Turning Red is turning heads

Unpacking Turning Red’s ‘controversies’ and what it means to be a 13-year-old girl: liking boys, entering puberty, and wanting autonomy from your parents.

Pandas, puberty, and periods

Following her Oscar win for Best Animated Short for Bao, Director Domee Shi has created another coming-of-age film, Turning Red—the story of Mei Lee, a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl growing up in Toronto in the early 2000s who wakes up with an ability to transform into a magical giant red panda whenever she gets emotional. 

The movie, which stands at a 95% “fresh” rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, was praised for its fresh take on puberty, stellar voice acting, and unique world design that fit the lens of a 13-year-old girl. But in society’s latest attempt to ruin all fun, Turning Red has also become one of the most controversial films of 2022. 

The controversies range from claims of discomfort at cringeworthy 13-year-olds, a girl entering puberty, and a child having autonomy. Somehow, after movies about rat chefs and talking cars, there are people who felt a story about a Chinese teenage girl was too unrelatable.  Let’s unpack this for the angry parents and the confused cishet males.  

Mei is a boy-crazy fangirl who loves school. And shaming energetic teenage girls for their passions is precisely what Turning Red proves unhealthy. It’s rare, outside of Bob’s Burgers’ Tina Belcher, to see this kind of femininity positively, playfully depicted on screen but in truth, girlhood has always been embarrassing. Mine was composed of Twilight and One Direction. And it’s not just me, the hashtag “#at13” is trending as women articulate just how over-the-top and embarrassing they were in their teens, for anyone out there under the mistaken impression that 13-year-olds are cool.

Turning Red is an obvious analogue for puberty with Mei’s mother mortifying her by waving around pads at school. But apart from this moment of public embarrassment, there’s little shame or confusion attached to the idea of menstruation, which is a win in itself. That people are triggered to the point of flooding sites with negative reviews is juvenile. In the year 2022, have we not outgrown this kind of sexism? Girls get periods and are allowed to talk about it. If this prompts questions from confused children, even better if it means getting educated.

Another critic has said that Turning Red is not a movie for kids because it glorifies disobedience. This is the type of helicopter parenting that forces kids into defiance—the entire plot of the movie. But the idea that Turning Red promotes an unhealthy level of self-acceptance over familial or societal acceptance is not new. Pixar and Disney’s bread and butter is kids having rocky relationships with their parents: from Brave to Finding Nemo to Lilo & Stitch to Encanto. It’s not clear why Mei’s disobedience is so objectionable—if we ignore the racist overtone that some viewers want her to be stereotypically respectful and obedient.

Ultimately, the whole point of cinema is to transport you into the world of someone else and teach you something about yourself in the process. But Mei’s story is a familiar metaphor. Her puberty unlocks a secret intergenerational metamorphosis with the only cure being a ritual that locks away emotions: aggression, anger, and fear, but also intense passion and happiness. It’s a story of a family forcing a child to repress the unpalatable side of themselves they were born with as they learn how to navigate the world.  

Just as Mei said, “We’ve all got a messy, loud, weird part of ourselves hidden away, and a lot of us never let it out.”