Seriously, any argument about the movie not being relatable is absolutely ridiculous. Girl or Boy, we've all been kids/teens struggling with the balance of growing up and what it means to become an adult. We've all wanted to do things and go places, whether it was a concert, a movie, a sporting event, a camping trip, a convention, etc, only for our parents to say no. We've all had to deal with the burgeoning sexuality that comes with puberty, whether it was our own attraction to others, someone else being attracted to us, or just the general societal expectations thereof. It really speaks to just how much prejudice still exists that a story is somehow considered of less value if it's about girl.
@@charlieandhisantics9954: _No, dad, I didn't lock my door because I'm hiding drugs. I just didn't want you finding the dirty "laundry" I left lying around._ Paraphrased from an actual argument I had as a teenager. Fortunately he never had a problem with me having a password on my computer, that's where I kept all the even more embarrassing stuff.
I asbolutely love the breath of fresh air the art style in Turning Red is. The young girls are able to look like young girls and not be sexualized. They have dynamic features and silhouettes.
I don’t get the backlash either. I think the artistic choice they made for this movie was the right one, the art style is reminiscent of early 00’s anime and aesthetics that attract preteens girls: round and cute proportions, big sparkly eyes, goofy anime facial expressions. And Mei and her Friends is what many girls in my middle school and friend group typically looked like. I think this era’s current obsession with ‘ school age kids having glow ups” on social media may have contributed to the general public having a distorted image of the average preteen girl.
I agree with you that the sillouettes of the friends made them much more unique. I personally did not like the art style 100% (reminds me of other studios with more soft, bendy features. Best example I can think of is Captain Underpants), but it is different from other Disney projects where I was like... all their eyes and faces look the same, they're all starting to homogenize or at least the ones with human/humanoid characters.
I liked the movie a lot, and its so nice to see a story aimed towards girls that isnt super stereotypical from the perspective of guys. It felt so real and didn't condescend girl's interests
I LOVED the movie. I found Mei just so charming. Yes it is cringy at times but that is being a 13 year old and that's okay. I saw a lot of my younger self in Mei and the arguments she had with her mother reminded me so much of fights I used to have with my mother. This movie encapsulates being a 13 year old so well!
It was one of the first times the main staff and creators were all women! They are all awesome people, embrace the panda on Disney plus is a great watch
4:48 "They're 13, why do they need to be pleasing to look at?" I imagine it would be a single-circle-diagram of these people and the people who justify why underage characters in anime need to be sexualized.
creeps focus on the small body size lol you're confusing pleasing with sexual. kids aren't sexual but they can be cute. you're afraid to call kids cute and adorable now?? lol these kids look like trolls. next time someone says your baby is adorable better call the police!!
@@GotoMaki4Micah I love how you started with a point I kind of agreed with then destroyed your own credibility by claiming I'm somehow afraid of finding kids cute because...I jokingly compared people like you to creepy anime nerds. Never change internet. Never change.
Personally, I love how they made Mei's design in a way where you can see both of her parents shine through she takes a lot more from her father but you can see little accents of her mother as well, its clear they thought out her design and didnt just slap together a "tumblr art style to get a certain audience" Pixar may be changing but change isn't always bad and In the end I think people are hiding their unwillingness to cope with change under the lens of "this art style is ugly"
Hiding their unwillingness to change AND racism AND misogyny. I agree with your point, but I think a lot of people are going against the style to avoid talking about what's really angering them deep down.
I see what you mean!! I agree that misogyny is a big part of some of it (I mean theres people outright mad that pixar didnt make a group of 13 yros attractive ew) I should just say hiding their underlying negative views in general (hell I mean there were people mad about the TYPES of races represented in turning red as if them including a cast of poc in general wasnt a good thing in itself which is so odd as well)
@@theeccentric7263 I always thought the "cal arts" artstyle was someting they hated because its associated with liberal/progressive producers. A lot of the 3D movies in 2010s looked pretty much the same as Spaghetti with a Chance of Meatballs and nobody complained about that.
@@candydrool4207 The fact people wrote rants about too many hijabi extras in the background as an agenda is where it gets pretty dumb. This was the most character diverse movie Ive seen in a long time. They even include more than one ethic group of Asian, and biracial characters and didn't make a big deal about it. The team went above and beyond with the characters. Where as the people complaining are likely comfortable with it being all white with 1 brown or black person, to call that comfortable for them. Then far right conservatives and racists freak out when that population ratio isn't reality.
@@GeteMachine I agree^^ Its a really cute fun art style that makes the kids look unique and genuinely like kids. I love pixars older films but they definitely had a habit of same face syndrome when it came to designing kids or teens (granted in most pixar films children were very rarely the main characters up until recently).
this movie made me ugly cry. this captured the middle school experience so well and i felt so happy with the way everything was played out. that fanfiction scene took me out lmaooo cause the only time i remember any mention of a middle schooler being into fanfiction was bob's burgers haha.
seriously i mean why on earth do people not think its relatable?? im not asian or have experienced immigration but i cried so much?? its a movie that has -generational truma - ending an abusive cycle - realistic pre teen life and thats only really the main charchter/ family. there were other charachters who viewers can easily relate to
The idea of this not being universal feels wild to me. The only way I could imagine someone not relating to this film is if they had a perfect relationship with their parents growing up...and like, how many people is that really?
Absolutely. Especially considering just how realistically the girls act like 13 year olds. I remember having fights with my mom with a similar energy when I was 13. That's just part of growing up. Breakign away from your families expectations and also being moody, going over board in a fight. It's such normal preteen/ teenage behaviour and it's just mind boggling that some people act like this isn't part of the experience of growing up.
I don't know if any relationship is perfect but I do know teens can be really close with their parents. I guess a "perfect" relationship would have to be an extremely dependent and clingy child which could turn out harmful to the child's development.
@@frozenyogurth Everybody's going to have disagreements and some parents can just be too strict on their kids. Kids can rebel as young as 2 and it gets more pronounced as they grow up and start becoming more independent as well as forming more mature and complex opinions in the preteen/teen years. But despite it all, you should still bond and love on your parents at any age. Don't completely shut them out and be ungrateful to them. If you're going through problems, go to your parents. They have more experience than you and they may likely help you more than your friends will. I liked how Mei wasn't ungrateful for the sake of being ungrateful and her goal wasn't to fuck or to use drugs, she was just being a normal kid who wanted to go to concerts. Many teen movies/shows tend to exaggerate teens as druggies and ungrateful and always mean to their parents and that's not always true, it's just a stereotype. Mei is a good kid and I'm sure she would've behaved better if her mom hadn't been so strict.
As a genderqueer woman, I never really related to any of the female Disney characters growing up because they were always SO feminine (and often sexualized). My vibe isn't particularly masculine or feminine, but I guess the closest I related to was Lilo. To me, it's always refreshing to see girls and women on TV who aren't primarily feminine, but instead look goofy, or even *gasp* _normal_.
