In this episode, Denise and Michael sit down to review the latest Pixar release, Turning Red. A touching and progressive film, Turning Red tells the story of puberty through the experiences of Mei-lin, a 13-year old girl, who keeps turning into a big red panda whenever she gets excited!
The film uses this looming metaphor to explore the discomfort and embarrassment that is so common in those years, and for the most part, achieves its emotionally complex goals. The relationship between Mei-lin and her mother is remarkably deep, and something that many women will be able to relate to in some way.
In our exploration of the film, we touch on some of the other characters and themes, discussing the animation and humor, as well as some comparisons to other Pixar projects.
Ultimately, Turning Red is a success, balancing accessibility for different age groups, and providing space for important dialogue around subjects that can be taboo in many cultures. There are a few spoilers in our chat, so why not watch the film and then join us for this fun episode.
In this episode, Denise and Michael sit down to review the latest Pixar release, Turning Red. A touching and progressive film, Turning Red tells the story of puberty through the experiences of Mei-lin, a 13-year old girl, who keeps turning into a big red panda whenever she gets excited!
The film uses this looming metaphor to explore the discomfort and embarrassment that is so common in those years, and for the most part, achieves its emotionally complex goals. The relationship between Mei-lin and her mother is remarkably deep, and something that many women will be able to relate to in some way.
In our exploration of the film, we touch on some of the other characters and themes, discussing the animation and humor, as well as some comparisons to other Pixar projects.
Ultimately, Turning Red is a success, balancing accessibility for different age groups, and providing space for important dialogue around subjects that can be taboo in many cultures. There are a few spoilers in our chat, so why not watch the film and then join us for this fun episode.
EPISODE 76
[EPISODE]
[00:00:00] MP: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Oz Culture Podcast. Today's episode, we're doing something different. If we sound different, that's because we are also coming at you from video on YouTube for our review of Turning Red, the Disney Pixar movie that for some reason has been controversial to some. I don't really know why. To be honest, I don't see the controvershy. Controvershy.
[00:00:30] D: It's so controversial, we say it like that.
[00:00:32] MP: My body can't even say it. It's so triggered. How's it going, Denise?
[00:00:37] D: It's going well, Michael. Thank you for having me on again.
[00:00:40] MP: No problem.
[00:00:41] D: For the meme meantime.
[00:00:42] MP: You've constantly been requested.
[00:00:46] D: By your mum?
[00:00:47] MP: Yes, and other listeners.
[00:00:50] D: Thank you, Mrs. Piscuineri. I love you. Okay.
[00:00:53] MP: Getting into our review of Turning Red. Turning Red, the plot involves a young Asian girl, Cantonese. She was Cantonese.
[00:01:04] D: Yes, they were speaking Cantonese.
[00:01:06] MP: Cantonese. A Cantonese girl who's just turned 13, and is now becoming a woman, blossoming into womanhood. As you do when you become a woman, you also turn into a giant red panda.
[00:01:21] D: Can confirm. Yeah. Happens to all of us.
[00:01:25] MP: How did you control your red panda?
[00:01:27] D: Well, I had the ceremony, and you know.
[00:01:30] MP: Wow. The plot of Turning Red, as mentioned, involves a 13-year-old girl named Meilin, who turns into a giant red panda. She transforms pretty much whenever strong emotions become apparent in her body. Whenever she feels strong emotions, she turns into this red panda. Meilin is a confident, dorky overachiever. She's torn between staying with her mother's dutiful care and the chaos of adolescence.
Her protective, if not slightly overbearing mother, Ming, is never far from her daughter; an unfortunate reality for the teenager. As if changes to an interest relationships and body weren't enough, whenever she gets too excited, she poofs into a giant red panda.
[00:02:21] D: Is that like an official summary as well?
[00:02:25] MP: Yeah. That was an official plot somewhere.
[00:02:26] D: How do you use the word, “poof”? That’s such a accurate description of how they animated it.
[00:02:35] MP: How did you feel going into this movie, Denise?
[00:02:37] D: Oh, gosh. It's really interesting, actually. Because I'd only seen the trailers, and so I didn't know what else to expect. I thought that the whole panda thing was just a complete metaphor, that maybe it's all in her mind, all in her head.
[00:02:52] MP: You thought Pixar was going to a Fight Club.
[00:02:56] D: Maybe a little bit. A little bit. As the plot progressed, I was like, “Oh. Okay, this is really happening.” That's where it got really, I think, interesting in terms of how it got really, I guess, pushed the boundaries of imagination and the whole supernatural stuff. What about you?
[00:03:13] MP: How I heard about this – Going into this movie, I had no idea about it, because I honestly didn't come across any marketing material. Apparently, other reviewers have said that there's marketing everywhere for this movie. I only heard about this movie purely because of you. You actually messaged me and you were like, “Have you seen Turning Red?” I was like, “What the hell is Turning Red?”
