Seeing Red

There is a reason I was hesitant to watch the new Pixar movie, Turning Red. A reason I had nearly forgotten about until maybe the last third of the film. Because the reason I was hesitant had nothing to do with the criticism I have seen emerge since the film's release last week. The first review I saw of it discussed traumatic mother-daughter relationships. As someone who has a ... complicated  relationship with my mother, I knew it was a potentially difficult watch. 

But then the posts started coming out. Posts from mostly white people. Specifically, white women who were enraged, aghast, and clutching their pearls that the film includes a girl ON HER PERIOD. The horror, the absolute horror of seeing a perfectly normal, biological function portrayed in an animated film was just too much for these women. 

Naturally, I had to see it out of pure spite. 

The rest of this blog will include some pretty heavy spoilers so if you haven't seen the movie, turn back now. If you have and want the rest of my take, by all means continue. 

First of all, the movie is barely about periods and yet, that's most of what I've seen. That and the audacity of a Disney film portraying a different culture. I mean really, how dare we acknowledge that other cultures and religions exist, amiright?

More stunning to me was that periods are barely mentioned. And that was at the beginning of the film. The whole period debacle is set aside pretty quickly and replaced with what has really gotten into Meilin, aka MeiMei - an ancient spell passed down through multiple generations. What I found particularly lovely was how Meilin learns to control her animal with the help of wonderful and supportive friends. 

At first, the film was just super cute and often funny. In one scene, Ming and Meilin disagree about the girl's love of a popular boy band. The phone rings and Meilin's father, Jin answers. Meanwhile, Ming rants about "treating her own mother like that. Where does she get it from?"  When Jin announces that's it's Ming's mother on the phone and Ming screams, ducks, and yells, "I'm not here," I howled. 

Pretty sure that same scene played out in my house. On several occasions.

But, this is Pixar. Of course things get heavy and emotional eventually. And it doesn't matter if you aren't Asian, or Canadian, or weren't a teenage girl in 2002. I am a very WASP'y, perimenopausal American woman, and I related just fine. 

Maybe a little too well. 

Meilin and her friends use her new power to raise money to see their favorite boy band. Which just happens to be on the same night that a ceremony can be held to remove said spell. Naturally, Ming comes after her daughter with her own mother as well as several aunties and tries to force her through the ceremony. 

But Meilin isn't having it. She will hang on to her panda, thank you very much, you overbearing and overprotective mother. She has figured out who she is and is going to run with it. 

Oh, to have such self-awareness at 13. It took me so, so much longer. But I digress. 

Because I thought the concert scene was hard. When Ming's panda shows up at the concert yelling, "You think you're so mature! Lying to me? Blaming me? How could you be so ... crass?" I could hear my own mother.  

And then Meilin yelling back. "Well, sorry I'm not perfect. Sorry I'm not good enough. And sorry I'll never be like you!" 

Yep. I know her too. Way too well. 

Y'all. When Meilin goes through the forest and finds her mother's younger self - with all the doubts and feelings of disappointments imposed by her own mother - I was done. I've seen that sort of cycle. I've been part of that sort of generational trauma and let me tell you - every bit of that scene is spot on.