I'm not Asian but there was a line in the movie where Mei says something like, "we try to be perfect all the time and they treat us like we're rulebreakers anyway so what's the point?" And that really hit home lol.
Absolutely. My dad always super strict, so scared of him we would basically walk like we were on a tightrope, but he was still somehow under the impression that we were just these sneaky, conniving little criminals. He would randomly accuse us of stuff that I assume he did when he was a kid, and it basically had nothing to do with us, sometimes stuff we had quite literally never considered doing.
@@andrewdunn8778 Oh wow, that sounds rough upbring and a little abusive? Hope things turn up okay and you have a better relationship with your father now?
@@Blueyoriginal it is an Asian based movie as Asian parents are often so strict it is borderline abusive. (I'm white but this is just what I've heard from Asian friends and their personal experiences)
I’m black, French but originally from West Africa, and the whole movie rang very true to me. My mom was extremely severe with me and my sister, wanting us to succeed academically and be good kids, and I resented her a lot for it since we weren’t allowed to do anything despite respecting her wishes (when Mei said « we’re good kids and they don’t let us do anything so what’s the point » was so relatable). Now I understand why, since my mom suffered a lot from racism and prejudice in France in the 70s and 80s and wanted her kids to be basically perfect so we would be untouchable, prove the negative stereotypes against us wrong and not be denied opportunities because of our skin color. I think the reasons may be different but a lot of visible minority kids go through similar experiences.
Being black (American to be specific) I relate to the general trama topic. Also, black parents tend to have an issue with not respecting the privacy of their kids and when you try to set boundaries for yourself as a growing person they take it as a sign of disrespect and usually react in an emotionally aggressive way. I think it stems from a lot of black parents not being able to see their kids as growing human individuals but as extensions of themselves, which can be a problem.
For some reason I'm suddenly thinking of that running gag in the email episode of 'Fairly Odd Parents', where they parents knock and call out to their kid: "What are you doing in there?" then announces: "I'm both respecting your privacy by knocking but asserting my authority as your parent by COMING IN ANYWAY!" and then breaks down their kids door with a battering ram.
One of the most heartwarming parts about this film is that Jin is such a supportive father. His voice of reason was exactly what his daughter needed to hear.
He is honestly a super underrated but great character within this story. His calmness and kindness is great balance to the rest of the more eccentric characters.
@@MrStyro there's a lot of asian men (boys?) on reddit who hated his portrayal because they deemed it not 'masculine' enough which i think speaks more about their idea of masculinity more than anything
@@vickylikesthis I saw that too! I read one post where the guy was lamenting over the fact the dad was shorter than the mom and that the mom had more power because she was a “tiger mom”. It very much felt like a projection of self fears.
@@MarnieGolde7 That's exactly what they said about Encanto, moreso about Luisa, I'm convinced that these misogynists are reading the same script assigned to them whenever their masculinity is being threatened, which is pathetic in itself.
As Hispanic girl in the 2000s it spoke to me. Also, as female in my culture there a lot expected of you. Setting boundaries was something I had to learn.
2nd Generation Cuban here and absolutely agree. Especially with my Great Grandma at times as well. I never really got to see my grandpa much as he lived in South Korea but between my mom and great grandma sometimes it was like I was drowning.
I got my period for the first time at my grandma's place. This was where everyone gathered after church, so it was *my mom and all her sisters* and *my grandma and all her sisters.* I had to walk out of the bathroom to be surrounded by like a dozen old French Canadian ladies all looking at me and going "awwwwwww!" I wanted to die.
I might be weird, but I feel you are surrounded by women in your life that love you? I am a guy, but I think this is better than being in school or out somewhere else without any support or people who understand what you are going through?
@@brianng8350 This is a good take. Unfortunately, at the time I was only 10 years old and was pure embarassed to have ALL my aunties know what was going on.
@@brianng8350 I really like the thought but... this is one of the most emotional, humiliating (even though most of us are told to prepare for the coming of age) and shameful moments in our lives. Even if we are alone, we feel these intense feelings on top of others that we don't understand yet, so I can't even imagine if I had all my aunts around. I would have died. It's still a great thought, just not realistic for a lot of girls.
As a Filipino of Chinese descent, I'm glad that I feel represented in some parts of Mei's story. I performed well in school and I didn't have time to hang out with friends. The part that hit me like a ton of bricks was when Mei acted in defiance, stood up for herself, and said along the lines, "Well, sorry I'm not perfect, sorry I'm not good enough, and sorry I'll never be like you". It made me imagine saying those words to my dad as he's unsupportive of me studying and learning Nihongo and he never understands why I don't want to have a girlfriend, get married, and have kids. I also had several arguments with my mom in 2021 over family-related things and the painful memories led me to let out all the pent-up feelings of anger and sadness. I eventually sought professional help with a therapist, mom and I had open and honest communication and at the beginning of 2022, we're on good terms. I finally have peace of mind and focus my mind on the present.
As an East Asian, this is way too relatable, my grandma is 100% the mom in the movie. And all the cultural references are WOW! There’s even has electric little pet in my childhood??🤩🤩
I think Mei was the first member of her family who wasn't completely traumatised by their parents. She is able to control her panda because she had great friends, a great dad and her mother, while overprotective, was able to let her choose for herself. All the aunties and gran have to lock their pandas away again, because they couldn't control them.
I mean, she definitely did get trauma, but she has more time to undo it and has the right resources. I'm not sure if there's a standard of 'complete' or 'incomplete' trauma. It's not good to 'be an adult' as a kid. There's literally a moment when she walks her mom through the forest, essentially parenting her own mom. That's not great. But now that the mom has realized her own trauma and its effect on Meilin, reparations can be made to teach Meilin proper self awareness and self love, instead of pushing it to the side to meet her mom's standards. Mei's friends helped teach her that, but with Mei's home life being less toxic, Mei has room to be a kid and develop to an adulthood where her childhood doesn't haunt.
@@twylenb That's pretty much what I meant. I think, however, that her being able to help her younger mom in the forest is indicative of how she is better at coping with the whole situation at the same age as her mother. Though we don't really find out much about the relationship between her mom and her grandmother, I think the gigantic size of her mother's panda somehow represents all the feelings she had to repress to be the perfect child her own mother wanted... But that's just, like, my opinion, man...
24-year-old Filipino American here and I ugly cried at the same parts you cried, Eric. The moment that hit me the hardest was when the movie acknowledged that sometimes friends are more comforting than family.
I come from a religious family in the south, and this movie was very relatable to the time they found a picture of me in the yearbook attending the schools GSA (like an LGBTQ get together). My sister sent it out to my parents, and we argued over it for a while. My mom pushed pretty hard on me for a while trying to convince me I'm wrong about myself, so my dad took me for a drive to cool off and chat so he could understand better. Eventually she relented, and while its still an awkward subject for us, shes been more accepting now.
As a southeast asian, I related to this soooo much! The "proving yourself" through grades, talents, and obedience. The "returning the favor" to your parents because they brought you into this world was soooo spot on! I have been leading this life in my youngers years with my mom, too. And my dad, just like Mei's is just suoer cool, supportive, and doesn't force me on anything. I cried during the ritual where Mei tried separate the red panda from her. The 4 being "unlucky" can be seen in my country also. I live in the Philippines, btw. Before, we would know that a building is owned by a Chinese person because it doesn't have a 4th floor. But recently, even buildings owned by Filipinos don't have the 4th floor as well. It's just the Chinese influence in the Philippines.
I truly loved your reaction. ❤ I’m not Asian, but I could definitely identify with just all the stuff that comes with being a teenage girl and crushing over boys, being self-conscious, afraid to express yourself, etc. My parents weren’t overbearing, but there was still that sense of not wanting to disappoint them. I would guilt trip myself hard, lol. I could sort of understand the generational trauma of Mei’s culture, because I watch a lot of Chinese and Korean shows, plus comedians and actors who touch on it. My mom’s mother decided at some point in my childhood that she didn’t like me (no one knows why), and I had a lot of anger and resentment about it. I was upset with my mom for not getting it out of her or defending me (that I can recall), and when my dad unleashed on my grandmother, demanding an answer, she claimed she had no idea what we were talking about. The hate followed me til I was in my late twenties. She had developed dementia, so there was definitely no getting an explanation anymore, but it actually helped me let go of all of my anger, because she didn’t remember that she didn’t like me. I hadn’t seen or spoken to her in roughly 4 years. We didn’t live in the same town (8-9 hours away), so when I was able to visit her for the first time, she was happy to see me and would proudly introduce me to everyone in the care facility. Though I’ll never get the full closure, it took so much emotional weight off me. I guess this counts as generational trauma, right? Lol
I’m not Asian, but I was pressured to be “good enough” growing up. And uh, well, my parents did have me exorcised when I came out to them, so that part actually hit me incredibly hard; didn’t expect undergoing an exorcism-like ritual to expel part of yourself for your family’s sake would be a relatable part of a movie for me haha But yeah, that’s how this movie touched me personally. And I too “kept the panda” haha
@@funyarinpa9464 Thank you for your comment, and yes things are much better now! I don’t have much contact with my family, but I have a bit of a found family now, and that’s very nice.
@@sundalosketch4769 it’s okay, it was pretty rough at the time. I don’t think I’d have stuck to things the way I did if I hadn’t taken a long time to really come to terms with things. Even from a religious standpoint, I could find nothing wrong with me, which helped me very much
I related to the movie as a filipino having asian parents and the expectations to do better than them or become a doctor, and yes I had that mental breakdown on deciding whether to be a nurse instead (lol ended up studying for PT), and just the whole teenage childhood experience in this movie was something i've went through, I was attacked by this movie in all sides haha! people in my classroom keeps saying they have a crush on the cutest boy/girl in the room meanwhile i'm just there going "they look nice, but im not in love with them", drawing anime all over my class notebooks, enjoying 2000's boyband music, the emo phases, oh my god even the note passing style with the pens and handwriting gave me so much nostalgia. I had my me vs parents meltdown around 15 when I got tired of disappointing their expectations on me playing the piano of all things and its kinda sad because I do like playing it, but all the time I keep getting told to practice and do perfectly made me eventually not enjoy it, even resent it sometimes so I had to tell them I was no longer happy about it. it took a while but eventually they get that forcing me to things I don't enjoy is just gonna make my miserable in the long run. edit: I just realized that being 13 you realize a lot of things about yourself that you don't notice before until you start questioning your actions and what you want in life, like me finding out I was pansexual and going "so THAT's why im like that" lol this whole movie is just shoving back to my face that im a tumblr kid and yes you were cringe and you loved it
As a white American Jew, I definitely find this story relatable. Some of the cultural points are not part of my personal experience (although Jewish families and East Asian families have some notable similarities...!) but the overall story is familiar to everyone who grew up as a "good kid" and had to deal with living up to, and letting down, their parents' expectations. Especially for those of us who grew up as girls and/or in the heyday of boy bands!! I love seeing stories with another cultural viewpoint. I'm really happy my niece will grow up with stories like this and Encanto, beautiful and fun stories about all kinds of families and the emotional conflicts they can face.
I'm a 38 year old man from Romania (Eastern Europe). So on paper I don't have a lot of connection with a Chinese-Canadian girl reaching puberty in 2002. Yet I got very emotional watching this movie, I think it has a universal quality to it, and a lot of things reminded me of reaching puberty in the late 90s.
I''m French with Italian and Sicilian background. But I still connected a lot with the movie and Mei-Mei. My parents are really strict and raised me with the idea that being a girl, I should be pretty, soft and silent. I should NEVER speak up, be angry or frustrated. I had to avoid conflict, let people (especially men) walk all over me, I could never say "No", say that I was tired or uncomfortable, etc. I also had to stay locked at home when I wasn't at school because as a girl, I wasn't authorised to go out with my friends until I was 18 and in university. Also, I could never stand up to my parents, tell them that I disagreed on anything... even for stupid things! Like, my father is really bad with computer and he would get angry at me if I explained (kindly) that he was doing something wrong. He hated that his daughter could know something he didn't and would slap me if I didn't back down when he yelled. I was so happy that Mei-Mei managed to stay herself and was happy, got out with her friends, became so confident! I never did and I'm still scarred today. At 30, I'm still learning to say "No", to respect myself and my boundaries thanks to therapy. Socialising is still weird too, because I'm so uncomfortable around people after being locked up in my formative years... So I kinda relived vicariously my own teenage years through this movie and it felt good even though I cried ^^
I related to it when it comes to the mother & daughter relationship. That hit me super hardcore. Ironically I was 13 in 2002 lol. So it was super nostalgic for me, especially with the sailor moon influence in the movie.
haha not sure if irony is the right word... but yeah you and the director! I think that's why it feels rather sincere. AND for once millenial slang or fads are referenced with some loving memory for it, as well as acknowleding how silly it could be, rather then when middle aged people write it as something foreign or disparingly or inferior
Mother Daughter relationships always get to me, but to have even the mom say that she never thought she’d be good enough for anyone… god. Nearly killed me. Disney movies lately be giving me existential crises. Soul, Encanto, and now this.
i'm brazillian, and both my parents grew up in poor families in the countryside and had to drop out of school to find work. as soon as they became of legal age they moved to a big city, all the way across the country, in the hopes of finding better jobs, which was what everyone was doing at the time. i grew up seeing they work their asses off, and hearing about all the hard times they passed because of not having finished school. this idea that mei has about having to honor all her parents' hard work and feeling guilty for contradicting them has followed me my entire life, bc they work so hard so i don't go through what they went through. seeing a big media like that portraying and validating these conflicting feelings is really impactful
I'm a white Canadian and even though I couldn't really relate to the part about parents expectations and trying to please your parents, I still related to the movie because I was once a 13-year old girl and it perfectly captures how awkward that phase of your life is.