Once I saw the poster for it, I was like, it looked to me like, just a family friendly like, what happens when this little kid becomes a giant red panda? It just reads some lame '80s movie. The movie had a lot of heart. Going into it, I wasn't too sure how much I would relate with the movie, because looking at it from the trailer and stuff, I was thinking to myself, “Okay, the main character's a 13-year-old girl. Her whole life is wanting to see a boy band. It's dealing with mythology that I'm not aware of, or I just wasn't sure whether this was the movie for me, whether this movie would really resonate with me.
Some reviewers out there that are white adult males have even said. They're like, “You don't want me and the movie doesn't work for me.” That's fair. They're not the specific audience of it. I personally, though, once I start watching the movie, felt like none of that shit mattered at all. I had a great time with this movie. What did you think of the overall of this film?
[00:04:55] D: Gosh, it's really interesting, because I think for me, I didn't realize how hard the film would actually hit me on a personal level. I was so not ready. I would have braced myself if I knew how much I'd relate to it. It's quite interesting, because I think coming out of the film, I came out of it with a really personal lens, having watched it the way I did and just knowing the way I've grown up and what that was like. Because I feel like, the film is set during the time that we would have pretty much been growing up at that age as well.
[00:05:27] MP: Yeah. The film is set in 2002. It's almost as if they're saying for those people that were growing up as kids around that time, 2002, this is your movie.
[00:05:40] D: Yeah, exactly. With the Tamagotchis and the boyband era everything. That was so incredibly relatable, that it's quite interesting how like you mentioned, there are a lot of people that are so didn't relate to the film, which I can understand, because it is quite specific in the experience it tells. Then it also made me think like, fair enough. There are plenty of films out there though that are based on a specific experience, but people can still empathize with the human quality of it, so that it makes you wonder if there is possibly still something missing then in how they executed this story, where empathy wasn't easily accessible for some. You know what I mean?
[00:06:19] MP: Yeah. I wasn't too sure of that either. I wasn't sure if those particular people watching it didn't resonate, because they’re older, or it didn't resonate with them because on the surface they were looking at it as like, “Ah, this is what it is.” It's really hard for me to say. For me personally, this isn't really a spoiler. I think it's quite obvious to people. The red panda represents puberty. It's not subtle at all throughout the movie, what this represents the panda. For a lot of people, I feel like, once they get that and maybe with these other reviewers, they felt like, “Oh, well. It's about that. Sorry, it doesn't apply to me.” I felt like, the panda can represent other things. The panda represents growth, represents change, transformation, anxiety. It can represent anxiety, or depression. Yeah, I don't think it's really fair to disregard the film just because your main and I'm an adult male. I think, Pixar movies are really good at appealing to such a wide audience, regardless of those things. Having said that, this film will definitely connect deeply to young women. I'm sure, you can attest to that, Denise, being a young woman.
[00:07:51] D: Still. Sort of. Somewhat.
[00:07:53] MP: I can only say so much. Then people are going to be like, “All right, dude. You're a white man. Shut the fuck up.”
[00:07:58] D: Oh, no. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I agree that the panda, it really is a metaphor for so many things, right? Change, transformation. Just that whole level of adolescence that most of us go through where we feel insecure, or our emotions are just going everywhere. It's like a crazy time in our lives, right? No matter if you're a young girl, a young boy, in between, in sex, everything, it's such a confusing, crazy time for us that I think the way that it's so colorfully explored in this film, that's where I think it can resonate with people who have either gone through a hard time in their teenagehood, or are currently going through that as well. The whole dawn of when you have your first crush and everything, and al that obsession and the mania love that you experience. It's brought me back, man. It brought me back.
[00:08:57] MP: Yeah. Then going to the boy band concert. I was like, “Wow, that brings me back.”
[00:09:03] D: The obsessive drawing underneath that.
[00:09:06] MP: Oh, yes, yes.
[00:09:08] D: Quite interesting, actually, because that scene – I love to bring up as well, and I’m sure we'll get to it as well, how a lot of the controversy surrounding the film has been some parents who have felt that scenes like that, where it's drawing the inappropriate pictures under her bed and stuff. That’s too adult, or inappropriate when it's –
[00:09:30] MP: She was drawing him as a mermaid. For God's sake. And him kissing her. It's not like, he was drawing – it’s not like Mei was drawing dicks or something. What was the controversy? I think, that for some parents, they don't want to admit that your child is going to get to a point where they're going to want to explore those things and look at those things.
For some parents, they might not want to admit that, that it's going to happen a lot sooner than maybe they want them to. Your child isn't going to be put in a box. Even as much as you want to try to, your child is going to burst with wanting to explore themself as an individual, wanting to explore the world. You can't keep them contained in a box. I think, that is something that the film was looking at, its themes of that sometimes the child is actually the smartest person in the room, because the adult doesn't want to put things like, their own pride away, or ego.