The thing that really gets me as well is that people complain about how Disney doesn't make anything "original" anymore, and how everything they make is just a reboot, remake, or revival. Yet when they do, the same people complain about how it's too different from Disney of old (thought you wanted something new?), isn't relatable enough to them (because every single movie has to relate to the same demographic apparently) or, (and this is the most used complaint these days) it's too "woke" or that looks like "woke trash". It's to the point where I think it's just a trend to hate on anything Disney nowadays. Like even Marvel has been getting similar treatment, with people saying how they hate all the jokes the in MCU movies, or how the MCU is "ruining cinema". And don't even get me started on Star Wars. All in all, Turning Red is a fun movie and really doesn't deserve the hate. As for the character designs, they're perfect and I really hope Disney and Pixar (especially Disney) will continue to experiment with unique designs to help differentiate their movies. One thing that people stated when Disney shut down Blue Sky Studios was that, now every animated movie were going to look the same. Either the Disney look, or the Illumination look (something people were worried about when NBCUniversal bought DreamWorks). Yet here we have fresh new designs for characters and their complaining that literal children aren't pleasing enough to the eye? Wow. In the words of Meilin Lee, "sorry I'm not perfect!" I really hope Pixar continues to experiment with movies like this, Luca, Soul, and Onward. Their willingness to experiment was one of the reasons some people preferred their films to any animated movie from WDAS or any other Disney-controlled animation studio.
I remembered admiring Nani for looking like a normal, non-euro centric hyper-supermodel. She was a normal human being and she was beautiful. Beautiful as is, and especially for stepping up at 19 YEARS OLD and raising her sister after they lost their parents!!
My favorite obvious example of female vs male character design in a recent Disney movie is Big Hero 6 - the boys in the group are all different sizes and shapes, with some unique features, while the girls in the group are both thin and have the plain, conventionally attractive Disney girl face. The only difference is one has glasses and one is slightly curvy. I love that movie dearly but this has always bothered me! I loved hearing someone else discuss this.
i'm indian but i related to turning red so much. ming and mei's relationship reminded of my relationship with my mom (but like... with less closure). i remember being around 14 and having my friends be blamed for all of my bad decisions and i so desperately wanted to explain to my mom that i was never the ideal daughter she wanted me to be in the first place. also i really liked one direction and literally everything the girls felt towards 4town i felt towards one direction. i even had that exact same fight with my parents where i was desperately begging to go to a concert and they were like you're insane it's too expensive and their music sucks
First, I love the art in the background. It is so cute! Second, I really like how you pointed out that people have related to literal rat that cooks but say that they can’t relate to a tween girl. It just doesn’t make sense. Women’s stories should be heard.
And it’s sad that they’re not considered universal or standard when most of the human population is female. 😂 We shouldn’t be marginalized or other-ized.
soo relatable!1! I too was a rat that used to live in the sewers, I was so quirky and not like other rats. I was sick of eating trash and moldy cheese and liked GOURMET FOOD. I then got lost from my family in a river and then ended up in a gourmet restaurant and started mind-controlling a person by yanking his hair out to make them achieve my dream for me since im a rat and rats are said to not belong in a kitchen. #RATSBELONGINTHEKITCHEN #RATSDESERVEBETTER Anyways I as a dirty rat became the professional gourmet head chef now better then all the other cooks...
@@nuggets8229 Your story is so inspiring and relatable. I was a car that really wanted to race in the desert. But now I'm the fastest race car and have a girlfriend. Dreams do come true #cachow
What you were talking about with character design in animated films reminded me how I was so happy that we got a character like Luisa in Encanto. We hardly ever see female characters that have body types that are outside of the thin norm, but there are so many people out there who look like her that don’t really get represented. In fact, Luisa reminds me a LOT of my own older sister. I was also really happy to see the character designs of Turning Red as well. They felt really realistic to how me and my friends looked in middle school. I’ve generally been thin all my life but in middle school I still had baby fat and my body hadn’t fully developed and I loved that the film actually showed what AFAB people look like while they’re going through puberty. I think a lot of people’s ideas of what preteen and teen girls actually look like has gotten kinda skewed by media where the characters are played by actors who are definitely no longer in their preteen or teen years. It’s kinda sad to see. I really hope Turning Red brings back a resurgence of media that displays the true awkward charm of people’s preteen years. We were all cringe back then, but there’s nothing wrong with that, we were still growing. There’s a growing weird expectation that people (especially AFAB people) have to be super grown up by the time they’re like 14 which I think is so unrealistic and so unhealthy (it’s especially happening a lot on TikTok). Just let kids be kids. Idk, it’s just something I’m thinking about I guess. I hope that all made sense.
Most of my friends were thin. However, they were sometimes lanky in an awkward way, most were very much flat chested with no curves. We were not hourglass, we were this rectangle shape, with pimples, arms that were slightlty too long, short with big feet, or still losing our last tooth. We then grew pimples or some got braces and glasses. When someone grew a lot (no matter if it was height or hips), they would be clumsy and bump into things hard. Scraped knees, messed up hair. Shitty make up. No sense of style, or we would go overboard.
Yeah I really wish teens would just be teens. They're still kids they should not be doing drugs and shit. I feel like that peer pressure is extending beyond 13 it's like 11 or 12 now.
@fix_it Felix assigned female at birth, so that includes cis (not trans) girls, trans boys, some non-binary people, and some intersex people whose intersex condition wasn’t diagnosed at birth :)
i agree, i hate that tweens and teens aren't allowed to have awkward, goofy phases anymore, or else they're mocked relentlessly and called cringe, as if being cringe is an excuse to bully children. also i definitely agree abt luisa, i was so worried that her charcter arc was going to be something like "i wish i was more feminine like isabela, i hate my gift :(" and it not being that was such a breath of fresh air, so many pieces of media act like women can't be both muscular and feminine, so luisa being both, and being proud of her gift was refreshing
I'm a 13-year-old teenage girl, and while I can relate on that part, I'm also American and the whitest person you'll ever meet lol. Even so, I could easily relate to Mei despite having very loving and non-controlling parents. It could be the fact I'm a "gifted" kid so I'm immediately placed on a pedestal and people automatically expect more from me. You don't have to be a teenage girl, and ESPECIALLY not an Asian American one to relate to this story! Every person was a kid once, and most kids know what it's like to feel the growing pressure of parental expectations. That's what this movie is about.