I'm not East Asian, but I grew up in Toronto, and loved Chinatown, in the 1960s and 70's. I found puberty really hard, and did a lot of very stupid things because I had too much freedom, and no real support from my parents. It's so important to talk about the beginnings of sexuality for all kids, but hardly anyone seems ready to talk about it.
As an Hispanic, this did speak to me. Besides that, Im actually super obsessed with this movie. The character's are enjoyable, the humor is on point, the serious parts are on point. Sure, I physically cant relate to the 'Girl problems', but I enjoyed it all the way through. 8.5/10
i cried during the scene in which she doesn't want to get rid of the panda during the ritual too. but the scene which makes me cry the most is when 4town and the kids sing along with the chant in the final battle, it's just so freaking powerful. yes, absolute magical girl vibes from the aunties turning into pandas haha! as a magical girl fan, the ritual in the final battle was also very reminiscent to the Precure franchise
I may be white, but I was the particular flavor of super christian, super conservative upbringing from the southern United States where I had parents like this. The mom hiding when her mother calls is something I experienced almost exactly. After a tense relationship with my father, we were having dinner one day, and his mother called, and he kind of froze up for a second when he read the caller ID.
I'm a white guy in his early 30's (for a more specific culture, Canadian-American, born, raised, and lived in America). 2002, I'd be 12 years old. Sure, there were a lot of things I couldn't relate to, at least not exactly. But, the whole thing about high standards, high expectations, perfectionism, not living up to what you think your parents want, etc. The things about puberty, although a bit different being for a girl, I related to the kind of feelings she was going through and the reactions of parents to it all. That all hit really hard for me. It also took me a long time before I started truly discovering myself. Only fairly recently, with therapy, am I able to finally able to start feeling like myself. Every person that needs to get things worked out internally should go do it, if they have the ability to do so, I highly recommend it. I bottled up my emotions. suppressed them so long, that I did serious damage to myself. I had my life mostly planned out for me. And I followed it for so long that I lost myself to it. And then had a nervous breakdown in about my mid 20's because I thought I was failing at life when I just truly wanted to take a different path than what was laid out for me (what I thought I wanted, but what was really just ingrained in me).
I'm not Asian, not Canadian, not a girl and I found plenty to connect with in this film. I feel like everyone experiences a time when they feel like their parents expect too much and yet parents have no idea what their child is going through to meet their expectations. I went to high school in Japan (military parents) and I had classmates who I could never hang out with after school because their parents did not let them do anything after school but homework. I had crushes and got into embarrassing situations because of them and was totally bullied and called a freak plenty of times.
Background: American mutt, descendant of enslaved persons and slave owners, and I've been a 13-year-old girl. How to answer this without turning it into a novel? I was the smart child, the one expected to follow the academic path, I was the one expected to go to college. While it might not be quite to the same extent, I did get a lot of pressure to excel academically. That meant in elementary school I went to the college prep feeder and then for 7th grade, I went to the college prep magnet. I hated it. My younger brother got to go to the arts magnet starting with fourth grade, I spent three years trying to convince my mother to allow me to audition. She was ready to move to another community just so that I didn't have to go to our neighborhood high school. I found out several years later as an adult that I was dealing with undiagnosed ADHD (since dx'd) and probably undiagnosed autism as well. I don't blame my parents for my not knowing until I was well into adulthood. At the time I was a child, girls rarely got diagnosed with ADHD (called minimal brain dysfunction for most of my childhood) or autism, and brown girls didn't at all. So while I might not have the same touchstones with East Asian culture, I still related to so much of this movie. From the sudden onset of puberty and the reactions when you see "cute" peers to the absolutely wild, crazy, screaming, crying kids at a concert (Saw Prince when I was 14), the friends, and the cringy, goofy behavior, the start of the transition from child to adult, that is not specific to any one cultural group.
I'm South East Asian - Indian, to be specific. And even SE Asian parenting is very similar to East Asian parenting. Focus on perfectionism, comparing kids to others (to "motivate" them), talking about giving food and adult as though they did kids a favour... Yeah, lots of common toxic traits. In fact, even the aunties are so typical! The aesthetic might be different, but not much else is. So I related to this SO hard. My mum was quite critical of me growing up, and watching this film was cathartic in a way. A lot of us did not have the good fortune of having our parents own up to their mistakes and apologise for them, so this film felt like an acknowledgement of sorts.
I appreciate your perspective as someone with the background of the character. I think the story is universal but SO GLAD that Disney is branching out. I also like the fact that the switcheroo with the period to just changing as an individual.
As a guy, I really enjoyed this coming-of-age story of a 13 year old girl. I could somewhat relate to the goofy aspects of being that age, despite being from a girl's perspective, that's what I can say in terms of your question in how the film connects with me. Although the movie was a bit cringe at times, I can tell it was intended, it was naturally made to be that way rather than being unintendedly formulaic throughout, which I found to have made the movie better. Definitely enjoyed this more than Soul and a few other recent 3D animated movies I've watched, for sure (and not just because I'm Canadian). Interestingly, I enjoyed the movie even more after a second re-watch with my brother.
I'm a Dutch, white, 36 year-old guy and I loved the movie. It's not the specifics that I relate to, but obsessing over her parents' approval, feeling ashamed of her own body and sexuality, that really hit home for me. Maybe it's because I'm disabled and that's why I'm pushing myself so hard and feeling inadequate, but it rings true to me.
I'm from south east Asia and my grandfather is an immigrate from China so I see myself a lot in this movie too. I have to be perfect for parents but now I grow up and my parents understood me a lot during college. Now they are happy what I do in my job and other thing that are my decision not theirs.
having Hispanic parents, this movie still hit home. especially the part where mei's mother blamed her friends instead of mei herself at the party, my mother just couldn't fathom that i wasn't brainwashed by them
i am a chicano trans man, and growing up as a mexican girl made me resonate so much with ming and mei. im very close to my mother and my grandmother, and i felt that my relationships with them had the same dynamic as mei/ming and ming/grandma. that desire to be perfect for the people who raised you, and that never-ending struggle to gain their approval is something that i really relate to, and turning red was a beautiful movie that addressed how it can affect you to always strive for this impossible feat
I was a pre-teen girl in the late 2000's and Mei and her friends are basically me and my friends all over the place. Doing arts on our notebooks, the acting crazy and cringy, the boy bands...
People mostly disconnected with subtle Tiger Parenting in this movie and thought that Mei Mei just a jerk who loves to lying and just dumped her best friends for no reason.. But the reason why Mei Mei is so afraid to her mother Ming we can see on how Ming also afraid to her mother.. The reason why Pixar make it so subtle and hidden is because all Tiger Parents are stubborn people who always thinking they are right.. If you blame their Tiger Parenting method on the nose they would be ignorant and think Pixar exaggerated the tiger parenting method and didn't know how good that strict tiger parenting was.. You can also see on Ted Ed video when a tiger mother so proud that her kids fear of her..
Despite not being of East Asian descent, as an African American I do relate to the whole honor your parents thing, and wanting to feel like your own person. Ming Lee literally reminds me of my Dad. He wants to protect me, to the point where when I want to try something he won't let me because it's dangerous. But i know he loves me.
As a white woman from the US, I can relate to pieces of this story, but I love how it illustrates the particular experiences of Asian immigrant kids. I've known various people whose parents expected a lot of them, but the guilt trip Mei felt from doing anything that might disappoint her parents was pretty extreme. When her mother crossed Mei's boundaries the first time with the artwork, I was fully expecting Mei to have a blow up at her mom and stop talking to her. I was almost shocked at how opposite her reaction was. But I felt like I could at least partly understand Mei's conflicted feelings by the end. The film showed both the strengths and weaknesses of her family's dynamic really well.
30:03 ah yes I remember when I got my first pyramid at 11😂 I'm Korean so there are stuff in this film that definitely hit me. Especially feeling like I'm not "allowed" to be emotional in front of my parents. Unlike Mei though, I still haven't reached an understanding moment with my own mom, even as an adult. I honestly don't think I ever will. At least I guess I should be grateful that she's not as extreme as Mei's mom 😅
This movie is so good, but unfortunately got some things cut that wouldve made it more diverse. Priya was supposed to kiss the goth girl at the party (it was in the storyboards as far more romantic than in the film), and Tyler is heavily implied to be gay, especially in other Turning Red related content. Would've loved to see it, especially since many queer Asians can relate to the feeling. Love the film nonetheless!
Not asian, and I have supportive parents but I realized that while my parents don't put pressure on me, I create it myself. I hold unrealistic expectations for myself (physically and mentally) so this movie did hit some parts for me.
My family is Mexican. I'm first generation American and first female in my immediate family. I was expected to be "perfect" because my mom was a single mom so I had to be a second mom for my siblings, therefore an example. This means my actions would reflect on my mom and they would also determine how my siblings would turn out when they got older. My mom had 6 kids so it was hard. My mom decided while I was in high school that I would need to work to pay for my brother's school since he didn't have any scholarships and he was the first male/first born. She said I would have to wait to go to school. This freaked me out because I saw my future fading away. So I ran away from home. I know this not "good" but to this day it was the best choice I ever did and would do it again if I had to do it all over again. My family disowned me after this for several years even though they knew that on top of all of that, my mom emotionally, verbally, and physically abused me. They did this because we are supposed to stick together as a family no matter what and we don't address issues. I was blessed that a host family took me in. They took me to therapy and I was able to go to school (full ride due to scholarships yay!). I love myself and my life. Love that I can be who I am and I don't have to apologize for it. 💜
Dude that line from Mei’s mom as a young girl ‘I’m so sick of being perfect. I’m never going to be good enough for her…or anyone else.’ That hit me right in the heart as if it was me. I feel that line all too often with my mother. Loved this movie.
i grew up in the early 90’s as a hispanic american kid that wasn’t (too) obsessed with boybands but i really relate to the mother child relationship i’ve watched dozens of reactions to this and the part where the mom says “if i taught you to please everyone else and be so hard on yourself, i’m sorry. the further you stray from that, the prouder i will be” breaks me tf down sometimes it’s hard to relate to my mom but i love her and i know she loves me. and further, i know she wants me to do what makes me happy and not live for anyone else. and it made me feel like there was still a chance for me to live my life the way i want to in the midst of feeling like it’s pointless to try.
"the further you go, the prouder ill be" ABSOLUTELY destroyuyyyyedddd me. iv failed a lot in my life but something my parents have always reminded me of, is that they will be proud of me so as long as im pushing forward and growing. Its not about their accomplishments, its yours, and being happy is the biggest one they're worried about.
I'm Caribbean, and this movie was extremely relatable in the sense of how I was when I was 12/13 and how that's how when you realize whether you like boys or girls and it can be very cringey but its fine, it when you start to figure it out. 13 is the age I realized I liked boys (And being a boy myself coming from a Hispanic family, it was ROUGH) 13 is also the age all my male friends started liking girls and would talk about it all the time, which is very much emphasized in the movie. but i learned to live with it. Seeing all be themselves at that age REALLY took me back to my middle school days and how I struggled being a normal teenager while also dealing with a very toxic home environment. Between this and Encanto, I think besides the magic, the most unrealistic part of both of these stories is how the adults realize they're wrong and apologize. That's something I have never seen happen in any family in person. but to end it on a good note, i like this reaction, given how many people are going around saying this movie is too niche and not broad or relatable enough. This is the only opinion of this movie that matters to me lol. If a black gay dude from the Caribbean can cry and relate watching this movie, so can you.
I am East Asian too, and I got emotional at exactly the right spot - seeing how the emotional weight of being perfect carries down each generation is so important.
This movie hit me so hard bc I also have an overprotective mom, and it has been a long, hard path; but I’m happy (and jelous) that my little brother doesn’t have to deal with the same things I had to.
