able to turn into a red panda, or as a metaphor for dealing with puberty with her unpredictable emotions throughout the film. Her bloodline gifted her to turn into a red panda after her village got attacked by soldiers, so she prayed to the red moon wanting to be a red panda to protect her children. Mei has to hold her emotions in and if not, she would turn into a red panda. Her mom and dad told her the reason why she has to deal with this is the god Sun Yee or her ancestor.
Mei later realizes that she could make money off of this situation to see her favorite boy band, 4 Town, but after asking her mother, she gets a firm no because of her emotions and red panda. She decides to go along with her plan anyways, and after selling merch and pictures with the red panda she starts to slowly climb to the goal.
She would have to wait until the red moon to remove her red panda. After not going through with the ritual, her mother gets angry and her emotion breaks her totem and releases her red panda.
Disney dealt with a lot of controversy with the film after adding every stereotypical thing into the film with being boy crazy and acting childish as a teenager. With the stereotypical Asian mothers: helicopter mother and expecting you to have perfect grades. Generally, a lot of teenagers didn’t relate to the film with the whole coming of age arc, a lot of people say they really over-dramatized the film. They really just added every trope that a cheesy film does: having girls act boy crazy over guys twice their age. The film really struck hard as a lot of people say this film is a childish film not really representing coming-of-age children.
Many see a resemblance between Turning Red and Never Have I Ever (another coming-of-age story), starring Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, the voice actor of Priya, Quirky coming-of-age storylines.
My review is really mixed. The movie was really childish with her being 13 and acting nothing near that age-—as well as a little stereotypical with the hovering Asian mother.In the end, Turning Red wasn’t relatable whatsoever to me—a 13-year-old Asian boy.