Sometimes, kids can cut through all that, because they haven't developed as much of an ego. They don't have that. That's one of the things I felt watching the movie was quite a poignant message, is that sometimes the kid actually knows better, and the parent wants to act like, “Oh, I'm the parent. I'm the adult. I know what's best.” But not always, because you're always looking at it from a parent's perspective and not from the child's perspective. Forgetting that you were once a child. That was a big rant. I don't even have kids. A lot of people are probably going to be like, “What the fuck do you know? You don't even have kids.” I was a kid once, too, though, with my boy bands.
[00:11:14] D: You're right there. It's so bloody poignant, and it's such an important message that sometimes — I'm not a parent either, but I've grown up with –
[00:11:25] MP: Pretty much our parents. You have a young brother and, yeah.
[00:11:28] D: Yeah. We have like a, what is it? Almost 13-year age gap kind of thing. Sometimes I feel like a bit of a second mom. I feel like, I get a tiny glimpse and understanding of how you want to do everything that's best for your child. Sometimes, I feel like, there are parents out there that almost lose sight of what it really means to really listen to your child. They just enforce whatever they think is right, when often, yeah, kids, especially at 13-years-old like in the film, are going through such a transitional time that that's the best time to really start listening, because they'll start figuring out things.
[00:12:11] MP: Yeah. Being aware of that, rather than try and shackle them with rules and stuff. Because you know that the kids can break the rules anyways. Wouldn’t it be better to – Anyway, I just find that interesting, because I did find some reviewers that’s saying, “I'm a parent. I don't think my child should watch this because of blah, blah, blah.” Fair enough. I think that you do have to be careful of what age your child is and whether this – I don’t feel this film would be appropriate, obviously for a seven, or eight-year-old. I think, wait until they're closer to 11, 12.
[00:12:52] D: Yeah. At least when they have, I guess – I mean, kids, they pick up on so many things. That's the crazy thing. They understand a lot more than I think a lot of people give kids credit for. They already start like, I remember when we were that age, we already knew about some adult stuff that we'd talk about and was like, “Oh, my God. Da, da, da, da.” We don't really understand it to its full degree at the same time as kids.
[00:13:15] MP: I knew way too much before I should’ve –
[00:13:18] D: This a thing, right? That's why it's so hard to tell. I agree, should be subjective on the parent's point of view. I mean, kids hit puberty at different ages. Sometimes kids hit it really young, as well at eight either.
[00:13:29] MP: I mean, personally, I think at the same time, you got parents reviewing movies like this being like, “Oh, my God. My child can't be exposed to this.” Then I go watch the Batman and see a bunch of five-year-olds in a theater while there's a movie talking about drug kingpins and The Riddler beating someone's head in. I think to myself, “Yeah. Whatever, dude.”
[00:13:56] D: It's quite interesting how desensitized we all are to violence and death and things like that. Then when it comes to puberty, it's like, “Oh, no. Hide the children.”
[00:14:08] MP: Period pads. My child can't know about these, but let's go watch The Batman and we can watch a drug kingpin strangle a woman to death.
[00:14:17] D: Yeah, Jesus.
[00:14:19] MP: That's perfectly fine. Anyway, let's get into what we liked about the film. Me personally, I don't know why some people don't like it, but I love the animation style. I think, this is a gorgeous film. Visually, the colors are so vibrant, and the film reminded me of movies like Into The Spider-Verse, which I love that unique style. It's a little bit different. It's not exactly how all the other Pixar films look, but it also has a hint of anime.
[00:14:51] D: Yeah. A 100%. It’s interesting, because I was reading up some articles, and I think the Director, Domee Shi, I hope I'm saying her name right. I think, she got a lot of influence from different enemies, actually, in writing it and creating it.
[00:15:05] MP: Like that fast-paced style and emotions are very over the top. This isn't like other films, such as Toy Story 4. It's not grounded in realism, like those films were. I enjoyed that. I felt it really brought me in. A lot of jokes come from how over-the-top the visuals are. It also does a really good job of establishing Meilin’s – her anxiety, getting us into her perspective, into her world. How she's seeing and feeling things, because especially the circumstances of what happened to her for us as adults now, it's like, oh, it doesn't seem that big of a deal. Her as a young 13-year-old, it really is like the end of the world. For the film to be able to do that, I thought was great with the animation.
The other thing I really like about the movie is not many people might see the similarities, but I like the film Teen Wolf. This movie is pretty much Teen Wolf if Teen Wolf was actually funny. Other than a young Michael J. Fox, Teen Wolf has not aged well at all. This is good. Teen Wolf was for male puberty. Now, this is for the female version of puberty. That's at least how I saw it. Because the film actually borrows a lot story-wise from a movie like Teen Wolf. You got someone who reluctantly is forced to change, transform. It's passed then genetically through the family. They see it as a curse. They hate it. They hate the transformation. Then, they slowly learn to love it, because they see that everyone loves the transformation.
[00:16:50] D: Wow.