I was born('69) in South Korea and my Mother brought me to the U.S. for hopes of a better life. I wish my mother had been more strict about keeping our heritage in our lives. I guess as happy as I was she just let me be my own person. I have to be honest, I could have been less focused on everything the states had to offer and using that as an excuse to not learn of our past. I would even be able to speak Korean if I didn't put being an American as a priority. I have to put that regret totally on myself.
Let's rewind it back to the blaming yourself part. You didn't do anything wrong. If your mother wanted you to be in touch with your heritage, she would have. And if you are feeling regret, it's not like it's too late to start.
I'm Black but I'm only a year younger than Mei so a lot of the stuff here rung true just bc I grew up in that boy band/Tamagotchi era. I see this like any of Disney/Pixar's recent stuff: it hits REALLY hard if you're from that culture but anyone can relate if you allow yourself to.
I may be in my 50's, but what the mother did, the house rules where I had to have best grades possible, do everything they ask, and how my mother freaked when my 'flower' showed up when I was 9 years old. So spot on. There is so much in this movie which touches on growing up and the changing dynamics of parents with their coming of age children. The parents being blind to how their actions are causing more problems for their child, spot on. What is good is how this movie shows you can have huge fights and then work on patching up to be adult child with a relationship with your parents & elders. It isn't about things going back to how they were, because you are not a kid or that type of 'you' any longer for a lot of valid reasons. I love how Mei Mei realized she had to be true to herself in order to find her way. I know it isn't easy for Ming, but with what the movie showed, in this alternate realm, she and her mother healed something to build a more honest bond after the years of strain. I didn't hide my efforts to raise money to get what I wanted, which included paying for a round trip ticket to visit my grandfather. My parents were actually shocked I raised all of it in 1.5 years worth of babysitting and making birthday cakes for our neighbors. Their fear of letting me travel on my own, at age 13, was tough on them. Daily calls & postcards, you name it, I did it. Oh, and my family is both mixed in religion & backgrounds. Catholic/Lutheran, European mixed with Asia, India, and South America. My mother's family worked and traveled with the circus for several generations before coming to the US.
I'm white, but my parents had high expectations in ways that are definitely still affecting me in adulthood. My mom is just a hard-core perfectionist with middle child syndrome (and I'm their only kid), but my dad was taught to Be A Man and never show emotions that were "weak" or "girly". He was an alcoholic so we had a complicated relationship even though I do know he loved me. He passed away a few years ago so that's just the way it'll always be. I feel hopeful when I see the next generations trying their best to move away from that and other negative ways of thinking. On a lighter note, as a Canadian it was fun to see all those details and Toronto playing itself instead of New York. 😂
I'm a 68-year-old black man. I am not 13, not Chinese-American, not a girl, not in Toronto... and I adore the movie. I think this relatability stuff expecting a movie to be "like me" is largely horse manure. None of the programs produced when I was a kid were "like me." People related to Wall-E, for crying out loud; if we can relate to a trash compacter with binoculars for eyes, we should be able to relate to any human being. What a story has to do is deftly define the world of the protagonist, clearly describe the needs and desires of the protagonist, show us what the obstacles are, and make us care. This story does that, unless people let there own prejudices get in the way. When the old shaman first saw the Red Panda flying overhead, at first we think he's just as anyone surprised by the sight, but then we learn that he knows all about the Red Panda, and must have realized what has happened in the Lee household. I was about to be annoyed by Jin, but he was the first adult to give Mei his blessing to be herself; and he also married Ming even after seeing her panda. That might have been the encouragement she needed. The Red Panda does not represent periods. It represents the emotions and assertiveness that women in general and Asian women in particular are taught to repress. It was given to them to protect them against bandits while their men were away...which is certainly not menstruation. And her grandmother, certainly menopausal, still had her own panda. While the expression of feminine emotion and assertiveness might have been frowned upon in the East, it was celebrated in Mei's Western surroundings. Mei never wanted to be a rebel, but she needed space from an over-the-top smothering mother. In the end, she remained the good daughter that she wanted to be. Mei never actually got her period in the movie yet, btw.
I’m Samoan; there was so much I related to in the movie. My parents are immigrants, so walking that line of being my own person in a country that my parents are not from and fulfilling my role as a dutiful child while committing to my cultural responsibilities has always been hard. I loved how that was incorporated; I’m about 4 years younger than Mei so I very vividly remember that time growing up. Like a lot of first gen (in my case American) kids, I listened to everything my parents wanted and tried to suppress the parts of myself that wasn’t part of their goals. It always felt like I needed to be better because so much was invested in me. Like Mei, eventually my own red panda got out and I wound up keeping it ☺️ This paired with the nostalgia in this movie had me tearing SO MANY TIMES. Turning Red is definitely my new comfort movie.
I am German in the ...*counts the generations since the 16 houndreds* god knows how many generation. But I have to say that I feel very connected to the theme of Turning Red. And if I really think about it, though it might be more openly ingrained in for example chinese culture and social dynamics in families, I think the themes of the movie connect with just about every person on the planet. Not being able/knowing to communicate my feelings was very difficult for me as a child and still is as an adult. And more so while fighting my inner demons ( which sadly isn't a red panda) I would love to exchange my experiences with people that grew up as first generation children of imigrant parents from china and other eastern asian countries. Love your empathic and emotional reaction to the movie!
I'm a Puerto Rican woman and connect really well because I am an ex hormonal teenage girl. All that tween girl angst, so accurate. Starting to be boy crazy, boy bands ,being "in love" with celebrities, feeling like you're a woman when u get ur period because your mom would always say once u get your period your a woman now.
I'm Italian-Canadian and a lot of this rings true for me as well, having old fashioned parents. Family is everything, pride is a huge thing, some generational trauma, privacy is not a concept anyone understands, your best is never enough, whether you do right or wrong they'll find something to be disappointed about etc... The reconciliation with the mothers always gets to me though, because I still haven't gotten that closure with my mom and to this day we still don't really get along. It hurts knowing I never had a nice relationship with her, but I love seeing this kind of transformation in parents in the films and the healing that comes with it. As a woman who grew up in the 90's and early 2000's, everything else about this movie is 100% relatable. XD
i’m not asian but coming from an indigenous-latino household, this was very relatable to me in regards to my trouble relationship with my parents but trying to be my own person. but what i loved the most of this film was the anime references and seeing mei-mei drawing in her notebook - when i was 13 back in 2009 or 2010, i was reading more manga openly at school and this was when kids still saw you “weird” for reading manga or liking anime, let alone drawing anime. so all those drawings brought me back to those moments :) i’m a fan of this film.
i’m black american, but my dad is an immigrant from the caribbean- so i relate a lot to the honoring your parents, and the high expectations. the part that killed me the most is when mei’s mom says something like “the farther you go, the prouder i’ll be”. literally KILLED ME-!!! i might’ve cried because i wish my parents had been more like that. and tho i don’t like this as much as encanto- i feel like the resolution of this movie is more realistic. just acceptance and respect that you and your parents are different people. some people are gonna change and some people are not.
It was great seeing you get so emotional during this movie. The first time I watched it, it absolutely destroyed me, particularly Ming's speech to Mei after she put away her Panda. The "The farther you go, the Prouder I'll be line coupled with her slow fade out really touched me deeply. By the way, I'm a white guy from England and I still found this relatable. A great little movie. Just ridiculously good.
My mom was respectful of my privacy but I SUPER related with the "she does so much for me the least I can do is everthing she asks". Definitely a pressure on getting straight As... all of the extra-curricular activities... the honor programs... I guess I mostly wish I'd had a friend group like that to help me be myself more. It took me a looooooong time to figure myself out. I'm Colombian, so even though I definitely identify with a lot of it, my culture is very different and so are the traumas that come with it. As you can imagine, Encanto rang true for a lot of those things. It's still all about that generational trauma though, huh? Cool that we're getting all of these movies that both have appeal for anyone with the least bit of empathy but also super specific cultural things that really touch something deep in the hearts of who the movie's targeting. We need more of these! Thank you for sharing you feelings about it! /Edit: I'd also have beent that age in the early 00s so yeah that whole idea of repression and lack of therapy during that time is... OOF
I'm a Caucasian/Hispanic man who experienced my later teenage years in during the time this movie is set in, and it rings true on multiple levels for me. I was an extremely closeted gay teen who grew up in a strict Southern Baptist household with a parent being a pastor, so there were definitely strict expectations to deal with from my parents. Trying to come to terms with my own goofy awkwardness and finding my personal sense of humor amidst all of this was turbulent for sure. Turning Red just grabbed me immediately with home much I related in that sense and how I was secretly crushing on guys but couldn't tell me family, or even admit it to myself.
I'm 38 (I graduated high school the day that they thought the concert was taking place, literally), white, and I related to Mei-Mei so much. I was an awkward pre-teen in the late 90s and was raised by my grandparents. I was the only child and grandchild, and my mom had been my [grand]parents' only child who had lost her battle to cancer at age 26. I had a huge amount of pressure on me to be a good girl, get good grades, stay out of trouble, etc., and the family dynamic of my [grand]parents looked a lot like Ming and Jin. Mom was (and is) a fierce woman who will always get her way, and my dad was a bit more B-type. I'm still dealing with the generational trauma today, as my mom has moved in with me due to old age and failing health (and widowhood), and we've fallen into a lot of old patterns. So often, I do not advocate for my own emotions and self until my emotions explode, and it is definitely not healthy--it's just easier than arguing or dealing with the guilt trips. This film definitely hits home for me, even without the cultural connection.
I'm white, unfortunately, and I cried during this, hard, lol. But I won't ever have a good relationship with my parents, well, the ones that are still living. Movie is incredible, and your reaction and commentary is phenomenal. Thank you
I'm from Europe, but as the oldest child of the family I can relate to this movie very much. The unspoken expectations and pressure you put on yourself ... oooof. The last part of the movie during the final ritual ... it rang so true that I found myself gasping for air at times. And crying like a baby. What a great movie! Also loved that it shows how dorky young girls can be. Boy I could tell some stories ... :D
Mei’s dad was a pretty cool/supportive guy and I especially love his plan with the circle. Something tells me that him and Mr. Boonchuy would be best buds.
I'm a 59 year old white guy from the UK who lives near a northern England city. I couldn't be further away from Chinese culture if I tried, yet this movie connected with me like no other has for years. The writing, the wit, the subtlety and yes.....I love all the cultural stuff too. Such a beautiful movie....in my opinion, one of Pixar's best. I love it.
As the oldest child/daughter in a Mexican immigrant family this really hit close to home. I feel like I’ve lived a majority of my life for my family and I lived as a person just trying to carry everyone’s dreams and expecting. I’ve been doing that since I was a child and I feel like the emotional trauma that my family carries is never spoken of. When I saw the ending scene of the mom as a child it just really hit home, I can relate a lot to the mom and Mei. Your so right in mentioning how immigrant children carry a lot of the trauma of their families, I’m in counseling to deal with my own personal struggles and it’s helped a lot. I’ve learned to set boundaries with my family about living my own life for myself but it’s hard, it feels SELFISH when it actually isn’t. It’s not selfish to care for yourself and live in the way that makes you feel fulfilled. I was actually born in the early 2000s so I grew up watching my youngest aunt be going through her own teens during the 2000s.
I'm a Brazilian woman of Okinawan descent and, despite my parents not being strict at all, my grandparents were and I lived together with them all. There were many elements that really hit home for me. The incenses (in fact, when I was watching the movie, my mom had some lightened because of my grandpa's altar - worshipping ancestors, as Mei said), the drawings all over my notebooks, me being the clumsiest teenager, the superstition surrounding number 4, the clothing choices for the aunties lol even the squad greeting with the cute hands! I grew up thinking I should be the little perfect girl, always nice, very smart and be the biggest pride for everyone. Mei and teen Ming had me crying a lot, because the pressure is too real Even before the movie was released, I totally freaked out because I also played transverse flute when I was a teenager, learned a little bit of French as well... I had a Tamagotchi, was more into girlbands but the feeling was kind of the same! And, well, I had the same haircut as Mei and dyed my hair red, few weeks before I even got to know about this movie. And, oh: Turning Red was released on my birthday! It was almost like this movie was my birthday gift, and I couldn't be happier ♡
The voice crack from Ming as a teen hit my heart hard. I remember being so frustrated seeing my mistakes n failures highlighted more than any accomplishments or victory’s. I related so much with it being a teen in 2002. From the hustle for the money, to not feeling good enough, to having the most amazing supportive friends. The other part was Ming apologizing to Mei at the end. Something I wish I could get but it won’t happen. Btw I relate so much to this movie being a Gay Native American. Also I love her dad. I can tell he showed Ming love which is probably why her mom didn’t approve. Seeing him dance at the end is probably why Ming liked him lol
I'm South Asian (Indian and Pakistani parents) and there are a LOT of parallels in terms of family dynamic and the things expected of the children in the family. As a S.Asian girl who was also a preteen during the time period of this movie, it was extremely relatable and I loved every moment!