A quick note from a 32-year old formerly gifted kid: You’re awesome. Aside from what you DO, you are awesome. One day you’ll find yourself feeling “behind.” That doesn’t mean you’re losing your touch or that you’re suddenly a terrible person, or just means that you and the difficulty of life are becoming more equal. That’s ok! That’s normal. You might feel like you fell off your pedestal… but you shouldn’t be on a pedestal in the first place! Find a comfy beanbag instead. Be content with having flaws and being imperfect and making mistakes. Nobody who loves you will ever give up on you just because you step off of a pedestal and onto a beanbag. I wish I had known that when I was younger so I would have been prepared as an adult for things to slow down. I felt like such a failure. But I’m not :) I went through years of felling terrible about myself and only recently am learning to love myself again. Burnout is real. The people who really love you don’t care if you’re perfect or not. You are not what you do. Lean into your interests, no matter how silly they are. And love yourself always :)
@@StudioHannah i'm not who you originally replied to, but i am/was also a gifted kid, and i've been dealing with mental health issues and burnout for a while now, and just felt like a huge failure. your words really helped, thank you
The fact that some of the people who crap on Turning Red for being a girl's coming-of-age movie are the same people who would praise Spirited Away as a masterpiece feels super weird. They're both coming-of-age movies with female protagonists. Chihiro is kinda grating before the spirit stuff kicks in, but somehow that's different to Mei being unashamedly a thirteen year old girl at the start of Turning Red before gaining character growth via panda powers. Turning Red and Spirited Away aren't the same movie, but they're similar enough for this to be baffling to me. Heck, let's throw the Jim Henson movie Labyrinth in there, too! Sarah starts as very much a kinda cringe-inducing teen (I acted like Sarah around her age so I can say it) and then starts growing up via the goblin-induced coming-of-age adventure nonsense she hurls herself into by accidentally saying the Right Words™. I can even see people making a case that the movie is "too h*rny" because of Jareth's ballet belt and the ballroom fever dream distraction scene! Yet I'd be willing to bet that if some of these "Turning Red is bad because girl's movie puberty coming of age boy feelings eww" saw me dressed up as the Goblin King they'd say a Labyrinth quote at me. Where is the logic? Trick question: there's none, and in the best case scenario they're just angry because they want to be angry at something. It's silly. It's like being super angry at those paintings that are just straight lines with one solid color underneath, but even _worse._ Because now they aren't even trying to hide the gross underbelly of their anger.
Right?! Glad someone else sees the hypocrisy with this film...actually heard people say the subject matter is "too mature" for sensitive preteens. Preteens?? Who are also going through puberty?!!? GTFOH😂
The only actual difference with weight between Seeing Red and Spirited Away/Labyrinth is the fact that Seeing Red depicts an extremely modern + childish character with extremely modern/childish friends. Like, Mei looks like a Claire's store threw up on her in the best way, and aside from reminding me of my absolutely classic-cringe neon pink + lime green glittery cartoon monkey backpack (bought from Claire's when I was 12), it also perfectly captures her specific character - just like her other friends each have their own style to match theirs. Mei is an energetic + highly monitored/sheltered overachieving preteen in 2002 Toronto, and she acts and dresses the same way thousands of other girls just like her did at that time. Mei's journey is not about trying to grow up, physically or emotionally, or within her family dynamic. She is seeking space from her mother, and trust in her abilities as she is 'officially a teenager', but she still has that giddy, juvenile mentality of being 13 specifically. As the first year of being a 'teenager', the age 13 is an extremely awkward age, because you are very much still behaving + dressing like a child, but are also pushing your parental boundaries because "I'm not a kid anymore, I'm a TEENAGER". Chihiro and Sarah are both very different pre/teen girl characters, as Chihiro is 10, and Sarah is 16. Sarah has the settled energy of a teenage girl who's already handled most of puberty + is about to venture into the adult world, so her journey is about the steps between teenager to adult, as depicted by both Jareth the goblin king's (sexually-coded) advances, and her responsibility towards her younger brother's safety. Chihiro has the energy of an assertive single child (much like Coraline) whose journey is between her childhood + her future, as depicted by her family's move + her experiences within the bathhouse/with No Face's advances. Part of me wonders how much of the backlash against how "annoying" people are finding Seeing Red/Mei is about the actual movie/character itself, and how much of it is about a complex web of interconnected pieces such as; 1. Mei being unapologetically childish + hyper-energetic vs Spirited Away/Labyrinth/Coraline 2. Seeing Red not having a 'villain' to defeat or life/death stakes vs Spirited Away/Coraline 3. The coming of age narrative being centered around self-identity/respect for different life choices vs Spirited Away/Labyrinth/Coraline 4. The puberty 'metaphor' being openly acknowledged as puberty instead of being quietly suggested at/avoided entirely within the narrative. 5. Puberty being depicted in a coming of age narrative that APPEARS to be directed towards children (which is hilarious to me for multiple factors - like I know people who got their period at age 8, and it's much worse to be surprised by random blood than being given a heads up before you're considered 'old enough' to HAVE to know about it. Also - one of the major points of a coming of age narrative is to give a heads up to the kids about to go through that stage, or to provide guidance/perspectives for the kids going through that stage. Depicting periods as a normal thing for kids between the ages of 8-13 to me is not even a question, it should be standard/considered normal.) 6. Periods being depicted in a matter-of-fact way instead of through allegory, vague commentary, or subtextually. Why can we have books for babies/toddlers about pooping (Everybody Poops + I Need My Potty come to mind) but we can't have a movie for preteens that acknowledges that periods exist with the actual WORDS like period, pads, cramps, etc? 7. Racism + gender expectations/stereotypes. I'm not gonna expand on the racism bit bc I'm white, and while I do have some things in mind, that's not my lane, but I'm noting it bc it IS a factor, and ignoring it entirely is not an option. The gender stereotyping is my lane, and I could expand on it, but it's mostly boilerplate basic misogyny + the refusal to engage with a female main character/female-based narrative due to her/her journey not being 'relatable' (while millions of girls relate to/enjoy/engage with male main characters in franchises like Harry Potter, Star Wars, or the MCU, plus the thousands of other male-focused books/movies/tv shows/etc like Sherlock BBC, Hannibal, Breaking Bad, Transformers, M.A.S.H, Star Trek, etc) because they're so used to be spoon-fed narratives that don't challenge them to expand their worldview beyond their own gender-restricted perspective that the idea of a movie about a goofy teen girl doing silly low-stake teen girl shit for 140mins having value + being relatable is jarring conceptually, bc No Fighting No Explosions No Sex No Men = no point 🤷♀️ It's literally just like, maybe they need to just get over themselves + watch a different movie if they don't like this one. Nothing in Seeing Red is or should be considered controversial in the year 2022. They need to grow up tbh.
@@sakunaruful I think it worked perfectly. Especially when you consider that children st the age of 10 learn very literally. Something needs to literally happen for them to completely understand it. It's a stage in child development where kids will not yet think about the world in abstract ideas. So having a 13 year old *Literally* change into something else and that being a part of growing up that is also okay to happen is a really good way to convey that idea to preteen kids in an understandable way.
It really is a breath of fresh air watching the characters be embarrassing and out there. It blows my mind how many people try to say “this isn’t realistic because that’s not how little girls act” when in my exp they act WAY weirder. I’m glad you pointed that out and what you said is so SO true, kids are being rushed to grow up and no longer have space to be embarrassing 😔 very cute art btw :)
When you talked about how stories about women's issues are seen as "low stakes," I truly felt like you were saying the words I've been searching for for so many years. I'm not a woman, but many of my interests (especially growing up) were/are regarded as feminine, and I was always aware that people viewed many of the things I liked as frivolous or superficial. It makes me sad to think about all the beautiful universal truths I've found throughout my life in stories about women/girls such as Turning Red, that are overlooked by many because of the pretense that women's stories are of lesser value than those of men.