[00:16:50] MP: They also abuse the transformation for some – in Teen Wolf, it was more for fame, for popularity, because it's in high school. In this film, we see it being abused for financial gain, so that they can go to the boy band concert. It's really similar.
[00:17:10] D: Really? Yeah. Wow. It is.
[00:17:11] MP: It's just in the later half that's different. It becomes different. For me, that's very interesting to see comparisons like that. The other thing that's really good and maybe you can speak more about this, Denise. Obviously, I can't. I feel like, this film did a good job of normalizing things like puberty and periods and all the stuff that women go through in that department.
[00:17:38] D: Oh, yeah. It’s interesting, the excitement that they showed the mother have like, “Oh, it's time. I've got all the goods.” She went grabbed every period product there is. I don’t know. It’s hilarious, just the level of, “We're ready to help you and all this.” I thought that was really sweet. It was interesting to see how Meilin would undergo so much internal conflict with what she thinks she should do, versus what she wanted to do. Then also, just how she started viewing boys differently, I thought that was very interesting. As soon as she turned into the panda the first time, the next day, suddenly, she was seeing boys in a different way. I thought it was very cool. Very interesting.
I don't know about other films, or shows. Maybe I just haven't been exposed to them. I felt like, this film really explored that teenage female perspective of starting to be interested in stuff like that, in quite a interesting way. In the sense that we don't always see how girls start seeing things differently, seeing boys differently, and how – Yeah. I don't know how to phrase it.
[00:18:50] MP: Yeah. I feel like, I haven't seen that. I haven't seen that before.
[00:18:54] D: Yeah. It isn’t that often.
[00:18:56] MP: I feel like, that would definitely help. I mean, a young girl watching that, I'm sure maybe they'll feel more comfortable about talking about those things with their parents.
[00:19:08] D: Yeah. Because I feel like, almost being a girl, and especially being an Asian girl, sometimes you get all these expectations of you. I'm not speaking for everyone's experience, but some people's experiences may be that you have to be obedient, or you're expected to behave a certain way. Usually, that means that if you're undergoing all this change and having these thoughts about boys, just having an interest in them, like even Meilin. She struggles, because she starts to get interested and she feels like, she can't talk to her parents about it at all.
Then it's like, that's how secrets develop and that's where, yeah, brings us back to you should talk to your children and hopefully, build – establish a trust where when your child starts going through all these confusing things, they can talk to you if they want to.
[00:19:53] MP: Me personally as a boy, I felt like, I had the complete opposite experience, because especially in the Italian culture, it's quite obvious the difference between a young boy and a young girl growing up. Yeah. When I felt those feelings, as I went through my adolescence, it was so easy for me to just talk about it with my dad or my mom and just be like, “Yeah, I really like girls and I'm noticing girls all the time and not feeling that.”
For me, looking at this, it felt in a way, I'm learning to appreciate from the other side of the spectrum, like what a female, a young woman would go through in this situation, where they're not allowed to express that. It made me feel a lot of sympathy for Meilin being in that situation, where you feel these strong emotions, but then you can't express it at all. Luckily for me, I was allowed to. Yeah, I could feel a lot of pain from Meilin. I felt a lot of sympathy for the character.
[00:21:03] D: Yeah. I think that whole thing of bottling up your emotions, especially when they're so powerful at that time, of growing up at that age, I feel like, when they showed her, like attack that young boy at his birthday party, I was like, “Oh, my God. My heart.” You can tell, she makes a lot of mistakes in the film, which I think is good to show, because the hero has to learn things along the way. I think in that, there's a lesson in that we shouldn't have our kids feel that they need to baller everything up, because it's going to come out in some way that is going to be either damaging for themselves, or for other people. It’s a fallout of that, man.
[00:21:51] MP: Yeah. You wouldn't think a Pixar movie would be so intense, but I had some moments, man, where I was like, “Damn. This some deep shit.”
[00:22:00] D: I think part of it's because they open you up with the comedy. When they hit you with the heart, the parts with the heart, and it just gut-punches you.
[00:22:10] MP: Yeah. I honestly did laugh a lot at this movie. That's another thing that I really enjoyed about the movie, and it's hard for me as well. I don't usually laugh at Disney, Pixar movies. It's usually like, ah, a wholesome, heartfelt chuckle at best. This movie actually did make me laugh many times, just because of the absurdity, the over-the-top emotional expressions on some of the characters, Meilin’s bloody friends. One of her friends that just is so aggressive and angry all the time. I just kept pissed, was laughing at her.
Yeah. The expressive designs of the characters leads to a lot of laughs, I feel. I feel that the panda isn't just used for a gag, or for laughs either. It's used in subtle ways. It's used to get a big, poignant message across. There was a key moment in this film when Meilin’s talked to her and said, “This other side of you can be messy.” He was essentially saying – I can't quote it verbatim, but he was essentially saying like, “You can learn to live with it. You don't have to break it away completely. There's people with messy sides, but you live with it.” I felt that speech was a key moment where I felt like, okay, it doesn't just have to be about sexual suppression, or puberty. It can be about depression and anxiety. Because in a way, it's like him saying, one of the things for – and I can speak about this, because I actually do have anxiety.