My family is not East Asian but from Poland or generally Eastern-Europe but my parents emigrated to Germany and I could relate to a lot of aspects from this movie! While I feel that academically there isn't as much pressure eastern-European families are not really great at communicating emotions or allowing their children to express themselves without judgement. Also, extended family tends to be very involved and traditional too, so the part where Meis grandma and aunts got involved hit very close to home. Of course, this is all just based on my personal experience and that of my friends. Also, as someone who was also (and still is, to some extend) obsessed with boybands, books, tv-shows, etc. the way Mei tried to hide her interests was very relatable and even today (I'm 20 years old now) I find it hard to talk to my parents about them because of the judgement I felt during my teens. Overall, thanks for the reaction and your perspective on the movie! I'm glad I wasn't the only one getting so emotional throughout lol
I’m a Canadian woman (mixed heritage, not huge part if my upbringing) who was 13 in the year 2000. I was also a proud, slightly annoying, loud nerd with a small group if geeky friends. This resonated SO MUCH with me. I watched it 2x in one day, then the “making of” documentary. I never watch the documentary.
I'm a white Brazilian woman. But, GOD did I sob my eyes out with the drawing exposure scene, and also "I'll nev with be good enough". I grew up wanting to pay back my mother for everything, tried my best to get good grades... until I burned out in my late teens. So yeah. This movie slaps!
i am black/indigenous (from the english-speaking west indies) and i relate a lot. there are many similarities from being nervous to show emotions, to being unprepared for a puberty (Panda puberty lol) talk because “well we didn’t think it would happen yet!” and having a superstitious background & honoring parents and grandparents, even if not in exactly the same ways. the scene of the grandmother looking at Ming and Mei-Mei and realizing that they were recreating a scene she had with Ming… yea. I sobbed lol, it’s very common and I have had that moment with my mother already and still have to have little ones now as I navigate my mid-20s, planning to move out for graduate school (as opposed to only applying to places nearby where i would live at home until married), and an overall shift because my mother fully grew up in the west indies but i grew up between there and the usa and have a third culture ( mix of two cultures) point of view. i relate to so much of this my goodness 😭 I’m even having the dad that speaks to me alone but i wish he might speak up for me a little bit more in front of my mother, you know? Ah 😩 and my mom found my journal when i was young and it stopped me from writing for sooooo long until i had to confront her on her continuous invasions of privacy and have a huge messy argument, no concert hall involved, but still lol… i think i rambled a bit but i really enjoyed this movie and i went and hugged my mom after i watched it lol
I'm a white woman, but I still found a lot to relate to in Meilin. I think she's a really accurate representation of being a 13-year-old girl and the kind of energy and vibes that come with that. I was writing fanfiction at that age and was mortified when my parents sat me down to ask me about it. So I definitely connected with the movie in that way.
I'm Korean-American and definitely saw a lot of myself as well as my mother in this movie. I was 7 in 2002 so the era is very nostalgic for me as well. The thing with Asian parents not approving of your friends hit me RIGHT THERE.
I'm Filipino, and the intergenerational trauma being passed down and the insurmountable parental expectations... OOF. It's so there. Also, I love your point about Asian parents using food as a substitute for emotional connection. Hehe. ALSO - I was already in college when this movie was placed, but those cultural points all hit the right spot 😅
I'm a very white Canadian girl who was born in the late 90s so I relate to this movie on the level of 90 to 2000s Canadian nostalgia and overall girlhood. This movie just blows me away with how BLATANT it is with this sort of stuff, it made me so happy.
It's really interesting to hear about 4 and 10 being unlucky numbers. If I remember correctly I've seen some buildings that skip the 13th floor. It's funny how doing that sort of transcends cultures
With all the hate this film gets for staring mostly girl characters I’m so glad that you can cry and empathize with this movie 💖 I hope this video gets more views
I'm Mexican and my mother was and is still this way, even though I'm an adult now. I tried not to cry while watching this movie, but after watching your reaction I cried along with you. I have tried to do my own thing, but it took me a while to do so. To this day I don't think my mom really knows anyhting about me, cause every time I try to be honest about myself she'll say "that's not you".....don't know if that will change someday but well. Just like in the movie, my dad was always more reasonable (doesn't mean he was always perfect) and kept my mom from going overboard with her actions. Strangely, I didn't get into any boyband/artist when I was young(I was into anime/books), but that changed after becoming an adult 😅 an getting into jpop/kpop.
And now I'm connecting the "that's not you" comment with how my father reacted when I told him that I'm autistic. My son was diagnosed and I started reading all these books about autism to understand what was happening with my son. I realized that these books were talking about me. I always knew I was different from everyone else but never had a word to describe it. When I told my father, he claimed that I wasn't really the one who realized this and it was just my wife pushing this on me. If anything, I was mildly annoying my wife with every realization I'd get about how my past suddenly made sense. My father still doesn't believe me, but he's "progressed" to the point that he doesn't tell me that I'm imagining it or that someone else is making me say this.
@@Techydad damn, I’m sorry that was his reaction…I hope someday they may change for better. You’re right, for some reason they think they know everything about you and therefore anything they didn’t know must be a product of us being influenced or forced.
I’m Mexican American and it was the close relationship to my mom I responded to the most even now it’s still hard to set that line of where I’m a daughter and my own person.
I'm a Euro-mutt from Australia, and I'm about to turn 50, and this is the first movie I've seen that shows how it *feels* to be a girl going through puberty - all the confusion about feelings you aren't ready for, a body that's changing shape but also changing how people look at you and react to you, in ways you aren't prepared for, the mix of confidence and social awkwardness, the wanting to be a grown up but not being prepared for what that means, so much of it all. I also related to the relationship between Mei Mei and her mother, although I had almost the opposite of a tiger mom. I also had a really close relationship with my mother when I was a child, but my mother struggled to change her expectations of me as I became an adult, especially in her expectation that I would just do something because she asked me to; she just assumed that I would want to do everything the way she wanted to do it, when she wanted to and how she wanted to. I remember being in my 30s and her coming over to my house and rearranging my crockery in the kitchen cupboard she'd passed on to me, because I had arranged my stuff in it differently to the way she did. When I asked her what she was doing, she said "Putting things where they are supposed to be" (she was embarrassed by the realisation of what she was doing, I'll add.) I saw so much of myself and my mother in their relationship with how Wing almost seems to have no friends and has almost put Mei Mei in the place of best friend, and how jealous and unhappy she was when Mei Mei wanted to spend time with friends her own age, doing things that Wing has no connection to. I remember having to actually break that idea of us being friends with my mother, until she could see me as an independent grown up, and then we could be friends as adults, a long process I can see Wing and Mei Mei starting on.
I really enjoyed your reaction and subbed! This movie touched me a lot too, I cried several times bc I related so much. I'm not East Asian but my parents were very strict and overbearing. I wasn't allowed to do most things like going to sleep-overs or staying out after 8 PM even in high school. I never did anything I was not allowed to, I never even thought of sneaking out bc I thought they'd probably kill me lol I was scared of them too. My personality was weird according to my parents (they called me the alien of the family lol) they wanted me to act a certain way (to act like them basically) so I don't embarrass them. They always wanted me to be perfect and got disappointed in me bc I was not perfect and I would never be perfect. I started to rebel during high school I think and broke that hold they had over me and honestly I'm glad I did. I think even as an adult now I still subconsciously crave their approval but at least I know that being imperfect is fine. I also developped a big personality from all the suppressing I did as a kid, it all came out and stayed lol so yeah I ''kept the panda'' too and I'm happy I did :)
I really appreciated your reaction. It's wonderful that we're getting films that are more inclusive and representative of more and more of us. I'm Greek, so I can't know how this specific film speaks to this specific demographic but it's sooooo relatable and true to what it's like to be a 13 year old kid. The hormones, the smelling, the hair everywhere, the periods, the dumb crushes, the true bonding with friends... It was an awesome film!
Italian-American here, a couple of generations down from where Mei is. My great-grandparents were born in Italy. My grandmother was the youngest of seven girls, who all had to share a bed (not really cultural, but working class and couldn't afford a bed for every kid, much less a room), and had jobs to help pay rent and buy groceries when they were teenagers. My great-grandparents never spoke much English, and both worked. It's traditional for the older kids to take care of the younger, so my grandmother grew up speaking only a few words of Italian, and couldn't have had an actual conversation with her parents even if they all wanted to, unless her oldest couple of sisters translated, but that's not exactly private, so.... Then my grandmother got married, had my mom, and then my grandfather went to fight in WWII. His regiment was used to test some chemical weapons, and after he came home, they never had any more kids. He died of cancer when I was 12. If the whole timeline had been shifted 40-50 years in the future, Papa and all those other soldiers would've sued the gov't and our family would be rich, but the Greatest Generation didn't do that kind of thing. :/ But because my mom was an only child, my grandmother was determined she wouldn't grow up spoiled, and beat the crap out of her on the regular. Even if she hadn't done anything, she'd sometimes get a hard slap just to remind her that if she *did* misbehave, there was more where that came from. Corporal punishment was common across the branches of our very large immigrant family, but my grandmother was excessive even for the time. My mom was the best behaved kid on the planet, and terrified of her mom well into adulthood. So the motivation to behave and respect your parents is different, but the outcome -- stifled kids, no significant communication between kids and parents -- was pretty much the same in our family. By the time Mom was raising me, we were pretty assimilated, with some Italian cultural bits left, but the whole child-rearing and family dynamics thing was pretty much mainstream white American, and Mom made her own new and creative mistakes. [wry smile] Back to the movie, one thing I really liked was that there was no actual villain. Ming was set up to be a villain, and she was absolutely clueless about Mei and her feelings -- I wanted to whack Ming upside the head with a brick a couple of times, when she made a scene at the convenience store and left Mei's drawings behind for everyone to see and copy, and when she waved the box of pads around and shouted about it in front of an entire class full of Mei's peers. But she wasn't evil, just kind of an idiot, following patterns she'd gotten from her own mother. And Grandma was set up to look like a villain too, especially our first view of her -- only a partial shot of her face, harsh lines, dark colors, the ominous scar across her eyebrow. But again, she meant well, she just made mistakes, doubtless following patterns set by *her* mother. And both Ming and Grandma came through in the end.
I’m a Black American and I related to a lot of things in this movie but I personally love the writing and story. I think the scene in the beginning where the mom says what was once a blessing became an inconvenience definitely set the tone for the relationship between Mei and her mother. A mothers love definitely can be seen as blessing but it being so strong can lead to it being overbearing and cause a rift between mother and child. The inconvenience being the invasion of privacy or erasure of individuality masked as love and guidance.
I was raised in NY, I’m white passing but half peruvian, and I was raised in a Japanese branch of Buddhism. I related to this movie SO MUCH, especially when I hit puberty, I felt like a big gross red monster too lmao. That high-expectation culture is pretty common in most immigrant culture imo, and I felt that to a lesser extent. Music was so important to me when I was growing up, and hearing the climax when the music mixed with the chanting (which reminded me a lot of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo) made me tear up so bad
I'm not Asian but there was a line in the movie where Mei says something like, "we try to be perfect all the time and they treat us like we're rulebreakers anyway so what's the point?" And that really hit home lol.
Absolutely. My dad always super strict, so scared of him we would basically walk like we were on a tightrope, but he was still somehow under the impression that we were just these sneaky, conniving little criminals. He would randomly accuse us of stuff that I assume he did when he was a kid, and it basically had nothing to do with us, sometimes stuff we had quite literally never considered doing.
@@andrewdunn8778 my adoptive's mom's boyfriend was like that too
For me it was the “Your friends manipulated you to do this because you know better”
@@andrewdunn8778 Oh wow, that sounds rough upbring and a little abusive? Hope things turn up okay and you have a better relationship with your father now?
@@Blueyoriginal it is an Asian based movie as Asian parents are often so strict it is borderline abusive. (I'm white but this is just what I've heard from Asian friends and their personal experiences)
I’m black, French but originally from West Africa, and the whole movie rang very true to me. My mom was extremely severe with me and my sister, wanting us to succeed academically and be good kids, and I resented her a lot for it since we weren’t allowed to do anything despite respecting her wishes (when Mei said « we’re good kids and they don’t let us do anything so what’s the point » was so relatable). Now I understand why, since my mom suffered a lot from racism and prejudice in France in the 70s and 80s and wanted her kids to be basically perfect so we would be untouchable, prove the negative stereotypes against us wrong and not be denied opportunities because of our skin color. I think the reasons may be different but a lot of visible minority kids go through similar experiences.