Also, it’s funny this is considered low stakes. They conflict is normal becoming-a-teenager and going to a concert, but because both are emotional Mei may be a rampaging panda forever or unhealthily hold her emotions in. And Ming does end up as that rampaging panda who had to hold her emotions in, and that panda is not harmless and permanent transformation is high enough stakes. But because it’s about a girl becoming a teenager and subsequently gaining her freedom by going to a concert, it’s suddenly “low stakes”. I mean, the conflict is low-stakes in that it is eventually about going to a concert but it is still meaningful and ramped up because of the panda inhibition thingy. Those accusations aren’t thrown at any other movie portrayed like this, like The Thirteenth Year.
The funny thing is that Mei and her friends just act like totally normal tween/teens. I think the "let's cringe over literal innocent children" trend is SO wrong, children/tweens/teens should be alowed to just being themselves and learn from their mistakes. Their designs just feels very close to home, it just gives... a very different vibe from other pixar movies (I felt something similar with Onward and Soul), the nostalgia over teens trying to look 'aesthetic' and wearing things teens of that time totally would want to wear felt... realistic and cute. The animation was so good as always and the design was as cute and lively as Luca's one.
:) thanks for talking about turning red. This video means a lot, ESPECIALLY the female character designs, because it's been so long since I've seen something mainstream that was really about young girls and adolescence. Despite some clumsy plot points here and there, Turning Red was a breath of fresh air. Wish I had it a couple years ago tbh, as someone who was an anxious kid who dealt with some pretty high parental expectations. Also, sorry about your movie theater experience! Where I am, the movie theater is pretty spacious and vacant, so I've never had to deal with much of the social anxiety there, despite the sensory issues and overstimulation :,) I also care a lot about shape language and character design, because of how rarely I see variation in character design. It always breaaaaks my heart at the end of a Disney movie when they show the concept art that went into making the film. It gets so watered down, especially with 3d animated Disney movies, and _especially_ for female characters. Thanks again for talking about this.
The relatabilty thing is so stupid. As women of colour we are expected relate to the stories of white men time and time again and we do. Yet relating to a young Chinese-Canadian girl coming of age is too much? Rats and inanimate objects like the brave little toaster is easy but humans of a different race and gender is hard? Oookkkaaay 🙄 I like the characters designs it's cute and different something we dont often seen given to female characters
I've already seen several girls and women who are white who related so much to this movie, so it's hilarious that men can't possibly. They're lazy and self centered and don't want to relate to different people.
The relatability thing is rarer than other arguments against the movie. Pay it no mind; it’s probably coming from people ashamed of being “cringey” teens. We’re not being forced to relate to stories of white men, just to find their stories engaging.
The thing I found the most ridiculous was that the character and theme of the movie wasn't just even about her just being Chinese. She was Chinese at home with her famiy but under her bed and with her friends she was hanging out and doing everything they were doing at school. Then the conflict was from her mother who was worried about how it was influencing her daughter. How is that not relatable? Thats literally everyone. She likes something her mother doesn't understand and thus thinks its bad. Its her who wants to see a boyband, doing the trendy handshakes, going to protests, etc. The only difference is that she's asian. Where as an immigrant you're either just what their lens of stereotypes think you just exist in or are, or they other them entirely when it isnt. There's a lot to say about that and the perpetual foreigner bias immgrants get.
Such a good point that I've never actually heard put into words before: not every story has to be relatable to every person! I don't understand why people think they can only enjoy things that are obviously relatable to themselves anyways. You learn and grow more as a person by pushing those boundaries of allowing yourself to be exposed to things that differ from oneself. You also do a great job of summing up the idea that when we dig deeper at the 'differences', you'll find we're really all very similar and going through similar things in our lives. Even if some kids played tamogachi and some kids played with their pet rock or stuffed animal. All of them are practicing empathy and social awareness.
I really loved Mei and her friends relationships cause I don’t feel like a lot of movies/shows highlight that kind of love. Me and my friends always told eachother we loved eachother, and that’s important.
I get so annoyed when i hear people talking about how its "not appropriate". Movies like this are important for teen girls to have, and to relate to! Being open with your child is important, and hiding these things never ends up benefiting them. It just reminds me of how a lot of kids I know opted out of health because it made their parents uncomfortable. All any of that ends up doing is making kids unsafe.
For me honestly I like the design. The character's are awkward, expressive balls of energy, that just want to make the most of there school life and friendship. And honestly I feel the designs match that as a whole, while looking like real kids I feel. Cause kids are awkward, loud, have a lot to say, and there words can be cringy at times. Plus a lot of kids look ugly. Not a lot of them are pretty let be real here. As a adult I remember being like that as a guy. I liked people and expressed it in odd ways by drawing or trying to beat them in mario smash brothers. As well as geeking out about DBZ, Yu-gi-oh, pokemon or what ever I liked a the time as a teenager to my friends. Then again I can laugh at my past, and what I did, while other's can not. And as for girl things and how people view them. I know I'm not one to talk, but I feel it boils down to if you like it or not. Not gender being a issue with it. Just going on anime that are said to be aimed for girls I like; Card capture sakura, Princess tutut, The original Sailor moon (Have not seen the new one so no comment on how I feel about it), Futari wa pretty cure, and Mew Mew Power. And for things not anime, but I think at the time My little pony was pretty good, but the fandom was a hot mess that I am glad is over and done with. And I hear one of the Barbie Tv shows really slaps with some random clips I see form time to time on youtube. Now for other girly things I will admit I didn't like, and it's because I couldn't get into it, due to my taste alone. Not because I'm a guy just, because there are things I just can't fully get into due to my likes and dislikes. I felt Twilight was boring, and how the writer is with certain things made me glad I dropped it on book one. And some popular novels aimed at teenage girls to young adult woman pretty much would have the troupe in the novels of older men praying on the main female lead in a sense, or abusive relationships being seen as cute or something to prove you can over come it for the relationship, and honesty I can't really get behind that. Over all I think turning red is cute, a good movie, and I am glad I watched it. The only issue I have with the movie as a whole is the Mei's mom. Just seeing her crying as a child hurt me so much that even if the movie was done, and she was okay with her daughter being herself. I couldn't help but wonder if her issues are fully resolved. I know her mom hugged her and told her that she never blamed her for anything, but I just can't help but think about her walking as she grew up crying and feeling sad, and how she kept everything in as a adult. That's really the only thing that messes with me in the movie. Not something I hate, but just something that I can't help but think about. What else did she had to keep inside? What did she miss out on when trying to be perfect for her mother as she was growing up? And what passion she might have had, and gave up on to make her mom proud? Sorry I wanted to bring this up, cause yeah. Messes with me...
