Turning Red, Getting Older, and Getting Angry

I was not stoked when I heard about the new Pixar movie. It looked okay, the art looked good, and I thought it had excellent representation for the Chinese community. I was always open to seeing it, but it was not at the top of my list, but then I started to hear some negative things about it. There is usually someone who is pissed at a Disney movie, most likely because they showed an lgbtq+ character for 6 seconds, but not this time. This time I was reading comments that the film was too vulgar and adult. Now that intrigued me, and I knew I had to give it a watch. So I soldered up one night and bit the bullet, and by God, I found so many things that shocked me, and not necessarily negatively. Now at the bare bones, Turning Red is about an Asian-Canadian girl named Mei whose main goal in life is to reach her mother's high standards. This of course, can get in the way of Mei doing what she wants, like listening to her favorite band or hanging out with her group of friends. The conflict eventually comes to its head once Mei experiences her familial curse of turning into a giant red panda every time she feels any strong emotions. Finally, Mei learns that she shouldn't be ashamed of showing her intense feelings and can master turning into a red panda through calming techniques with the help of her family and friends. That's all fine and dandy at face value, and if you looked at it like that, you might say that this was another average Pixar movie for children, but it's not. Mei and her friends are 13, meaning she is just reaching puberty, and with that comes different struggles. One struggle highlighted was when Mei first turned into a red panda, and her parents, not knowing the cause of her panic yet, assumed she was on her period. This shocked me, mainly because a girl getting her period is taboo to talk about with children. When I was younger, I remember that "girl puberty" was a dirty secret that wasn't allowed to be known. I learned what my period was in 5th grade. I had never really heard about it before then. Even then, being on your period was portrayed as this big secret. You don't talk about it with your friends, you keep your pads and tampons hidden on your way to the bathroom, and you certainly don't mention it around a boy. So you can imagine my shock when this movie was so blunt about it. This girl (at least in her parents' minds) is on her period! She needs pads and gets cramps. When I learned about my period, I didn't feel like it was normal. It was never discussed on the shows I watched when I was little. It would have been nice to know at the time that I wasn't alone in how weird it felt. That's not the only growing pain discussed in the film. At first, Mei is disgusted that her friends are interested in the teenage clerk at their local gas station, but later that night, she fantasizes about him. She starts getting flustered at the thought of him, but she doesn't know what to do with this emotion. So she channels this new feeling into some romantically themed drawings of her and a very shirtless gas-station employee. This pissed some people off. Their child is being taught that a girl is feeling this way, but just because you ignore that your kid might have budding emotions that aren't so innocent doesn't mean they won't have them. That's the point of the entire movie. Mei has no idea what these feelings are. Her mother never introduced them to her and was pissed when she found out, but she got them anyway. Mei's mom learned to acknowledge that her daughter was growing and that her feelings could not be ignored.
I think a lot of people miss the point with this movie. People are angry because they believe it encourages children to act promiscuously and thrusts them into adult situations. If you feel that way, consider this. Mei turns into her panda with any strong emotion, both positive and negative. At the movie's beginning, her emotions cause her to act erratically since she has no impulse control. By the end, Mei can control her feelings. She might get worked up about something, but instead of acting on her first instinct, she thinks about the people she loves and how much they love her. This centers her brain until she can make a rational decision on how to act based on her surroundings. Isn't that what we want to teach our children? A parent can't ignore that their child is maturing. Their thoughts and feelings may become more or less unsightly, and their bodies may do some slightly embarrassing things. By showing them this movie, you're not forcing a child to have sexual thoughts. You're showing them, "yes, these things are normal, and they are scary, but you can control this." I mean, wouldn't you rather have something as tame as Disney teach your child how to channel their feelings rather than whatever they find on the internet themselves. And you know what, I get it, you might not want your daughter or son to learn about shirtless fanart at the age of 6, but no one's forcing you to show it to them. Disney makes movies for kids of all ages. If you want to show your six-year-old a movie, have them watch Frozen or Encanto or any other Disney Pixar movie because they don't talk about that stuff. At the very least, show it to your ten-year-old daughter, who will be feeling different in a few years, or your 11-year-old who just got her period. Listen, I'm not saying Turning Red is the perfect movie. It teaches us a lot about how both your body and emotions change when you get older. So I would recommend 'Turning Red' not only to your kid but also to you. Maybe reconnect with that tiny hormonal preteen version of you that I guess you forgot about. Just because your parents made you feel you have to hide doesn't mean you have to force your children to.