No one can be like “Oh, well fucking, yeah, you're not a psychologist. Little tough noogies.” As someone that actually does suffer from anxiety, I can say that that's a very strong message that we can send to young people that may struggle with that is that, you're not going to get rid of it. You have to learn to live with it. You learn to channel it. You learn to adapt and grow with it, but it’s always going to be there, because as of now, there is no cure for that. Me personally, I felt that was a deep, heartfelt moment that a lot of people can interpret differently. Yeah, that was a key scene for me.
[00:24:43] D: A 1000%. Watching that scene pierced my heart so much, just seeing the character of the dad they portrayed was so lovable, and he was such a contrast to the mom that it was like, we never got to see him talk that much. Then when he did talk, it felt like –
[00:25:00] MP: It meant something.
[00:25:01] D: Yeah. It meant so much.
[00:25:06] MP: I don't know about you, but when I was researching for this movie, a film called Luca came up. We had a Luca?
[00:25:13] D: I have, but I haven't had the chance to see it yet.
[00:25:15] MP: Apparently, that's really good, too. That's a good thing about this movie, it's leading me to all these other films that people have mentioned and reviewers and YouTubers and like. Yeah. I think, for me a big thing about the film is it nails the character dynamic between Meilin and her mother. It's more than just the typical overbearing mother. Although at times, it can be very over-the-top, very over-the-top to the point where it's beyond realism.
There's love there, There's layers to their relationship, I feel. Because essentially, if you didn't nail that relationship between the mother and daughter, this film would have nothing. That is the core essence of the film. What did you feel about the relationship, Denise?
[00:26:06] D: Oh, gosh. The relationship between her and her mother. It's just like, man, I think that was the crux of why it hit me so hard, just personally, because God, man. I love my mom so much. I'd be lying if I said we had this really perfect relationship growing up. I think, seeing a complex relationship between a mother and daughter on screen like that, it just felt like, that was why I felt so represented in a way, showing how familiar relationships sometimes, especially in an Asian dynamic, you have such a duty to family, duty to parents in the culture that when you don't see eye to eye with them, it's so heart wrenching.
Yeah. It's quite interesting, actually, that we talk about the relationship, because I've also heard from another friend of mine who's also Asian, and she's an actress and how it actually felt a bit underwhelming for her. Because I think for her, she felt that for such a complex subject, they told her in a way that was quite on the nose. She felt a bit like, “Oh, they're making the mother feel like a villain.” Then, like the issue itself is more complex. Then, it makes me think about then maybe that the genre of this film being a family children's film, maybe it was not the right vehicle to explore those themes to their full depth or nuance. What do you think about that?
[00:27:38] MP: I guess, honestly watching it, there were definitely times where I was like, okay, it's a caricature. She's becoming too overbearing, too full on. I like that they established the love and it felt like they had a good relationship, especially at the start. One of the things that was really good is Meilin making the point at the start, opening monologue that she is her own person. Then as you see, she doesn't realize that she actually isn't at that point. She's still quite full-on list honoring her parents to the point where it's like, she doesn't have her own interests and everything she does comes back to their validation.
[00:28:24] D: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:26] MP: There were times where I was like, I feel like I've seen this before. Or it's quite over the top. Especially at the school, the mother with the period pads. It was too much. There were times where it was too much. I think, I even sent messages to you asking as I was watching it, being like, “Fuck. This is intense.”
[00:28:51] D: It is intense. I think, even one of the earliest scenes where she first discovers the book of her drawings of the store clerk, and then she drives straight there with the daughter and confronts him in front of everyone. Me and my partner watching, we just went into our shows watching that, because it was just so in your face. Like, no this is wrong. She shouldn't do this. Oh, no. Oh, my God. At the same time, it's like, who knows this? This could still be someone's experience.
[00:29:18] MP: Yeah. I think, when you bring up your friend, I think maybe your friend was almost surprised, because this film is doing, taking so many risks with the way it's portraying this type of themes. Maybe your friend was like, “Oh, wow,” impressed. Then as the movie went on, she was like, “Ah. I thought they'd be more subtle.” In a way, we forget that this is a Pixar Disney film. It's not going to be that subtle.
[00:29:50] D: That’s it. Because it's still, I guess, aimed at children. That's where it gets really hard. Creatively, how do you then really execute it?
[00:30:00] MP: Yeah. You got to appeal to the kids first, but also the parents bringing the kids. It's so hard to appeal to so many different people, because obviously, the adults are going to want subtlety and nuance, but the kids are going to want everything more visually articulated. It's hard to please both sides of the coin.
[00:30:25] D: That’s it. I think, this is a really big challenge that really brought on themselves, I think, to try and execute all that complexity and everything in something like this.