Honestly very valid. I put it this way. Mei's entire family learned from the incident. And I think it probably gave them a lot to think snd talk about. I hope Ming and her Mom talked in depth. Often younger generations breaking a mold can lead to the older generations making amends. At least in stories with happy endings like this one.
About the part about Ming in the spirit realm...I remember when Meilin was leading her mother through the bamboo forest that her younger selves are slumped and downtrodden but when we get to her present age we kinda see that while she's still looking down, her posture is straight, and while that might be something she learned due to her job, I also see that as her, as a mother, not wanting to show her child weakness, basically show her better side to be a good role model. Heck, when Mei looks back she reflexively wipes her tear and kinda looks to the side until her daughter faces forward again. It's honestly heartbreaking how we see, visually, through that short walk what she went through: from her as an adolescent, hunched over and a mess, to her growing older, less hunched and more put together then to the present her, straight posture with her presentable work clothes... but all through that she remained looking DOWN, possibly internalizing her guilt and sadness all these years.
They were actually very feminine. Maybe I am far too agnostic, but to me I recognized them as girls of differing ethnicities. It’s just that in this case they were not overtly feminine.
Another thing that struck me more than I expected was how the Red Panda transformation was treated. I think the Red Panda is the expression of intense emotions as well as a metaphor for puberty. They say as much throughout the movie, whether in excitement or anger or emotional. And since intense expression of emotions is often labeled as “hysterical” or “overreacting” (which I think a young girl can hear a lot of) it was a cathartic experience to see Mei embracing that louder side of herself. And alternatively, I appreciated the movie showing that while her mom, aunts and grandma had seemingly given up on their red pandas, they always keep them close by. By the end the movie shows that having intense emotions is not wrong, but that it is also important to use your personal discretion in their expression. For me, the biggest takeaway from Turning Red is this: the emotions of kids are VALID y’all. You might look back on your younger self when you are older and think “Why was I ever like that?” but the truth is no matter where your feelings are directed and no matter how much of an overreaction they may seem, they are NOT fake. The movie is not saying “friends and boy bands are more important than family” but that Mei’s feelings are just as real as her family’s, and ignoring them will cause real damage.
THIS!!! I’ve been so frustrated about so many reviews and what not talking about the panda just being a metaphor for puberty WHEN THE MOVIE explicitly tells us it was a manifestation of strong emotions! That Sun Yee was blessed with a gift of her emotions and used them to serve, protect and love her family and community. But that gift became ‘inconvenient’ when the family moved to a ‘new world’! I can’t personally speak to the experience of diaspora, I can emphasize with the experience but I have never felt it myself. (And I’m also kinda annoyed with that integral part being described by some as just flavor text) But the experience of your emotions being too much (especially as an undiagnosed adhd girl) resonated with me so strongly!
I thought this movie was real cute and also it actually helped my sister find a new creative way of dealing with anxiety! she had to go to the dentist today and confessed to me that this movie gave her the idea to think about her loved ones supporting her to help her get through it and i'm so proud of her!
Who cares if it’s low stakes? I get really bored because I feel like every movie is high stakes & that’s not my cup of tea. Low stakes things are so interesting to me, I’m a very character focused person. I’m not big on the plot, but I want to know how the characters personalities & relationships develop & I think there should be more movies like that :)) It’s why I like The Simpsons & The Amazing World Of Gumball so much. Also I feel like the backlash is pretty misogynistic since it’s because edits “not relatable” & the designs are “unattractive” (also no they’re not they’re super cute & as artists, me & my best friend were OBSESSING over the style lol)
I absolutely love slice of life movies and TV, so I'm tired of hearing about how everything has to have high stakes. Also, the characters are adorable and remind me way more of myself, my sisters and my friends as kids.
People apply the Marvel standards to everything, even genres that are the polar opposite of superhero movies. As a casual anime watcher, the same thing is happening in anime. The Shounen (young-teen range aimed at boys) fans complain that Shoujo (young-teen range aimed at girls) is too slow and nothing happens when shounen is all about fast-paced heroism and action and shoujo is about slow-burn love, comedy and slice of life. These two are the polar opposites, yet we mainly see men and boys complain about it, the other side is just chill and doesn't equate their standards to shounen genre.
Even if someone were to say they didn’t like it because it’s stakes are too low, the city was about to be destroyed by a large animal at the end of the movie and that sounds pretty high stakes to me.
I can also relate to when you talked about feeling like a loser for not "growing up fast enough." Even at age 7! I got mocked for still watching the Teletubbies. I was still playing with dolls right up until high school. And even after I turned 18, my own father would ask why I was still watching cartoons and Disney movies. Being a kid is such a catch-22 man.
It's really eye-opening and crazy that that person said female characters are hard to animate because "they have to keep them pretty." That's just wild, but looking back at every movie, yeah it's frightening true. I'm glad to see this changing, especially with Turning Red, they actually look and act like 13-year-old girls, and they aren't afraid to go wild with the faces, it's really refreshing to see.
Yes to all of this! It's so limiting not only to artists but children only seeing the portrayal of one kind of female, unless they're a villain. I really enjoyed this movie, I thought it was done so so well
I love how you explained their looks. Watching turning red, I almost didn't notice this because it was so wonderful to see different body types that I think I just felt immersed rather than surprised.
18:27 responding to the story not being "for everyone" : I 100% agree. We have this idea that male is the default human experience, and female is human experience plus plus, with special details that are often put away because they're "mysterious" or supposed to be "secret". I'm a guy and this movie was super relatable and I loved it, it's a new favorite for sure. I'm also 100% here for Pixar's new Ghibli-inspired direction of movie making.
Although I'm not the target audience, I can only imagine how important this movie would be if I was pre teen, seeing characters be entirely unsexualized and allowed to be goofy and fun and kinda dumb would have been so validating
I’m so confused with the discourse on this movie lol. Even as a guy, this movie was relatable and extremely entertaining. Definitely one of my favorite Pixar movie recently. But I guess if characters aren’t self inserts or widely unrealistic people will riot.
People really need to unpack their feelings and think deeply about why they are always so uncomfortable or “annoyed” with completely normal young girls. 🤔
The fact that I am not even Canadian or from an English speaking country and I am not Asian, didn’t stop me to relate to this film. Periods, puberty, fangirling, crushes and mommy issues, made me remember when I was 13. I felt happy that many girls no matter where they are in the world, related to the movie as well. And it made me happy to see all of these issues presented in the movie as a normal thing and I hope it helps kids nowadays feel comfortable with themselves 🥰
The line “I understand the feeling of needing to be perfect…and if I taught that to you, I’m so sorry.” Hit me real hard, cuz my mom would never. And it just. Ming felt like it was too late for her, like she couldn’t help herself, but damnit if she’s not gonna End that cycle. She lets Mai do it. It’s such a nuanced discussion and they did it perfectly.