Being black (American to be specific) I relate to the general trama topic. Also, black parents tend to have an issue with not respecting the privacy of their kids and when you try to set boundaries for yourself as a growing person they take it as a sign of disrespect and usually react in an emotionally aggressive way. I think it stems from a lot of black parents not being able to see their kids as growing human individuals but as extensions of themselves, which can be a problem.
For some reason I'm suddenly thinking of that running gag in the email episode of 'Fairly Odd Parents', where they parents knock and call out to their kid:
"What are you doing in there?"
then announces:
"I'm both respecting your privacy by knocking but asserting my authority as your parent by COMING IN ANYWAY!"
and then breaks down their kids door with a battering ram.
african parents man
SAME
I’m not black but can relate to this anyway, I think it might be more of a general American thing but idk
@@serenitysubs933 African American parents to be exact
One of the most heartwarming parts about this film is that Jin is such a supportive father. His voice of reason was exactly what his daughter needed to hear.
He is honestly a super underrated but great character within this story. His calmness and kindness is great balance to the rest of the more eccentric characters.
@@MrStyro there's a lot of asian men (boys?) on reddit who hated his portrayal because they deemed it not 'masculine' enough which i think speaks more about their idea of masculinity more than anything
@@vickylikesthis I saw that too! I read one post where the guy was lamenting over the fact the dad was shorter than the mom and that the mom had more power because she was a “tiger mom”. It very much felt like a projection of self fears.
@@MarnieGolde7 That's exactly what they said about Encanto, moreso about Luisa, I'm convinced that these misogynists are reading the same script assigned to them whenever their masculinity is being threatened, which is pathetic in itself.
As Hispanic girl in the 2000s it spoke to me. Also, as female in my culture there a lot expected of you. Setting boundaries was something I had to learn.
omg literally it spoke to my soul ❣️❣️❣️
2nd Generation Cuban here and absolutely agree. Especially with my Great Grandma at times as well. I never really got to see my grandpa much as he lived in South Korea but between my mom and great grandma sometimes it was like I was drowning.
Being a half Asian half Hispanic girl in the 2000s, it especially spoke to me 😀
Omg ur Hispanic mee too but born in Australia and same
I got my period for the first time at my grandma's place. This was where everyone gathered after church, so it was *my mom and all her sisters* and *my grandma and all her sisters.* I had to walk out of the bathroom to be surrounded by like a dozen old French Canadian ladies all looking at me and going "awwwwwww!"
I wanted to die.
I got mine at my grandma's and my mom proceeded to call everyone to tell them about it- most embersssing thing ever.
I might be weird, but I feel you are surrounded by women in your life that love you? I am a guy, but I think this is better than being in school or out somewhere else without any support or people who understand what you are going through?
@@brianng8350 she most likely bled through her pants/dress. So fear, shame and maybe pain.
@@brianng8350 This is a good take. Unfortunately, at the time I was only 10 years old and was pure embarassed to have ALL my aunties know what was going on.
@@brianng8350 I really like the thought but... this is one of the most emotional, humiliating (even though most of us are told to prepare for the coming of age) and shameful moments in our lives. Even if we are alone, we feel these intense feelings on top of others that we don't understand yet, so I can't even imagine if I had all my aunts around. I would have died. It's still a great thought, just not realistic for a lot of girls.
As a Filipino of Chinese descent, I'm glad that I feel represented in some parts of Mei's story. I performed well in school and I didn't have time to hang out with friends. The part that hit me like a ton of bricks was when Mei acted in defiance, stood up for herself, and said along the lines, "Well, sorry I'm not perfect, sorry I'm not good enough, and sorry I'll never be like you". It made me imagine saying those words to my dad as he's unsupportive of me studying and learning Nihongo and he never understands why I don't want to have a girlfriend, get married, and have kids. I also had several arguments with my mom in 2021 over family-related things and the painful memories led me to let out all the pent-up feelings of anger and sadness. I eventually sought professional help with a therapist, mom and I had open and honest communication and at the beginning of 2022, we're on good terms. I finally have peace of mind and focus my mind on the present.
I’m
As an East Asian, this is way too relatable, my grandma is 100% the mom in the movie. And all the cultural references are WOW! There’s even has electric little pet in my childhood??🤩🤩
pikachu?
@@mrbigstuff93 I think she means the Tamagochi
@@KaliqueClawthorne ohhhh sorry, that makes more sense, I saw electric pet and I just wrote xddd silly me
Yea tamagotchis were a huge thing in the 2000s around the world, i still love them!
So yours was a smother
I think Mei was the first member of her family who wasn't completely traumatised by their parents. She is able to control her panda because she had great friends, a great dad and her mother, while overprotective, was able to let her choose for herself. All the aunties and gran have to lock their pandas away again, because they couldn't control them.
I mean, she definitely did get trauma, but she has more time to undo it and has the right resources. I'm not sure if there's a standard of 'complete' or 'incomplete' trauma.
It's not good to 'be an adult' as a kid. There's literally a moment when she walks her mom through the forest, essentially parenting her own mom. That's not great. But now that the mom has realized her own trauma and its effect on Meilin, reparations can be made to teach Meilin proper self awareness and self love, instead of pushing it to the side to meet her mom's standards. Mei's friends helped teach her that, but with Mei's home life being less toxic, Mei has room to be a kid and develop to an adulthood where her childhood doesn't haunt.
@@twylenb That's pretty much what I meant.
I think, however, that her being able to help her younger mom in the forest is indicative of how she is better at coping with the whole situation at the same age as her mother. Though we don't really find out much about the relationship between her mom and her grandmother, I think the gigantic size of her mother's panda somehow represents all the feelings she had to repress to be the perfect child her own mother wanted...
But that's just, like, my opinion, man...
24-year-old Filipino American here and I ugly cried at the same parts you cried, Eric.
The moment that hit me the hardest was when the movie acknowledged that sometimes friends are more comforting than family.
I come from a religious family in the south, and this movie was very relatable to the time they found a picture of me in the yearbook attending the schools GSA (like an LGBTQ get together). My sister sent it out to my parents, and we argued over it for a while. My mom pushed pretty hard on me for a while trying to convince me I'm wrong about myself, so my dad took me for a drive to cool off and chat so he could understand better. Eventually she relented, and while its still an awkward subject for us, shes been more accepting now.
I'm glad things got better for you!
As a southeast asian, I related to this soooo much! The "proving yourself" through grades, talents, and obedience. The "returning the favor" to your parents because they brought you into this world was soooo spot on! I have been leading this life in my youngers years with my mom, too. And my dad, just like Mei's is just suoer cool, supportive, and doesn't force me on anything. I cried during the ritual where Mei tried separate the red panda from her.
The 4 being "unlucky" can be seen in my country also. I live in the Philippines, btw. Before, we would know that a building is owned by a Chinese person because it doesn't have a 4th floor. But recently, even buildings owned by Filipinos don't have the 4th floor as well. It's just the Chinese influence in the Philippines.
I truly loved your reaction. ❤
I’m not Asian, but I could definitely identify with just all the stuff that comes with being a teenage girl and crushing over boys, being self-conscious, afraid to express yourself, etc.
My parents weren’t overbearing, but there was still that sense of not wanting to disappoint them. I would guilt trip myself hard, lol.
I could sort of understand the generational trauma of Mei’s culture, because I watch a lot of Chinese and Korean shows, plus comedians and actors who touch on it.
My mom’s mother decided at some point in my childhood that she didn’t like me (no one knows why), and I had a lot of anger and resentment about it. I was upset with my mom for not getting it out of her or defending me (that I can recall), and when my dad unleashed on my grandmother, demanding an answer, she claimed she had no idea what we were talking about. The hate followed me til I was in my late twenties. She had developed dementia, so there was definitely no getting an explanation anymore, but it actually helped me let go of all of my anger, because she didn’t remember that she didn’t like me. I hadn’t seen or spoken to her in roughly 4 years. We didn’t live in the same town (8-9 hours away), so when I was able to visit her for the first time, she was happy to see me and would proudly introduce me to everyone in the care facility. Though I’ll never get the full closure, it took so much emotional weight off me. I guess this counts as generational trauma, right? Lol
I’m not Asian, but I was pressured to be “good enough” growing up. And uh, well, my parents did have me exorcised when I came out to them, so that part actually hit me incredibly hard; didn’t expect undergoing an exorcism-like ritual to expel part of yourself for your family’s sake would be a relatable part of a movie for me haha
But yeah, that’s how this movie touched me personally. And I too “kept the panda” haha
Oh my God, I'm so sorry you had to go through something like that! I hope things are better now.
Damn i'm so sorry, i forget that people still do horrible stuff like that in this day and age.. At least you still stuck to who you are.
WTF?!!
@@funyarinpa9464 Thank you for your comment, and yes things are much better now! I don’t have much contact with my family, but I have a bit of a found family now, and that’s very nice.
@@sundalosketch4769 it’s okay, it was pretty rough at the time. I don’t think I’d have stuck to things the way I did if I hadn’t taken a long time to really come to terms with things. Even from a religious standpoint, I could find nothing wrong with me, which helped me very much
I related to the movie as a filipino having asian parents and the expectations to do better than them or become a doctor, and yes I had that mental breakdown on deciding whether to be a nurse instead (lol ended up studying for PT), and just the whole teenage childhood experience in this movie was something i've went through, I was attacked by this movie in all sides haha!
people in my classroom keeps saying they have a crush on the cutest boy/girl in the room meanwhile i'm just there going "they look nice, but im not in love with them", drawing anime all over my class notebooks, enjoying 2000's boyband music, the emo phases, oh my god even the note passing style with the pens and handwriting gave me so much nostalgia.
I had my me vs parents meltdown around 15 when I got tired of disappointing their expectations on me playing the piano of all things and its kinda sad because I do like playing it, but all the time I keep getting told to practice and do perfectly made me eventually not enjoy it, even resent it sometimes so I had to tell them I was no longer happy about it. it took a while but eventually they get that forcing me to things I don't enjoy is just gonna make my miserable in the long run.
edit: I just realized that being 13 you realize a lot of things about yourself that you don't notice before until you start questioning your actions and what you want in life, like me finding out I was pansexual and going "so THAT's why im like that" lol this whole movie is just shoving back to my face that im a tumblr kid and yes you were cringe and you loved it
As a white American Jew, I definitely find this story relatable. Some of the cultural points are not part of my personal experience (although Jewish families and East Asian families have some notable similarities...!) but the overall story is familiar to everyone who grew up as a "good kid" and had to deal with living up to, and letting down, their parents' expectations. Especially for those of us who grew up as girls and/or in the heyday of boy bands!! I love seeing stories with another cultural viewpoint. I'm really happy my niece will grow up with stories like this and Encanto, beautiful and fun stories about all kinds of families and the emotional conflicts they can face.
I'm a 38 year old man from Romania (Eastern Europe).
So on paper I don't have a lot of connection with a Chinese-Canadian girl reaching puberty in 2002.
Yet I got very emotional watching this movie, I think it has a universal quality to it, and a lot of things reminded me of reaching puberty in the late 90s.
So, yeah… middle aged white woman here and totally connected with this movie. I just loved it, loved the characters, loved the setting, the story.
I loved this movie so much, def one of my fave pixar movies.
I was shook when I heard words like drugs, stripper, etc in a PG pixar movie
For real. The pads, and saying things like "crap" are super rare for a film of this rating...
And I love it!
@@andrewblissett2211 Yes. And I was especially shocked at hearing "perv"
Let’s not forget Mei Mei’s “beautiful sexy THINGSSSS”
I''m French with Italian and Sicilian background. But I still connected a lot with the movie and Mei-Mei.
My parents are really strict and raised me with the idea that being a girl, I should be pretty, soft and silent. I should NEVER speak up, be angry or frustrated. I had to avoid conflict, let people (especially men) walk all over me, I could never say "No", say that I was tired or uncomfortable, etc. I also had to stay locked at home when I wasn't at school because as a girl, I wasn't authorised to go out with my friends until I was 18 and in university.
Also, I could never stand up to my parents, tell them that I disagreed on anything... even for stupid things! Like, my father is really bad with computer and he would get angry at me if I explained (kindly) that he was doing something wrong. He hated that his daughter could know something he didn't and would slap me if I didn't back down when he yelled.
I was so happy that Mei-Mei managed to stay herself and was happy, got out with her friends, became so confident! I never did and I'm still scarred today. At 30, I'm still learning to say "No", to respect myself and my boundaries thanks to therapy. Socialising is still weird too, because I'm so uncomfortable around people after being locked up in my formative years...