[00:30:36] MP: It's also a testament to Disney, to Pixar, that their films have evolved and matured to the point where we can dissect a film like this, that when you read it on paper, it's – you say to someone, “Oh, yeah. I'm going to watch a movie about a 13-year-old girl that wants to see a boy band, and she's becoming a woman.” Most people will be like, “Oh, that sounds shit.”
[00:31:06] D: Yeah, sorry. By the way, she turns into a red panda.
[00:31:08] MP: Yeah. She turns into a red panda.
[00:31:10] D: It sounds so ridiculous. It's a tall order. I think, they still achieved so much. Regardless, I think it is a step forward for more films to push boundaries like this and find the great middle ground where it can be really universal, yet exploring such specific things.
[00:31:32] MP: Kids are quite smart. Yeah. I think personally about the movie, did a good job. There may have been moments where it was formulaic, or structured, but that's not always a bad thing.
[00:31:53] D: Yeah. Makes it easy to follow right away.
[00:31:55] MP: Especially for a kid's movie, especially coming off watching The Batman, where you’re like, “What is going on?” Sorry to bring that up again, but that's the last movie I watched, so I’m like – it's easy for me to be like, “Ah, man. I could just lay back and enjoy this movie,” and be like, “Oh, I don't know what's happening.” Whereas in the Batman, I'm like, “What? What did that person say? What? What? Bruce Wayne's mom was in a mental institution? When the hell did that happen?” Anyway.
[00:32:23] D: That’s it. I think, at the end of the day, it's the execution style is quite different. One, you have to really dissect it while you're watching and try to follow clue by clue. A film like this, they try to give you something really complex, but really easily digestible, because you don't have to think that much.
[00:32:43] MP: This actually did have a message and something to say. In all honesty, The Batman didn't really have a message. You can dissect that movie, or you didn't –
[00:32:55] D: Gotham is back.
[00:32:56] MP: Other than men, shit. I don't know what the fuck to really get from that movie. To the point where they’re like, “Even Bruce Wayne is shit. We can't have him in the movie. It's just Batman.” Yeah. All right, let's get into what we didn't like. What didn’t you like, Denise?
[00:33:15] D: I guess, what I didn't like – I mean, if I had to be really critical, I love the animation style overall. For some reason for me, I remember in the early sequence, they showed the title of the film Turning Red, and Meilin’s dancing around and stuff. She does this part where she just shakes her butt to the camera, and it zooms in on her butt or something. I'm like, “That's so unnecessary. No one is asking to see that. It shouldn't be.”
[00:33:45] MP: Actually, that brings up a good point. One of the things that I heard parents complain about with the movie was the fight, the big battle between her mom and her. There's a moment where she's twerking at her mom, as if to say like, “I'm in rebellion and I can be sexual for one.” A lot of parents are like, “Yeah, I don’t like that.”\
[00:34:10] D: It's quite embarrassing. Yeah.
[00:34:12] MP: Yeah, it's funny that you brought that up.
[00:34:14] D: Yeah. It's weird, because watching that, the second time it happened when she was twerking for mom, for me made sense in the context in that we're not focusing solely on her. It isn't zoomed in on her butt or anything. It's more like the humor that her mom hates it and that's why she's doing it to make the mom angry. The only thing is like, “No one needs to see that.” It just made me think of cartoons, like The Amazing World of Gumball. I don't know if you've ever watched that. I feel like, it's an accurate representation of what it might be like to be on hallucinogens watching Gumball. Not that I know peripherally.
[00:34:50] MP: I would know nothing about that.
[00:34:53] D: I swear. That cartoon, be as quirky as it is, like in Gumball they have a really odd fascination with showing the characters’ butts. Where butts are the punchline of a joke, or you get really zoomed in on a character's butt. It's just so unnecessary. Just feels like adult jokes thrown in, but like, why? It reminded me a bit of that way. It's like, it’s unnecessary. That's a tiny detail that I'm picking on, really.
Then, I think with the mother, it would have been interesting if they were to explore a bit more in a nuanced way, seeing a bit more of, I guess, her experience with the grandmother, like maybe some more flashback scenes, that would have been interesting.
[00:35:38] MP: I did like the way they were dealing with the generational trauma. That her mother, when they show her mother as a young child, I wanted to see more that. I really liked that. I thought, they were about to hit on something really deep and profound, but it didn't really happen. It was a shame.
[00:35:59] D: It’s touched on. They could have gone further with it or something. I just want to see more of it, because it felt so profound.
[00:36:06] MP: Yeah. that was one thing I didn't like. I personally didn't have a problem with it, but some, and you want me about the fast-paced style of the movie, I thought it was hilarious, to be honest. I find that I think a lot of humor came from me, like this fast-paced, quick style, quick cut. It was definitely anime inspired, so it made sense.