As an artist who likes to design and make fanart of mostly teenage characters, I’m always happy to see both art and support for art that depicts adolescents as, well kids. They’re not all drop dead gorgeous supermodels and rarely ever are. Kids don’t have to be portrayed as glamorous and it’s great to see more media embracing designs that make people look, well, like people. And, while the context is kinda sad, it’s great getting to see people supporting this film. Also your background was lovely (^з^)-☆
I think you nailed it with this. We are all incredibly used to viewing the male experience as the universal experience, and now that this is finally changing, it's astonishing to me to see how men especially struggle with empathizing with a variety of life experiences (not that a tween girl is even all that niche of an experience considering about half the population experiences it!!). Someone in the comments mentioned how female coming of age stories like Spirited Away don't get this treatment, and I would say that Turning Red is much more *unapologetic* and *in your face* about its subject material. Maybe I'm just dumb but I saw Spirited Away and Totoro and etc as adventure films as a kid and it wasn't until I rewatched them as an adult that I was moved by finally realizing they are coming of age films. I think Ghibli films are much more layered and less obvious about their messaging and takeaways. That isn't to say one approach is more artistically valuable than the other. They are both valuable. I just think the audience reactions to them is quite telling. We like girl coming of age stories but they can't be so *in your face*. Wider audiences (aka men) can only sympathize with female experiences if they are layered in so much symbolism it might take multiple viewings to view them as coming of age. It seems people had a problem not with a female coming of age story, but with one that was so unapologetic about it.
OH!!! Thank you for talking about how only men get to have character designs that are meant to reflect their personalities. It drives me insane that even in shows like My Hero Academia or How to Train Your Dragon where females at least aren't damsels, even if they are always prize/side characters, they all only get one body type. In My Hero, even though this is a vast world with characters filled with animal characteristics or Sci-fy qualities- women only ever get to be "Attractive" No fat, nothing too non-human, nothing that might make a male seem weaker than them etc. In the main class there is a vast cast of character designs.....for men. Women can't be unconventional or just plain ugly. The most the author was willing to do was make one pink, one vaugly froggish, and one invisible.......great.
You must remember that MHA is taking place in Japan, where the obesity procentage isn't high and you're always encouraged to look your best. The same goes for men too. Times are changing, but it is very much a traditional country, and standing out in any way will get you bullied. That's not to say those things are okay, but I think it's important to understand a culture before you start stripping it down.
@@smarsh7779 Okay, let's tone it down a little bit. First of all, Horikoshi (the author) is not sexist at all. Yes, he's a pervert and he has openly admitted to it on twitter. But he treats every one of his characters with respect nonetheless. Ochako, the main female lead, is seen having a crush on Deku. This is normal teenage behavior, getting a crush is not something you can control. However her main goal in life is something that doesn't relate to Deku at all; her goal is to become a hero so she can get money to support her parents. Her life didn't start as soon as she met Deku, her life was already well-developed before she ever even met him. Momo, the smart girl in class, has her insecurities and deals with every day life problems with the aspect of being a rich girl. If you actually knew Japanese culture, having money is actually seen as a bad thing due to various circumstances from the past. And while she tends to flaunt her body, it's all within reason and not solely for fan service. Unlike most other women, she actually does have a bit of a belly unlike the flat toned stomach we usually see in anime. I could go on and on about every female character tbh, cause women are more than just their weight; it's about their motivations, their goals in life and whether or not they are being heard. And these women are being heard. You're just too butthurt to see it.
@@Urube23 I think you missed a big part of OPs point. I like mha, but it's true that character design for women is limited to like 2 body types, with varying boob size, which are thin and thinner. Meanwhile, male characters are allowed to have all kinds of diversity and creativity, which makes female characters look even bleaker by comparison. I think the one with the most different body design in main cast is froppy, and even then she's still small with big doe eyes, contrast her with other characters who also have mutant type quirks like Tokoyami and you can see there is a double standard, regardless of whether you think that makes him sexist or not. Of course you could blame it on it being an issue with shonen as a genre, but even shows like Fairy Tail got creative with female character design from time to time, even more so with secondary characters. And FT it's sexist AF. so there's really no excuse for MHA to lack variety in their female character design. (I've been legit trying to think up one single female hero student or pro with a design that isnt sexy and I cannot)
@@alexparra15 So I guess Recovery Girl and Mirko are non-existent. And besides, as you said, they're all heroes. Which means they're public figures. Would a Hollywood star go out in public without looking their best? No. Midnight, the hero who's openly sexual (which, btw, is a thing frowned upon in Japan), even dresses casually in her free time. And she even uses glasses, which some people think are unattractive (for whatever reason). And besides, these people exercise on the regular. Unless you have a quirk like Fatgum's, gaining weight would not be beneficial to them.
Surprised to hear the character designs were so controversial, I thought that was the best part. I loved seeing the girls have different-shaped heads! Thanks for this review :)
The "oh this story isn't universal cause the target audience is girls and therefore bad" criticisms piss me off so much, it genuinely makes me see red (pun not intended). Like sorry to the grown white male "film critics" who have thousands of movies they can "relate" to that me, a 17 year old black girl who was awkward and geeky in middle school and still now as a senior who's trying to figure stuff out finally gets a movie where I see myself and relate to even a little bit, I just can't have sympathy for you. Especially in a medium that is so important to me like animation, where despite consuming a lot of it western or otherwise, I rarely have characters I relate to or that even look like me (I've been in love with this movie's animation and character/art design for months now so that complaint too gets on my nerves as well), but no one's heard me complaining cause that's the norm. I was already really excited for the movie, but didn't realize just how much I wanted a film like this until I watched it and teared like three times because of how happy I was to have something like this exist. Like I've never felt more seen by any type of media than the scene where Mei is crying on the floor because of what are basically cramps cause I've done that too many times to count lol (also the concert scene at the end cause I went to a Twice concert last month and that was exactly how I reacted to seeing them in person, the crying, the screaming, everything)
I personally liked the movie. It was refreshing and relatable. I am not Chinese, but I did have friends who were second and third Chinese who had parents that would blame us not Chinese friends for anything they deemed "unfit."
I'm simultaneously the same kind of person who gets overstimulated as you (because I'm autistic), and the kind of person we get annoyed by because of ADHD impulsivity, restlessness, and poor awareness of surroundings when I get engrossed in something. But I tend to avoid theatres, for the same reasons as you and also because I like having subtitles and reacting verbally to movies with the people around me and I know that's not something that's acceptable at a movie theatre.
Side note: thank you for adding subtitles! Very much appreciate it, makes it easier to process what you're saying because sometimes my brain struggles a bit with deciphering speech, partly from sensory issues, partly from being easily distracted. Subtitles gives me something to DO while watching, reading them helps me keep my attention on it. Subbed anime introduced me to how helpful subtitles can be and I've used them ever since whenever possible
@@magnificloud we meet in a quiet and dark room with corners and places to hide, and a section for doing sensory things that could be overwhelming to others that's separate :) There are free sunglasses and sound dampening headphones to use as well.