So I kinda relived vicariously my own teenage years through this movie and it felt good even though I cried ^^
I'm sorry about the difficulties you had in your childhood. I'm glad that you're learning how to advocate for yourself. Therapy is great!
I related to it when it comes to the mother & daughter relationship. That hit me super hardcore. Ironically I was 13 in 2002 lol. So it was super nostalgic for me, especially with the sailor moon influence in the movie.
haha not sure if irony is the right word... but yeah you and the director! I think that's why it feels rather sincere. AND for once millenial slang or fads are referenced with some loving memory for it, as well as acknowleding how silly it could be, rather then when middle aged people write it as something foreign or disparingly or inferior
Mother Daughter relationships always get to me, but to have even the mom say that she never thought she’d be good enough for anyone… god. Nearly killed me. Disney movies lately be giving me existential crises. Soul, Encanto, and now this.
i'm brazillian, and both my parents grew up in poor families in the countryside and had to drop out of school to find work. as soon as they became of legal age they moved to a big city, all the way across the country, in the hopes of finding better jobs, which was what everyone was doing at the time.
i grew up seeing they work their asses off, and hearing about all the hard times they passed because of not having finished school.
this idea that mei has about having to honor all her parents' hard work and feeling guilty for contradicting them has followed me my entire life, bc they work so hard so i don't go through what they went through. seeing a big media like that portraying and validating these conflicting feelings is really impactful
I'm a white Canadian and even though I couldn't really relate to the part about parents expectations and trying to please your parents, I still related to the movie because I was once a 13-year old girl and it perfectly captures how awkward that phase of your life is.
Ah....the scene with Mei and her Dad is so wholesome and tender.....probably my favorite scene in the whole film.
I'm not East Asian, but I grew up in Toronto, and loved Chinatown, in the 1960s and 70's. I found puberty really hard, and did a lot of very stupid things because I had too much freedom, and no real support from my parents. It's so important to talk about the beginnings of sexuality for all kids, but hardly anyone seems ready to talk about it.
As an Hispanic, this did speak to me. Besides that, Im actually super obsessed with this movie. The character's are enjoyable, the humor is on point, the serious parts are on point. Sure, I physically cant relate to the 'Girl problems', but I enjoyed it all the way through. 8.5/10
i cried during the scene in which she doesn't want to get rid of the panda during the ritual too.
but the scene which makes me cry the most is when 4town and the kids sing along with the chant in the final battle, it's just so freaking powerful.
yes, absolute magical girl vibes from the aunties turning into pandas haha! as a magical girl fan, the ritual in the final battle was also very reminiscent to the Precure franchise
I may be white, but I was the particular flavor of super christian, super conservative upbringing from the southern United States where I had parents like this.
The mom hiding when her mother calls is something I experienced almost exactly. After a tense relationship with my father, we were having dinner one day, and his mother called, and he kind of froze up for a second when he read the caller ID.
I'm a white guy in his early 30's (for a more specific culture, Canadian-American, born, raised, and lived in America). 2002, I'd be 12 years old. Sure, there were a lot of things I couldn't relate to, at least not exactly. But, the whole thing about high standards, high expectations, perfectionism, not living up to what you think your parents want, etc. The things about puberty, although a bit different being for a girl, I related to the kind of feelings she was going through and the reactions of parents to it all. That all hit really hard for me. It also took me a long time before I started truly discovering myself. Only fairly recently, with therapy, am I able to finally able to start feeling like myself. Every person that needs to get things worked out internally should go do it, if they have the ability to do so, I highly recommend it.
I bottled up my emotions. suppressed them so long, that I did serious damage to myself. I had my life mostly planned out for me. And I followed it for so long that I lost myself to it. And then had a nervous breakdown in about my mid 20's because I thought I was failing at life when I just truly wanted to take a different path than what was laid out for me (what I thought I wanted, but what was really just ingrained in me).
I'm not Asian, not Canadian, not a girl and I found plenty to connect with in this film.
I feel like everyone experiences a time when they feel like their parents expect too much and yet parents have no idea what their child is going through to meet their expectations. I went to high school in Japan (military parents) and I had classmates who I could never hang out with after school because their parents did not let them do anything after school but homework.
I had crushes and got into embarrassing situations because of them and was totally bullied and called a freak plenty of times.
Background: American mutt, descendant of enslaved persons and slave owners, and I've been a 13-year-old girl.
How to answer this without turning it into a novel? I was the smart child, the one expected to follow the academic path, I was the one expected to go to college. While it might not be quite to the same extent, I did get a lot of pressure to excel academically. That meant in elementary school I went to the college prep feeder and then for 7th grade, I went to the college prep magnet. I hated it.
My younger brother got to go to the arts magnet starting with fourth grade, I spent three years trying to convince my mother to allow me to audition. She was ready to move to another community just so that I didn't have to go to our neighborhood high school.
I found out several years later as an adult that I was dealing with undiagnosed ADHD (since dx'd) and probably undiagnosed autism as well. I don't blame my parents for my not knowing until I was well into adulthood. At the time I was a child, girls rarely got diagnosed with ADHD (called minimal brain dysfunction for most of my childhood) or autism, and brown girls didn't at all.
So while I might not have the same touchstones with East Asian culture, I still related to so much of this movie. From the sudden onset of puberty and the reactions when you see "cute" peers to the absolutely wild, crazy, screaming, crying kids at a concert (Saw Prince when I was 14), the friends, and the cringy, goofy behavior, the start of the transition from child to adult, that is not specific to any one cultural group.
I'm South East Asian - Indian, to be specific. And even SE Asian parenting is very similar to East Asian parenting. Focus on perfectionism, comparing kids to others (to "motivate" them), talking about giving food and adult as though they did kids a favour... Yeah, lots of common toxic traits. In fact, even the aunties are so typical! The aesthetic might be different, but not much else is. So I related to this SO hard. My mum was quite critical of me growing up, and watching this film was cathartic in a way. A lot of us did not have the good fortune of having our parents own up to their mistakes and apologise for them, so this film felt like an acknowledgement of sorts.
I appreciate your perspective as someone with the background of the character. I think the story is universal but SO GLAD that Disney is branching out.
I also like the fact that the switcheroo with the period to just changing as an individual.
As a guy, I really enjoyed this coming-of-age story of a 13 year old girl. I could somewhat relate to the goofy aspects of being that age, despite being from a girl's perspective, that's what I can say in terms of your question in how the film connects with me. Although the movie was a bit cringe at times, I can tell it was intended, it was naturally made to be that way rather than being unintendedly formulaic throughout, which I found to have made the movie better. Definitely enjoyed this more than Soul and a few other recent 3D animated movies I've watched, for sure (and not just because I'm Canadian). Interestingly, I enjoyed the movie even more after a second re-watch with my brother.
I'm a Dutch, white, 36 year-old guy and I loved the movie. It's not the specifics that I relate to, but obsessing over her parents' approval, feeling ashamed of her own body and sexuality, that really hit home for me. Maybe it's because I'm disabled and that's why I'm pushing myself so hard and feeling inadequate, but it rings true to me.
I'm from south east Asia and my grandfather is an immigrate from China so I see myself a lot in this movie too. I have to be perfect for parents but now I grow up and my parents understood me a lot during college. Now they are happy what I do in my job and other thing that are my decision not theirs.
having Hispanic parents, this movie still hit home. especially the part where mei's mother blamed her friends instead of mei herself at the party, my mother just couldn't fathom that i wasn't brainwashed by them
i am a chicano trans man, and growing up as a mexican girl made me resonate so much with ming and mei. im very close to my mother and my grandmother, and i felt that my relationships with them had the same dynamic as mei/ming and ming/grandma. that desire to be perfect for the people who raised you, and that never-ending struggle to gain their approval is something that i really relate to, and turning red was a beautiful movie that addressed how it can affect you to always strive for this impossible feat
I was a pre-teen girl in the late 2000's and Mei and her friends are basically me and my friends all over the place. Doing arts on our notebooks, the acting crazy and cringy, the boy bands...
People mostly disconnected with subtle Tiger Parenting in this movie and thought that Mei Mei just a jerk who loves to lying and just dumped her best friends for no reason..
But the reason why Mei Mei is so afraid to her mother Ming we can see on how Ming also afraid to her mother.. The reason why Pixar make it so subtle and hidden is because all Tiger Parents are stubborn people who always thinking they are right.. If you blame their Tiger Parenting method on the nose they would be ignorant and think Pixar exaggerated the tiger parenting method and didn't know how good that strict tiger parenting was..
You can also see on Ted Ed video when a tiger mother so proud that her kids fear of her..
Despite not being of East Asian descent, as an African American I do relate to the whole honor your parents thing, and wanting to feel like your own person. Ming Lee literally reminds me of my Dad. He wants to protect me, to the point where when I want to try something he won't let me because it's dangerous. But i know he loves me.
Same. Im not black but same
As a white woman from the US, I can relate to pieces of this story, but I love how it illustrates the particular experiences of Asian immigrant kids. I've known various people whose parents expected a lot of them, but the guilt trip Mei felt from doing anything that might disappoint her parents was pretty extreme. When her mother crossed Mei's boundaries the first time with the artwork, I was fully expecting Mei to have a blow up at her mom and stop talking to her. I was almost shocked at how opposite her reaction was. But I felt like I could at least partly understand Mei's conflicted feelings by the end. The film showed both the strengths and weaknesses of her family's dynamic really well.
a kid's movie openly talking about intergenerational trauma is so important and so good! also Abby is my fav
30:03 ah yes I remember when I got my first pyramid at 11😂
I'm Korean so there are stuff in this film that definitely hit me. Especially feeling like I'm not "allowed" to be emotional in front of my parents. Unlike Mei though, I still haven't reached an understanding moment with my own mom, even as an adult. I honestly don't think I ever will. At least I guess I should be grateful that she's not as extreme as Mei's mom 😅
This movie is so good, but unfortunately got some things cut that wouldve made it more diverse. Priya was supposed to kiss the goth girl at the party (it was in the storyboards as far more romantic than in the film), and Tyler is heavily implied to be gay, especially in other Turning Red related content. Would've loved to see it, especially since many queer Asians can relate to the feeling. Love the film nonetheless!
Not asian, and I have supportive parents but I realized that while my parents don't put pressure on me, I create it myself. I hold unrealistic expectations for myself (physically and mentally) so this movie did hit some parts for me.
My family is Mexican. I'm first generation American and first female in my immediate family. I was expected to be "perfect" because my mom was a single mom so I had to be a second mom for my siblings, therefore an example. This means my actions would reflect on my mom and they would also determine how my siblings would turn out when they got older. My mom had 6 kids so it was hard.
My mom decided while I was in high school that I would need to work to pay for my brother's school since he didn't have any scholarships and he was the first male/first born. She said I would have to wait to go to school. This freaked me out because I saw my future fading away. So I ran away from home. I know this not "good" but to this day it was the best choice I ever did and would do it again if I had to do it all over again.
My family disowned me after this for several years even though they knew that on top of all of that, my mom emotionally, verbally, and physically abused me. They did this because we are supposed to stick together as a family no matter what and we don't address issues.
I was blessed that a host family took me in. They took me to therapy and I was able to go to school (full ride due to scholarships yay!).
I love myself and my life. Love that I can be who I am and I don't have to apologize for it. 💜
Uggghhhh I'm mixed Chinese-Mexican. My family also had that first-male favoritism BS.
Dude that line from Mei’s mom as a young girl ‘I’m so sick of being perfect. I’m never going to be good enough for her…or anyone else.’ That hit me right in the heart as if it was me. I feel that line all too often with my mother.
Loved this movie.
i grew up in the early 90’s as a hispanic american kid that wasn’t (too) obsessed with boybands but i really relate to the mother child relationship
i’ve watched dozens of reactions to this and the part where the mom says “if i taught you to please everyone else and be so hard on yourself, i’m sorry. the further you stray from that, the prouder i will be” breaks me tf down
sometimes it’s hard to relate to my mom but i love her and i know she loves me. and further, i know she wants me to do what makes me happy and not live for anyone else.
and it made me feel like there was still a chance for me to live my life the way i want to in the midst of feeling like it’s pointless to try.
"the further you go, the prouder ill be" ABSOLUTELY destroyuyyyyedddd me. iv failed a lot in my life but something my parents have always reminded me of, is that they will be proud of me so as long as im pushing forward and growing. Its not about their accomplishments, its yours, and being happy is the biggest one they're worried about.
I'm Caribbean, and this movie was extremely relatable in the sense of how I was when I was 12/13 and how that's how when you realize whether you like boys or girls and it can be very cringey but its fine, it when you start to figure it out. 13 is the age I realized I liked boys (And being a boy myself coming from a Hispanic family, it was ROUGH) 13 is also the age all my male friends started liking girls and would talk about it all the time, which is very much emphasized in the movie. but i learned to live with it. Seeing all be themselves at that age REALLY took me back to my middle school days and how I struggled being a normal teenager while also dealing with a very toxic home environment.
