Everything GREAT About Turning Red!

Turning Red! Some people got mad about this one? But not many, still, felt like a good movie to celebrate. It's got red pandas and the early 2000s! So here's everything right with Turning Red!

CinemaWins Socials:

[brittanywentzell]

For me, this was the first time I think I saw an accurate portrayal of teen girl friendship in a movie. It was cringe but so sweet and so accurately showed just how important girl friends become. Also as a Canadian who graduated in 2005 this movie was an absolute treat. I couldn't help but feel nostalgic

[TheRibottoStudios]

That mashup of the Cantonese chant with "nobody like u" did NOT need to go that hard and that alone deserves like over 9000 likes.

[MoonWielder]

The scene with Jin and Mei talking about how he made her mom panda was really powerful.

[mollyd.]

Another really nice thing that I notice more and more when I see this movie is about Tyler. Yes, he's a jerk, and he's obnoxious, and kind of a bully throughout the movie... but also, he's never really hanging out with friends of his own, he already knew that no one would want to come to his birthday party without Mei, he's wandering around his party by himself once Mei can't be found, and he constantly looks anxious and self-conscious when he's not Class Clowning it up. Maybe by his actions, he didn't deserve winding up as their friend so quickly, but he definitely needed it!

[HoodieHorizon]

Can I just point out the 4town was able to open the portal. that means they were singing from their hearts. those guys genuinely cared about their music

[Egg_Sandwich]

One question I had about this movie: mei’s mom knew that her daughter would get panda’d someday, and hears loud crashing sounds and her daughter yelling “I’M A BIG RED MONSTER” yet doesn’t immediately think “oh yeah, the family curse of turning into big, red monsters might have come into effect”

[jwhaler]

“I never went to concerts!”

I love this line, because you can’t tell whether Ming is proud or ashamed of this.

Proud, because she honored her family above all else, or ashamed, because she never had the teen experience and her mother made honoring her family feel like a prison.

[MrKlausbaudelaire]

I love how they did the Mom as a red panda, the way her fur formed waves looked exactly like how chinese paintings portray manes of hair and fur in those many tiny waves, and how her beauty spot was also part of the pattern. But what SOLD it to me was her posing with her hands on her hips xD

[Universeofmany]

Fun tiny thing fans ever noticed about Priya handing Mei the deodorant: she literally pulls it out of thin air. Not out of a purse or bag; she pulls it out of freaking nowhere.
And it is NEVER acknowledged.

[erinrosser]

I love how there's so much diversity in the background characters, it feels realistic. There are women wearing hijabs, people in wheelchairs, the security guard in a turban, and the so-called mean girl has a glucose monitor on her arm and an insulin pump.

[jtmeade]

I absolutely love Turning Red.

Mei's struggles with the panda actually reminded me a lot of my struggles growing up with ADHD. Let me tell you, with ADHD it can really feel like there's a giant red panda that gets to decide what you can and cannot focus on at any given time. Plus ADHD causes emotional dysregulation, similar to the panda's connection to Mei's strong emotions.

The scene where she's beating herself up and begging the panda to go away hit me really hard. That was basically the exact same reaction I had when, at about that same age, my ADHD symptoms got worse and I finally understood how it was going to affect my life. "Why am I like this? I wish this would just go away!"

The "cure" even has parallels to ADHD medications. Some people can manage their ADHD without meds and some people have to have them to function. Back when I was diagnosed the meds available had some pretty nasty side effects and my symptoms weren't too severe, so I ended up not taking them. So the ritual scene, with her struggling over the choice and the visualization of ripping an "inconvenient" part of yourself away to conform, hit me pretty hard too. Top all that off with the "I'm not going to regret this... Am I?" and just... Yeah.

Ultimately, watching this movie prompted me to reprocess a lot of old negative emotions and baggage from a healthier perspective as an adult. It relieved a lot of weight that I hadn't even been aware I was carrying around.

[alenayushkevich]

It was so far THE BEST hands down THE BEST representation of a real teenage girl. Obsession with boy bands, feeling too much and sometimes having feelings that are still too young to explore, yet you just can't control it even if you don't understand it fully, the thought of not being able to see your favorite band live is worse than death, everything is so true, everything is so accurate. Hollywood changed how we see teenage girls so hard, always actresses way older than the supposed age, we started to forget how it really looks like.

[neolunaticus]

I'm surprised you didn't mention that the scene where her mom was spying on her at school was directly lifted from Domee Shi's actual childhood. Her mom did the exact same thing.

[trinaq]

I really love how close Mei and her friends were. They stand by her after learning her secret, and even allow Tyler to join them afterwards. Best friend group ever!

[satan_from_hell]

as i was discovering what it really meant to be gay, i was SO confused. like “is this allowed??” “what if this is fake??” and i remember feeling things toward my first real crush i never felt before. seeing Mei react in a similar (yet very exaggerated way) made me feel so seen. even if it’s very different.

[chidivids]

This movie opened my eyes to the amount of people that were not raised as I was, especially with people calling the store scene unrealistic. I've had a couple of traumatising events with my mum like that and while I blamed myself every time, it DID Shatter my trust in her. This is my new favourite pixar movie and I love how Mei's relationship with her mother is depicted, down to the helicopter parenting and contradictory feeling of guilt, anger and a want to impress her

[iclynnx]

I'm genuinely happy to see a positive video from a fairly big channel about Turning Red. It hit very close to home for me, and I'm tired of people complaining about it for weird reasons. My experience growing up has been diferent from Mei's, obviously, but I can still relate to a lot of the situations and feelings. Even that scene where Mei is going to sleep in her empty room, overhearing Ming talk about the panda in a worried way, impacted me greatly. I've overheard a fair share of things from my mom and dad, and while they don't always mean it the way it sounds, it stings. Especially as someone with a mental disorder that needs special care every now and then. It's tough on my family, emotionally. They get tired, and it sucks for everyone. So yeah, Turning Red is one of my favorite Pixar movies.

[clarasundqvist]

I think it's so interesting how ming treats mei after growing up. we learn that young ming feels like she can never do anything right, so a lot of the time she assumes mei can do no wrong and puts the blame of her mistakes on other people (dylan, mei's friends). it's an extreme over correction but i feel it's realistic that she would remember how her mom made her feel growing up and decided that mei would never feel like that, but ultimately caused similar problems because assuming that mei can never do anything wrong puts a lot of pressure on mei to actually live up to those expectations. it's really interesting and i'm so happy that a movie like this exists

[tiffanypersaud]

I loved all the characters in this film. I rewatched it recently.

If you as any Asian (East Asian, South Asian, Asian from Neptune) we will tell you that we have had an experience where our parent went all out on us when we had a crush like Mei.

And the whole thing about being a “good daughter” hit hard in that Ming was not aware at the time that she was perpetuating generational trauma unto Mei. She, even at her age, was still processing that being a “good daughter” also meant that you can have individuality. In cultures like Asian cultures, where community is deemed to trump individuality, I can see where she is coming from. I cried when Mei met her mum was a daughter and carried her out of that “forest” of pain that she still seemed to be in.

I wish there was just a teeny bit more between Ming and the grandma, but when grandma said, “I’m not losing my daughter again” in the film, I was already a sobbing mess.

Such a golden film. And yeh, I think it’s an appropriate family film. Kids hear period all the time. They’ll be fine.

[michaelcubed]

Speaking of underrated animated movies, Everything Great About The Prince of Egypt would be amazing.