@@magnificloud actually sensory rooms do exist. Some places like stadiums have them set up for kids and adults with sensory issues who might need somewhere to calm down. Some might just be quiet dark areas to sit while your brain processes what was overwhelming, but I think I remember hearing about some that do have different sensory toys and things to interact with. Maybe when things become safer again you can go see one near you if there are any
Warning Spoilers. So I, a 28 year old guy, really resonated with Turning Red. Like, so much that I've been having to work through a lot of messy emotions it brought to the surface. I had a protective mother, maybe more so than Ming. I was a "gifted" kid that could never really live up to the expectations. Especially once my ADHD got worse in my preteen years, which the panda reminded me of a lot. In fact the scene where she's beating herself up and begging it to just go away hit me really hard because it was almost exactly the same as my reaction to my ADHD getting worse. "Why am I like this? I wish this would just go away!" I also realized that the "cure" has parallels to ADHD medications. "You can cut out this problematic part of yourself to better conform!" (Note that back when I was diagnosed the medications available had some nasty side effects, so I never used them. They've come a long way since then.) So the ritual scene, with her struggling over the choice and the visualization of ripping yourself apart to fit other people's idea of what you should be, hit me pretty hard too. Top all that off with the "I'm not going to regret this... Am I?" Since I chose not to use the meds I've had a lot of struggles. I wonder sometimes if it was the right choice. So just... Yeah. A movie hasn't caused me to reflect this much in a long time. Basically I found it super relatable and it's quickly becoming one of my favorites.
I'm in the middle of watching this but I just wanted to say thank you so much for adding subtitles and speaking outloud the text on screen in addition to having it written out. As a person that is hard of hearing, it's so difficult watching TH-cam videos until subtitles come out, and most of the youtubers I watch never add them. So it really makes a difference being able to combine what hearing I do have with being able to read out what you're saying. Thank you again so excited to finish this video!!
The character design point is excellent. I found the animation and design a bit unpleasant in the beginning, but then realized that it was purely about Pixar still finding their footing with it. By the end, the style just looks GORGEOUS!
Not me, I instantly saw the trailer and I fell IN LOVE with that art style XD It's like Chicken Run vibes, but combined with Luca and also has some slight anime thrown in there and I love it! ^u^ More respect that they actually make the teen girls look like teen girls instead of overly sexualizing them
I stopped singing around the house when my step-dad (a church choir director) insulted me offhand. When I was 16. I'm now 30 and can't even sing in the shower without asking myself if anyone is home. That stuff sticks. So I'm so glad you kept drawing and feel comfortable enough to share! Thank you for all your beautiful work, you beautiful soul.
One of the bad reviews on google was literally talking about how inappropriate the movie was because the main character is 13 and is going through puberty. They said that the movie should have been PG-13 instead of PG cause it mentioned puberty. And like, Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse has a teenage boy who mentioned puberty, and people aren't clamoring for the movie to change its rating from PG to PG-13.
basically the are all ethinically diverse, Meilin is chinese, Abby is korean, Priya is indian and Miriam is ashkenazi jew, and tyler is half vietnamese, half afrocarribian, all around you can see muslims with hijabis and the school guard are a sikh.
Hearing you talk about your experience as a teen girl made me realize that I didn't relate to much of it at all and I was born a girl too. Those people saying girl stories are boring because they can't relate are just fishing for excuses.
How can anyone hate this movie?!?!!i grew up similar to Mei - the whole boyband, tamagotchi, drawing , and like being a perfect A's student. Although I am Mexican, I can totally relate it! I love this movie so mucy it made my tween inner child so happy!!! I love it! 😇
Mexicans unite! I was also super appreciative of the story that was told because I had the same relationship Mei had with Ming but with my father who is second generation. Also, like you said, all of the interests Mei had were very similar to mine.
I (also Mexican) have not watched it but from what people mention it I feel like u would relate a lot. My dad is 1st gen immigrant but my mom is 2nd gen so I get a taste of both parents. Neither of them went to college so I have had to face their pressure to be the first. Always keeping my straight A grades, I'm not valedictorian in HS, and I have to be perfectly behaved. My mom is my best friend but when we argue it HURTS hurts. I have to live up to the daughter she has imagined me to be and not who I truly want to be. She shames me for not being skinny anymore. She thinks it's dumb that I'm into boy bands like CNCO and KPop groups as well. But in the end, I want nothing more than to make her happy.
honestly, i'm nonbinary ( afab ), and also the child of immigrants, so like this movie hit pretty hard for me, because i was just as much of a weird kid that didn't really like the same things as my peers either ( you mention mtv, i was 13 in the 2010s so for me it was more like i wasn't picking up on loving one direction as much quickly as the others and didn't get a phone until i was about 14-15 while my friends had already had phones for awhile ) but i also relate to the whole not being allowed to do anything, because your parent is so controlling and protective, i wasn't allowed to do anything without my dad's permission, it was a miracle that i was allowed to even go to birthday parties, and if he ever found out that my friend's male cousin showed up at our sleepover once, he probably would have freaked out because he is one of those parents. to be honest, i still relate to mei because i'm still going through the whole, fighting my parent just to be an individual despite now being an adult ( although granted, my dad is probably far more toxic than her mother given he's well, to put it kindly, physically and verbally abusive on top of being controllng. )
So happy you made a video on this. I just seen this movie recently and I can't tell you how much I resonated with this movie. I remember how difficult being 13 was for me. My strict dad shamed me for having crushes, my older siblings made fun of me for being obsessed with Hannah Montana lol, and to top all of that, puberty was just super stressful. This is probably one of the few movies I found myself relating so much to :3
I have literally never been in a theater where people take calls, are on their phone, or take stories of the movie??? That’s literally blowing my mind wth. I wonder how theater cinema culture varies from place to place, everyone’s always really respectful when I go to movies (Seattle area)
In Austin at the Alamo Drafthouse theatres, instead of the standard courteous "Please silence your cellphones" announcement before the previews, they play a clip that goes "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....ut the f*** up."
Ditto. Midwest greater St.Louis area and the worst disruption I've ever experienced at my local theater is the occasional overly talkative child that hasn't learned volume control yet or who gets scared and starts crying.
You're from Seattle and haven't seen people on their phone? I'm just a few cities away from Seattle and even during my viewing of The Batman, MULTIPLE people had the flash go off on their phone, someone brought a talkative child and I could hear people talking from rows/seats away. But I feel like it was never this bad, I think some people have forgotten theater etiquette because of the pandemic.
I was dying to see your take!! I'm so glad it was a relatable story, it was to me as well on so many levels. The art style was also not my favorite but I don't hate it; I think it's perfect for the story and I'm waiting to see what Pixar does next!