Between this and Encanto, I think besides the magic, the most unrealistic part of both of these stories is how the adults realize they're wrong and apologize. That's something I have never seen happen in any family in person.
but to end it on a good note, i like this reaction, given how many people are going around saying this movie is too niche and not broad or relatable enough. This is the only opinion of this movie that matters to me lol. If a black gay dude from the Caribbean can cry and relate watching this movie, so can you.
I am East Asian too, and I got emotional at exactly the right spot - seeing how the emotional weight of being perfect carries down each generation is so important.
This movie hit me so hard bc I also have an overprotective mom, and it has been a long, hard path; but I’m happy (and jelous) that my little brother doesn’t have to deal with the same things I had to.
I was born('69) in South Korea and my Mother brought me to the U.S. for hopes of a better life. I wish my mother had been more strict about keeping our heritage in our lives. I guess as happy as I was she just let me be my own person. I have to be honest, I could have been less focused on everything the states had to offer and using that as an excuse to not learn of our past. I would even be able to speak Korean if I didn't put being an American as a priority. I have to put that regret totally on myself.
Let's rewind it back to the blaming yourself part. You didn't do anything wrong. If your mother wanted you to be in touch with your heritage, she would have. And if you are feeling regret, it's not like it's too late to start.
Whoever it was that made you feel bad, they can go to Hell.
I'm Black but I'm only a year younger than Mei so a lot of the stuff here rung true just bc I grew up in that boy band/Tamagotchi era. I see this like any of Disney/Pixar's recent stuff: it hits REALLY hard if you're from that culture but anyone can relate if you allow yourself to.
I may be in my 50's, but what the mother did, the house rules where I had to have best grades possible, do everything they ask, and how my mother freaked when my 'flower' showed up when I was 9 years old. So spot on. There is so much in this movie which touches on growing up and the changing dynamics of parents with their coming of age children. The parents being blind to how their actions are causing more problems for their child, spot on. What is good is how this movie shows you can have huge fights and then work on patching up to be adult child with a relationship with your parents & elders. It isn't about things going back to how they were, because you are not a kid or that type of 'you' any longer for a lot of valid reasons. I love how Mei Mei realized she had to be true to herself in order to find her way. I know it isn't easy for Ming, but with what the movie showed, in this alternate realm, she and her mother healed something to build a more honest bond after the years of strain. I didn't hide my efforts to raise money to get what I wanted, which included paying for a round trip ticket to visit my grandfather. My parents were actually shocked I raised all of it in 1.5 years worth of babysitting and making birthday cakes for our neighbors. Their fear of letting me travel on my own, at age 13, was tough on them. Daily calls & postcards, you name it, I did it. Oh, and my family is both mixed in religion & backgrounds. Catholic/Lutheran, European mixed with Asia, India, and South America. My mother's family worked and traveled with the circus for several generations before coming to the US.
I'm white, but my parents had high expectations in ways that are definitely still affecting me in adulthood. My mom is just a hard-core perfectionist with middle child syndrome (and I'm their only kid), but my dad was taught to Be A Man and never show emotions that were "weak" or "girly". He was an alcoholic so we had a complicated relationship even though I do know he loved me. He passed away a few years ago so that's just the way it'll always be. I feel hopeful when I see the next generations trying their best to move away from that and other negative ways of thinking.
On a lighter note, as a Canadian it was fun to see all those details and Toronto playing itself instead of New York. 😂
I'm a 68-year-old black man. I am not 13, not Chinese-American, not a girl, not in Toronto... and I adore the movie. I think this relatability stuff expecting a movie to be "like me" is largely horse manure. None of the programs produced when I was a kid were "like me." People related to Wall-E, for crying out loud; if we can relate to a trash compacter with binoculars for eyes, we should be able to relate to any human being. What a story has to do is deftly define the world of the protagonist, clearly describe the needs and desires of the protagonist, show us what the obstacles are, and make us care. This story does that, unless people let there own prejudices get in the way.
When the old shaman first saw the Red Panda flying overhead, at first we think he's just as anyone surprised by the sight, but then we learn that he knows all about the Red Panda, and must have realized what has happened in the Lee household. I was about to be annoyed by Jin, but he was the first adult to give Mei his blessing to be herself; and he also married Ming even after seeing her panda. That might have been the encouragement she needed.
The Red Panda does not represent periods. It represents the emotions and assertiveness that women in general and Asian women in particular are taught to repress. It was given to them to protect them against bandits while their men were away...which is certainly not menstruation. And her grandmother, certainly menopausal, still had her own panda.
While the expression of feminine emotion and assertiveness might have been frowned upon in the East, it was celebrated in Mei's Western surroundings. Mei never wanted to be a rebel, but she needed space from an over-the-top smothering mother. In the end, she remained the good daughter that she wanted to be.
Mei never actually got her period in the movie yet, btw.
I’m Samoan; there was so much I related to in the movie. My parents are immigrants, so walking that line of being my own person in a country that my parents are not from and fulfilling my role as a dutiful child while committing to my cultural responsibilities has always been hard. I loved how that was incorporated; I’m about 4 years younger than Mei so I very vividly remember that time growing up. Like a lot of first gen (in my case American) kids, I listened to everything my parents wanted and tried to suppress the parts of myself that wasn’t part of their goals. It always felt like I needed to be better because so much was invested in me. Like Mei, eventually my own red panda got out and I wound up keeping it ☺️ This paired with the nostalgia in this movie had me tearing SO MANY TIMES. Turning Red is definitely my new comfort movie.
I am German in the ...*counts the generations since the 16 houndreds* god knows how many generation. But I have to say that I feel very connected to the theme of Turning Red. And if I really think about it, though it might be more openly ingrained in for example chinese culture and social dynamics in families, I think the themes of the movie connect with just about every person on the planet. Not being able/knowing to communicate my feelings was very difficult for me as a child and still is as an adult. And more so while fighting my inner demons ( which sadly isn't a red panda)
I would love to exchange my experiences with people that grew up as first generation children of imigrant parents from china and other eastern asian countries.
Love your empathic and emotional reaction to the movie!
I'm a Puerto Rican woman and connect really well because I am an ex hormonal teenage girl. All that tween girl angst, so accurate. Starting to be boy crazy, boy bands ,being "in love" with celebrities, feeling like you're a woman when u get ur period because your mom would always say once u get your period your a woman now.
I'm Italian-Canadian and a lot of this rings true for me as well, having old fashioned parents. Family is everything, pride is a huge thing, some generational trauma, privacy is not a concept anyone understands, your best is never enough, whether you do right or wrong they'll find something to be disappointed about etc... The reconciliation with the mothers always gets to me though, because I still haven't gotten that closure with my mom and to this day we still don't really get along. It hurts knowing I never had a nice relationship with her, but I love seeing this kind of transformation in parents in the films and the healing that comes with it.
As a woman who grew up in the 90's and early 2000's, everything else about this movie is 100% relatable. XD
i’m not asian but coming from an indigenous-latino household, this was very relatable to me in regards to my trouble relationship with my parents but trying to be my own person.
but what i loved the most of this film was the anime references and seeing mei-mei drawing in her notebook - when i was 13 back in 2009 or 2010, i was reading more manga openly at school and this was when kids still saw you “weird” for reading manga or liking anime, let alone drawing anime. so all those drawings brought me back to those moments :) i’m a fan of this film.
i’m black american, but my dad is an immigrant from the caribbean- so i relate a lot to the honoring your parents, and the high expectations. the part that killed me the most is when mei’s mom says something like “the farther you go, the prouder i’ll be”. literally KILLED ME-!!! i might’ve cried because i wish my parents had been more like that.
and tho i don’t like this as much as encanto- i feel like the resolution of this movie is more realistic. just acceptance and respect that you and your parents are different people. some people are gonna change and some people are not.
It was great seeing you get so emotional during this movie. The first time I watched it, it absolutely destroyed me, particularly Ming's speech to Mei after she put away her Panda. The "The farther you go, the Prouder I'll be line coupled with her slow fade out really touched me deeply. By the way, I'm a white guy from England and I still found this relatable. A great little movie. Just ridiculously good.
My mom was respectful of my privacy but I SUPER related with the "she does so much for me the least I can do is everthing she asks". Definitely a pressure on getting straight As... all of the extra-curricular activities... the honor programs... I guess I mostly wish I'd had a friend group like that to help me be myself more. It took me a looooooong time to figure myself out.
I'm Colombian, so even though I definitely identify with a lot of it, my culture is very different and so are the traumas that come with it. As you can imagine, Encanto rang true for a lot of those things. It's still all about that generational trauma though, huh? Cool that we're getting all of these movies that both have appeal for anyone with the least bit of empathy but also super specific cultural things that really touch something deep in the hearts of who the movie's targeting. We need more of these! Thank you for sharing you feelings about it!
/Edit: I'd also have beent that age in the early 00s so yeah that whole idea of repression and lack of therapy during that time is... OOF
I live in Toronto, so the whole background setting and all the Easter eggs in the movie was so fun to see. Very well done.
I'm a Caucasian/Hispanic man who experienced my later teenage years in during the time this movie is set in, and it rings true on multiple levels for me. I was an extremely closeted gay teen who grew up in a strict Southern Baptist household with a parent being a pastor, so there were definitely strict expectations to deal with from my parents. Trying to come to terms with my own goofy awkwardness and finding my personal sense of humor amidst all of this was turbulent for sure. Turning Red just grabbed me immediately with home much I related in that sense and how I was secretly crushing on guys but couldn't tell me family, or even admit it to myself.
I'm 38 (I graduated high school the day that they thought the concert was taking place, literally), white, and I related to Mei-Mei so much. I was an awkward pre-teen in the late 90s and was raised by my grandparents. I was the only child and grandchild, and my mom had been my [grand]parents' only child who had lost her battle to cancer at age 26. I had a huge amount of pressure on me to be a good girl, get good grades, stay out of trouble, etc., and the family dynamic of my [grand]parents looked a lot like Ming and Jin. Mom was (and is) a fierce woman who will always get her way, and my dad was a bit more B-type. I'm still dealing with the generational trauma today, as my mom has moved in with me due to old age and failing health (and widowhood), and we've fallen into a lot of old patterns. So often, I do not advocate for my own emotions and self until my emotions explode, and it is definitely not healthy--it's just easier than arguing or dealing with the guilt trips. This film definitely hits home for me, even without the cultural connection.
I'm white, unfortunately, and I cried during this, hard, lol. But I won't ever have a good relationship with my parents, well, the ones that are still living. Movie is incredible, and your reaction and commentary is phenomenal. Thank you
I'm from Europe, but as the oldest child of the family I can relate to this movie very much. The unspoken expectations and pressure you put on yourself ... oooof. The last part of the movie during the final ritual ... it rang so true that I found myself gasping for air at times. And crying like a baby. What a great movie!
Also loved that it shows how dorky young girls can be. Boy I could tell some stories ... :D
Mei’s dad was a pretty cool/supportive guy and I especially love his plan with the circle. Something tells me that him and Mr. Boonchuy would be best buds.
Mei's dad reminded me a lot of my own dad😁
I'm a 59 year old white guy from the UK who lives near a northern England city. I couldn't be further away from Chinese culture if I tried, yet this movie connected with me like no other has for years. The writing, the wit, the subtlety and yes.....I love all the cultural stuff too. Such a beautiful movie....in my opinion, one of Pixar's best. I love it.
As the oldest child/daughter in a Mexican immigrant family this really hit close to home. I feel like I’ve lived a majority of my life for my family and I lived as a person just trying to carry everyone’s dreams and expecting. I’ve been doing that since I was a child and I feel like the emotional trauma that my family carries is never spoken of. When I saw the ending scene of the mom as a child it just really hit home, I can relate a lot to the mom and Mei. Your so right in mentioning how immigrant children carry a lot of the trauma of their families, I’m in counseling to deal with my own personal struggles and it’s helped a lot. I’ve learned to set boundaries with my family about living my own life for myself but it’s hard, it feels SELFISH when it actually isn’t. It’s not selfish to care for yourself and live in the way that makes you feel fulfilled. I was actually born in the early 2000s so I grew up watching my youngest aunt be going through her own teens during the 2000s.
I'm a Brazilian woman of Okinawan descent and, despite my parents not being strict at all, my grandparents were and I lived together with them all.
There were many elements that really hit home for me. The incenses (in fact, when I was watching the movie, my mom had some lightened because of my grandpa's altar - worshipping ancestors, as Mei said), the drawings all over my notebooks, me being the clumsiest teenager, the superstition surrounding number 4, the clothing choices for the aunties lol even the squad greeting with the cute hands!