I don't know why the movie is set in 2002. I don't know if that's because the director was – that's how old they were when it was 2002. It was just like, once I realized the movie was set in 2002, I felt like, it was going to be used for cheap gags. To a degree, I mean, you got the brick phones and the Tamagotchis and you sighing and rolling your eyes like, “Oh, my God.” I just didn't feel like, it was worth setting it in that time. I just don't think that there was a lot of purpose behind that decision.
[00:37:11] D: Yeah. It's interesting you bring that up, because I feel that setting it in that time, it felt so more specific to people our age, because we were around that age at that time. Which then begs the question, again, why is it a children's film when we're the ones relating to it the most, in a way?
[00:37:30] MP: That's a good point. Especially, when maybe it is because Pixar wants to try and evolve and try and tackle these deep and mature themes, because films like Lady Bird popped up. That deal with the exact same issues follow the same story points. It's live action and it can obviously go darker and be more subtle. Perhaps, they look, I don't know.
[00:38:00] D: Right? Because then it’s like, is the target market our age group that can relate to when we grew up at the time, whereas kids now? Because if it's more for kids now, why wasn't it set today?
[00:38:10] MP: The kids now are going to have no idea what the hell any of that is. They're going to be asking their parents 10 million questions about, what the hell is that? Why does a phone look like that? What is that thing? Yeah. It does beg the question, what did we really get out of it being set in 2002? I feel like, most of the time when movies are set in a specific time frame, it's for the story to happen a certain way. The story could totally unfold nowadays.
[00:38:40] D: Yeah, it really could.
[00:38:42] MP: Boybands do exist.
[00:38:42] D: Yes. TikTokers could even be.
[00:38:45] MP: Tweeners, all that stuff, all the things that those girls do still exist. Nothing's really gained from it. The laughs about those references are going to come from adults, not from the teenagers, or the young kids. Yeah. I was a bit perplexed by it. Not a huge deal, but I'm just wondering the whole time like, yeah, but why? Anyway.
[00:39:11] D: Yeah, but why?
[00:39:12] MP: Yeah, but why?
[00:39:13] D: It’s a good way to surmise it.
[00:39:14] MP: The film has low stakes, I feel.
[00:39:17] D: Low stakes?
[00:39:18] MP: Yeah. The characters’ big dilemma is, do I go to the concert, or do I do the ritual that's going to rid me of being a giant panda forever? For us as adults, we’re like, dude, you could just see the boy band next year, or in a couple months’ time. Maybe it's because I'm not a 13-year-old girl. It feels like, quite low stakes compared to a lot of our films.
[00:39:48] D: Yeah. It's not life or death. It is hinted that doing the actual panda ritual thing would possibly be physically painful, though, and potentially, psychologically damaging. I think, maybe. I guess, just the unknown of her family being like, ‘You have to do this to get rid of your panda sphere and all that.” It felt more like, for me anyway, the stakes were more identity-based, rather than life or death, I suppose.
[00:40:17] MP: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. I guess, yeah, like I said, for a 13-year-old girl, I'm sure that it would feel high stakes, being like, “I have to see the boyband.” I suppose us kids, there are a lot of things that we think were high stakes as kids, that obviously now looking back at, well that was stupid. Why did I care so much about that? That could go either way. It makes sense.
I have a question. Denise, the film is quite rich in Cantonese mythology. I know, we touched on things about this, but if there's anything else you wanted to say, I was going to ask, how did you personally feel, Denise, about the representation of your culture? Did you feel there were stereotypes, or any clichés? Or did you feel it was handled well?
[00:41:07] D: Right. I mean, in terms of the elements of culture, I feel like, the way they explored the themes of importance of family, familial duty and stuff, I felt that really resonated. Even just the little scenes of when they bison, like they pray, they put the incense sticks into the thing on a bulb. Clearly, I know so much about my culture. When they talk to their ancestors and things, I thought like, “Oh, yeah. That's nice to see in that I've had that experience as well going to the temple and stuff.” In terms of mythology, I feel like, they made up, but the ancestors, this and that thing. I don't know personally if there's a red candle mythology in time.
[00:41:52] MP: Apparently, there isn’t. Apparently, they picked the red panda because there is no mythology attached to it.
[00:41:57] D: Oh, I see. I see.
[00:41:58] MP: I'm more thinking of, did you feel things – me watching it, I've seen the stereotypical overbearing mother.
[00:42:08] D: The tiger moms.
[00:42:09] MP: Like the tiger moms. Did things like that, did you feel that was leaning too much on certain Asian stereotypes, or do you feel like, your culture is being represented fairly?
[00:42:23] D: I think, that it's definitely a step forward. I think, there are probably better films out there that explore intergenerational trauma. Personally, I haven't seen a lot to have, I guess, a level to compare it in. Because in this film, I felt like it did it really well. Knowing that, there probably are still more nuanced portrayals out there.