I grew up thinking I should be the little perfect girl, always nice, very smart and be the biggest pride for everyone. Mei and teen Ming had me crying a lot, because the pressure is too real
Even before the movie was released, I totally freaked out because I also played transverse flute when I was a teenager, learned a little bit of French as well... I had a Tamagotchi, was more into girlbands but the feeling was kind of the same! And, well, I had the same haircut as Mei and dyed my hair red, few weeks before I even got to know about this movie. And, oh: Turning Red was released on my birthday! It was almost like this movie was my birthday gift, and I couldn't be happier ♡
I’m Chinese and I watched this with my mum. Her name is Mei Lin too! She enjoyed it and find it cute.
The voice crack from Ming as a teen hit my heart hard. I remember being so frustrated seeing my mistakes n failures highlighted more than any accomplishments or victory’s. I related so much with it being a teen in 2002. From the hustle for the money, to not feeling good enough, to having the most amazing supportive friends. The other part was Ming apologizing to Mei at the end. Something I wish I could get but it won’t happen. Btw I relate so much to this movie being a Gay Native American. Also I love her dad. I can tell he showed Ming love which is probably why her mom didn’t approve. Seeing him dance at the end is probably why Ming liked him lol
I am a white boy from a white family with a line of mental illness and I connect so hard with this film and wish things like that were a thing.
I'm South Asian (Indian and Pakistani parents) and there are a LOT of parallels in terms of family dynamic and the things expected of the children in the family. As a S.Asian girl who was also a preteen during the time period of this movie, it was extremely relatable and I loved every moment!
My family is not East Asian but from Poland or generally Eastern-Europe but my parents emigrated to Germany and I could relate to a lot of aspects from this movie! While I feel that academically there isn't as much pressure eastern-European families are not really great at communicating emotions or allowing their children to express themselves without judgement. Also, extended family tends to be very involved and traditional too, so the part where Meis grandma and aunts got involved hit very close to home. Of course, this is all just based on my personal experience and that of my friends. Also, as someone who was also (and still is, to some extend) obsessed with boybands, books, tv-shows, etc. the way Mei tried to hide her interests was very relatable and even today (I'm 20 years old now) I find it hard to talk to my parents about them because of the judgement I felt during my teens.
Overall, thanks for the reaction and your perspective on the movie! I'm glad I wasn't the only one getting so emotional throughout lol
I’m a Canadian woman (mixed heritage, not huge part if my upbringing) who was 13 in the year 2000. I was also a proud, slightly annoying, loud nerd with a small group if geeky friends. This resonated SO MUCH with me. I watched it 2x in one day, then the “making of” documentary. I never watch the documentary.
I'm a white Brazilian woman. But, GOD did I sob my eyes out with the drawing exposure scene, and also "I'll nev with be good enough". I grew up wanting to pay back my mother for everything, tried my best to get good grades... until I burned out in my late teens. So yeah. This movie slaps!
i am black/indigenous (from the english-speaking west indies) and i relate a lot. there are many similarities from being nervous to show emotions, to being unprepared for a puberty (Panda puberty lol) talk because “well we didn’t think it would happen yet!” and having a superstitious background & honoring parents and grandparents, even if not in exactly the same ways. the scene of the grandmother looking at Ming and Mei-Mei and realizing that they were recreating a scene she had with Ming… yea. I sobbed lol, it’s very common and I have had that moment with my mother already and still have to have little ones now as I navigate my mid-20s, planning to move out for graduate school (as opposed to only applying to places nearby where i would live at home until married), and an overall shift because my mother fully grew up in the west indies but i grew up between there and the usa and have a third culture ( mix of two cultures) point of view. i relate to so much of this my goodness 😭 I’m even having the dad that speaks to me alone but i wish he might speak up for me a little bit more in front of my mother, you know? Ah 😩 and my mom found my journal when i was young and it stopped me from writing for sooooo long until i had to confront her on her continuous invasions of privacy and have a huge messy argument, no concert hall involved, but still lol… i think i rambled a bit but i really enjoyed this movie and i went and hugged my mom after i watched it lol
I'm a white woman, but I still found a lot to relate to in Meilin. I think she's a really accurate representation of being a 13-year-old girl and the kind of energy and vibes that come with that. I was writing fanfiction at that age and was mortified when my parents sat me down to ask me about it. So I definitely connected with the movie in that way.
I'm Korean-American and definitely saw a lot of myself as well as my mother in this movie. I was 7 in 2002 so the era is very nostalgic for me as well. The thing with Asian parents not approving of your friends hit me RIGHT THERE.
I'm Filipino, and the intergenerational trauma being passed down and the insurmountable parental expectations... OOF. It's so there. Also, I love your point about Asian parents using food as a substitute for emotional connection. Hehe. ALSO - I was already in college when this movie was placed, but those cultural points all hit the right spot 😅
I'm a very white Canadian girl who was born in the late 90s so I relate to this movie on the level of 90 to 2000s Canadian nostalgia and overall girlhood. This movie just blows me away with how BLATANT it is with this sort of stuff, it made me so happy.
It's really interesting to hear about 4 and 10 being unlucky numbers. If I remember correctly I've seen some buildings that skip the 13th floor. It's funny how doing that sort of transcends cultures
With all the hate this film gets for staring mostly girl characters I’m so glad that you can cry and empathize with this movie 💖
I hope this video gets more views
I'm Mexican and my mother was and is still this way, even though I'm an adult now. I tried not to cry while watching this movie, but after watching your reaction I cried along with you. I have tried to do my own thing, but it took me a while to do so. To this day I don't think my mom really knows anyhting about me, cause every time I try to be honest about myself she'll say "that's not you".....don't know if that will change someday but well. Just like in the movie, my dad was always more reasonable (doesn't mean he was always perfect) and kept my mom from going overboard with her actions. Strangely, I didn't get into any boyband/artist when I was young(I was into anime/books), but that changed after becoming an adult 😅 an getting into jpop/kpop.
And now I'm connecting the "that's not you" comment with how my father reacted when I told him that I'm autistic. My son was diagnosed and I started reading all these books about autism to understand what was happening with my son. I realized that these books were talking about me. I always knew I was different from everyone else but never had a word to describe it.
When I told my father, he claimed that I wasn't really the one who realized this and it was just my wife pushing this on me. If anything, I was mildly annoying my wife with every realization I'd get about how my past suddenly made sense.
My father still doesn't believe me, but he's "progressed" to the point that he doesn't tell me that I'm imagining it or that someone else is making me say this.
@@Techydad damn, I’m sorry that was his reaction…I hope someday they may change for better. You’re right, for some reason they think they know everything about you and therefore anything they didn’t know must be a product of us being influenced or forced.
I’m Mexican American and it was the close relationship to my mom I responded to the most even now it’s still hard to set that line of where I’m a daughter and my own person.
I'm a Euro-mutt from Australia, and I'm about to turn 50, and this is the first movie I've seen that shows how it *feels* to be a girl going through puberty - all the confusion about feelings you aren't ready for, a body that's changing shape but also changing how people look at you and react to you, in ways you aren't prepared for, the mix of confidence and social awkwardness, the wanting to be a grown up but not being prepared for what that means, so much of it all. I also related to the relationship between Mei Mei and her mother, although I had almost the opposite of a tiger mom. I also had a really close relationship with my mother when I was a child, but my mother struggled to change her expectations of me as I became an adult, especially in her expectation that I would just do something because she asked me to; she just assumed that I would want to do everything the way she wanted to do it, when she wanted to and how she wanted to. I remember being in my 30s and her coming over to my house and rearranging my crockery in the kitchen cupboard she'd passed on to me, because I had arranged my stuff in it differently to the way she did. When I asked her what she was doing, she said "Putting things where they are supposed to be" (she was embarrassed by the realisation of what she was doing, I'll add.) I saw so much of myself and my mother in their relationship with how Wing almost seems to have no friends and has almost put Mei Mei in the place of best friend, and how jealous and unhappy she was when Mei Mei wanted to spend time with friends her own age, doing things that Wing has no connection to. I remember having to actually break that idea of us being friends with my mother, until she could see me as an independent grown up, and then we could be friends as adults, a long process I can see Wing and Mei Mei starting on.
I really enjoyed your reaction and subbed! This movie touched me a lot too, I cried several times bc I related so much. I'm not East Asian but my parents were very strict and overbearing. I wasn't allowed to do most things like going to sleep-overs or staying out after 8 PM even in high school. I never did anything I was not allowed to, I never even thought of sneaking out bc I thought they'd probably kill me lol I was scared of them too. My personality was weird according to my parents (they called me the alien of the family lol) they wanted me to act a certain way (to act like them basically) so I don't embarrass them. They always wanted me to be perfect and got disappointed in me bc I was not perfect and I would never be perfect. I started to rebel during high school I think and broke that hold they had over me and honestly I'm glad I did. I think even as an adult now I still subconsciously crave their approval but at least I know that being imperfect is fine. I also developped a big personality from all the suppressing I did as a kid, it all came out and stayed lol so yeah I ''kept the panda'' too and I'm happy I did :)
I really appreciated your reaction. It's wonderful that we're getting films that are more inclusive and representative of more and more of us. I'm Greek, so I can't know how this specific film speaks to this specific demographic but it's sooooo relatable and true to what it's like to be a 13 year old kid. The hormones, the smelling, the hair everywhere, the periods, the dumb crushes, the true bonding with friends... It was an awesome film!
Italian-American here, a couple of generations down from where Mei is. My great-grandparents were born in Italy. My grandmother was the youngest of seven girls, who all had to share a bed (not really cultural, but working class and couldn't afford a bed for every kid, much less a room), and had jobs to help pay rent and buy groceries when they were teenagers. My great-grandparents never spoke much English, and both worked. It's traditional for the older kids to take care of the younger, so my grandmother grew up speaking only a few words of Italian, and couldn't have had an actual conversation with her parents even if they all wanted to, unless her oldest couple of sisters translated, but that's not exactly private, so....
Then my grandmother got married, had my mom, and then my grandfather went to fight in WWII. His regiment was used to test some chemical weapons, and after he came home, they never had any more kids. He died of cancer when I was 12. If the whole timeline had been shifted 40-50 years in the future, Papa and all those other soldiers would've sued the gov't and our family would be rich, but the Greatest Generation didn't do that kind of thing. :/ But because my mom was an only child, my grandmother was determined she wouldn't grow up spoiled, and beat the crap out of her on the regular. Even if she hadn't done anything, she'd sometimes get a hard slap just to remind her that if she *did* misbehave, there was more where that came from. Corporal punishment was common across the branches of our very large immigrant family, but my grandmother was excessive even for the time. My mom was the best behaved kid on the planet, and terrified of her mom well into adulthood. So the motivation to behave and respect your parents is different, but the outcome -- stifled kids, no significant communication between kids and parents -- was pretty much the same in our family. By the time Mom was raising me, we were pretty assimilated, with some Italian cultural bits left, but the whole child-rearing and family dynamics thing was pretty much mainstream white American, and Mom made her own new and creative mistakes. [wry smile]
Back to the movie, one thing I really liked was that there was no actual villain. Ming was set up to be a villain, and she was absolutely clueless about Mei and her feelings -- I wanted to whack Ming upside the head with a brick a couple of times, when she made a scene at the convenience store and left Mei's drawings behind for everyone to see and copy, and when she waved the box of pads around and shouted about it in front of an entire class full of Mei's peers. But she wasn't evil, just kind of an idiot, following patterns she'd gotten from her own mother. And Grandma was set up to look like a villain too, especially our first view of her -- only a partial shot of her face, harsh lines, dark colors, the ominous scar across her eyebrow. But again, she meant well, she just made mistakes, doubtless following patterns set by *her* mother. And both Ming and Grandma came through in the end.
I’m a Black American and I related to a lot of things in this movie but I personally love the writing and story. I think the scene in the beginning where the mom says what was once a blessing became an inconvenience definitely set the tone for the relationship between Mei and her mother. A mothers love definitely can be seen as blessing but it being so strong can lead to it being overbearing and cause a rift between mother and child. The inconvenience being the invasion of privacy or erasure of individuality masked as love and guidance.
I was raised in NY, I’m white passing but half peruvian, and I was raised in a Japanese branch of Buddhism. I related to this movie SO MUCH, especially when I hit puberty, I felt like a big gross red monster too lmao. That high-expectation culture is pretty common in most immigrant culture imo, and I felt that to a lesser extent. Music was so important to me when I was growing up, and hearing the climax when the music mixed with the chanting (which reminded me a lot of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo) made me tear up so bad
I'm brazilian so as latin kid growing up in the early 2000's this movie really spoke to me
My grandparents are from Romania. But I was born in America. I think this movie rings true to almost everyone