I think, the mom character, she did have tiger mom elements, but at the same time, she wasn't so on her. It was like, we expect you to do well, but it wasn't like, she was forcing her. This all in the subtext of expectation, I think, in a way. I was like, “Oh yeah. That feels a bit more razzing to me growing up in a Western society here.” My own parents, I'd say, they're quite westernized. It’s like, I had almost a subliminal expectation that I needed to achieve and do well, but it wasn't strictly enforced in a way.
[00:43:30] MP: Okay. Outgoing now.
[00:43:30] D: It definitely, I think, hit a note of familiarity with me having the experience of growing up in a Westernized society, compared to growing up Eastern.
[00:43:44] MP: Well, we're going to get into what did the critics think. Currently, Turning Red is at 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 75% audience score. It seems like, the critics are enjoying it more than the audience. It's always one way or the other. I feel like, it's never both on the same page. Maybe it is a question of the parents complaining. “Oh, I feel it's telling my child these or that, whatever.” Anyway.
We got Ty Burr. He wrote, “Like the best Pixar movies, you don't need to have a kid to see it. It's excellent entertainment for grown up people, too.” I agree with that. He voted three and a half out of four. Richard Lawson from Vanity Fair wrote, “I suspect tweens and teens are not the real targets anyway. The film often seems squarely, deliberately aimed at the parents instead, offering them a gentle, if busy reminder that they were young once, too.” Yeah.
[00:44:43] D: By the way, he's aware of that at the end, that they were young once, too.
[00:44:49] MP: It's almost like, he had a revelation of being like, “Damn, I was young once.” I like that. It makes sense.
[00:44:56] D: It does.
[00:44:59] MP: Yeah. It's what we touched on where we're like, “Oh, who is this targeted at? Is it targeted more of the parents, or the children?” Caroline Suede wrote, “There’s a special kind of joy that comes from watching a film that's completely confident in its eccentricities; one made by a filmmaker who seemingly got the chance to execute their vision uncompromised. This film does have an identity, where you feel like, this is one person's vision.” I forgot her name, the director's name. You said it before.
[00:45:36] D: I think, it’s Domee Shi. I don't know if I'm saying it right.
[00:45:39] MP: You do feel like, this is her journey. She's legit turned her life into an animated Pixar movie.
[00:45:49] D: It has a very distinctive voice, it feels.
[00:45:53] MP: Which I think is refreshing. Our last review, Richard Ro eper from the Chicago Times. He said, “The problems are mostly with the script, which often requires Meilin to be almost irritatingly obnoxious.” You have a two and a half out of four. I don't understand why everyone feels that Meilin and her friends are obnoxious. I honestly didn't see that in the film.
[00:46:20] D: I think, speaks to more their own projection of how they see teenage girls as obnoxious, I feel.
[00:46:29] MP: I remember growing up with teenage girls. I had no problems with this. I didn't find it obnoxious. Meilin’s monologue in the start of the movie come across a bit obnoxious, but it's meant to, because it's like, there's a lack of self-awareness for her. Because she thinks she's amazing. Then they hilariously bring up one of the teachers who's like, “Oh God. I can't stand that kid.” That was one of the best laughs in the movie. Yeah. She's meant to be obnoxious at the start, because she's an overachiever and she's proud of this and that. Yeah, at first you do find it obnoxious, but I think that's the point.
[00:47:14] D: Exactly. Kids can be obnoxious, especially at that time when they're learning to have their own voice, voice their own opinions. It's so easy at that age. I remember being that young and thinking that, “Oh, yeah. I know everything. I figured out a lot. I can speak to different things.”
[00:47:34] MP: There's definitely lines of dialog that you feel that from Meilin, even as she's the panda especially, where she's yelling back at her mom and things like that, where she thinks she knows everything, because she's feeling this surge of all these different emotions now. It makes sense to the story. I don't agree with Richard. Obviously, he has his opinion. Yeah.
[00:48:00] D: Yeah. It's quite interesting, because I think all the parents that are saying that it's inappropriate, or they're worried that it'll influence their children to be rebellious and all this, I feel like, they probably don't have teenagers yet. Because like, it’s going to happen.
[00:48:17] MP: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that brings up a great point. Hey, I'm not going to let my children watch this movie, because I don't want them to be rebellious. Newsflash: as your kid gets older, they're going to be rebellious, whether or not they watch a fucking Disney Pixar movie is not going to stop them from being rebellious. That’s what happens once you become a teenager. You want to rebel against authority, authority parental figures.
I find it funny that a parent would think it's going to be as simple as stopping their kid from watching certain movies, especially nowadays with the Internet. I don't think you're going to be able to stop them from consuming every little thing.
[00:48:54] D: There’s worst things out there.
[00:48:56] MP: Instagram is a lot worse than a Pixar movie. Anyway. That's the show. Something different for you guys. Hope you enjoyed the show. If you like the show, give us a subscribe, like the video. If you're listening to us on Spotify, leave a review on Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Thank you for joining us, Denise.
[00:49:18] D: Thank you for having me, Michael.
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