You had me at "pre-plague". I subscribed. I loved this film, and didn't think I'd love it that much to be honest. As a Canadian, the Canadian references made me chuckle. And I loved how real yet atypical it was. I loved the character designs. The art style is cute, but they got cultural accuracies SO well and HOW did they do that!?
turning red absolutely perfectly represented the emotional rollercoaster that you go through in puberty. where you run through every single emotion in just a few minutes and all the emotions are turned up to 11. both showing how it feels to the teen girl and also the way it looks on the outside to your mom.
The friggin' line that got me in this movie was towards the end, as each older family member reseals her panda. Ming turns around and tells Mei: (paraphrasing) "You do so much to please everyone, but you're so hard on on yourself. If I taught you that, I'm so sorry." I would give anything to hear my mom say that to me. It took therapy for me to realize where the pressure I constantly put on myself came from. To know that even though making my family proud makes me feel good, that being in constant fear of disappointing them is not healthy. I don't think I'd be able to bring that up to her without her feeling very hurt and attacked about it. Movies like "Turning Red" and "Encanto" are absolutely wonderful. They make me feel seen and understood in ways that films from when I was a kid didn't. I still love all those older movies too, but these newer ones make me so happy for kids like my nephew and little cousins.
I also enjoyed turning red, especially since I was 12 years old in 2002 and grew up in Toronto. I found the movie very relatable to my experiences as a preteen girl. Plus there are a lot of Toronto easter eggs sprinkled through. The only thing i did not find believable was that 13 year olds would be really into a boy band in 2002. That specific time period was after BSB/ NSYNC but before the Jonas brothers and One Direction and was more defined by solo artists and bands like linkin park or white stripes. But I think it's possible and my experience may have been different from others at that time Also the point about Luca being the downfall of Pixar animation makes no sense to me. While watching Luca, I kept thinking to myself that it was such a beautifully animated movie, especially the landscape of the Italian Riviera. It was also different from other Pixar movies and felt almost like Pixar mixed with Studio Ghibli
I’m honestly glad that I realized early that being childish Isn’t all that bad and trying to act mature, like watching more gory or violent shows or being proper and holding emotions in isn’t always “cool”
How can anyone NOT like this movie?? Even though I didn't 100% relate to her, since I'm not asian but Gen-Z and (at least what I heared of) this movie is rather directed at millenials. But like- I don't need to 100% relate to everything. The movie had some good story telling and representation and it was just all in all a good time
i'm gen z and i related pretty easily tbh i don't think it's targeted at millennials, but rather targeted at any anybody who's dealt with the whole generational trauma and definitely afab puberty
Inside Out was also a small-scale story about a tween girl but no one complained about that. Girl or boy, I think everyone should watch Turning Red because captures all embarrassment and awkwardness that comes from puberty. There is nothing more universal than puberty.
I love the background art! Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the movie. I think you really dived deep into why the criticism for Turning Red was part of some larger issues.
I really like that background! It looks so good! I was putting off watching Turning Red but I saw Cheyenne post a video about it so I watched it specifically to come back and watch Cheyenne's video lol I quite liked it. I really liked the character designs. I also really liked the mother-daughter dynamic. Mei throws her friends under the bus to avoid conflict with her mom and in the moment I was thinking that felt out of character, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I would throw my friends under the bus to not disappoint my mom too. So as someone that "this story isn't for" I really found a lot to relate to and enjoy.
Character design wise, "critics" are absolutely wrong about people not looking right. The mom's character design was AMAZING. There was a moment where I felt like I was looking at a drawing of a real actress. Ming was gorgeous and they were all just so expressive. Mei totally looks like a girl I could see on the street, even if a bit caricature-ized. Also, I realllly loved what you said about Ming being 2nd gen being the reason she was able to recognize her fault and apologize. That was a huge issue I had with encanto, that the grandma didn't really have a moment where it felt like she understood the trauma she inflicted on her family with the expectations she had of them. Ming had a genuine moment where she realized she passed down the things she hated about her own childhood and you see her remorse so visibly in the bamboo grove. It resonated with me as a 2nd gen Mexican-American, thinking growing up how when/if I ever had kids, I would NEVER treat them the way my parents treated me, and I've worked hard for the past decade to unlearn some of the really harmful characteristics I was taught for 20 years.
Oh, God, Cheyenne! Thank you sooooo huge for this review! I've watched this movie because of you and it was a sobbing-laughing-tenderness experience.I paused and cried and paused and laughed and rewinded ever so much. Turning Red is 10/10!
Just finished! I completely agree with you. My friends and I watched this together, and I'm the child of a 1st generation immigrant, my one friend is an afab person, and my second is a cis guy. But we all liked and could relate to some parts of the movie, and even parts my cis guy friend couldn't *directly* relate with, was engaged with the story and cared about the characters. And we talked about it afterwards, and it was like... isn't that kind of the actual general goal of movies? To just be engaged and care about the characters? I don't need to relate to batman to enjoy his story and laugh sometimes when he's a bit too much of an angsty drama kid, and I enjoy it that way. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I'm so glad this movie came out I think it's my current favorite 3d animated film!!
As someone dealing with intergenerational trauma, this was also impactful for me. I just wish my mum didn't deny/gaslight/rationalize her actions, past and current, when I tell her that they hurt me. I do and will continue to work hard on not continuing that trauma cycle, though I doubt I'll have kids 😅 actually I have 4 siblings, all adults, and none of us are interested in having children probably partly because of the trauma. But yeah, big agree.
Great review! Totally agree, I loved how the character designs of Mei and her friends were so diverse and endearing, as well as their bouncy expressions. And I loved the focus on girls' friendships, as well as showing how funny and goofy teenage girls can be, because honestly, they are! I'm also glad you mentioned Encanto's design too, I didn't realize how much risks the decision-makers and animators were taking before I heard a female acquaintance complain how "fat and ugly" Mirabel and most of the Madrigals are. (Cringe but true) And though I was never into boy bands as a teenager, I could understand how badly Mei wanted to go and how it's an extremely high-stakes decision for tweens. (As you said, screw those people who jeered at Turning Red for being "low-stakes!" Also, didn't the stakes skyrocket when Ming turned into a kaiju-sized red panda and started smashing Skydome?) At Mei's age, gathering that much money by yourself in such a short amount of time is extremely difficult, as well as sneaking out of the house late at night without your parents knowing. I love how the movie treated tween girls' anxieties and desires with such earnestness (while acknowledging their goofiness, it's a thin line but they accomplish it lol), when they're usually so easily dismissed. And Ming disliking Mei's friends because they weren't straight-A model students and she considered them a bad influence was so painfully like my mother. Blaming them and the clerk at the convenience store for any "undesirable" characteristics in her child instead of admitting that her child was capable of independent thought was such a spot-on description of controlling parents! And while there are so many memes about how Ming apologizing was the most unrealistic thing in the movie, you were right to point out that it was possible because she was a 2nd generation immigrant and underwent similar experiences as Mei. The movie did hint at it with Ming and her mother's relationship being similar yet more strained and oppressive then Ming and Mei's. (which also explains why Ming's panda was huge and violent) Also loved how the grandmother and aunts dressed, lol.
I watched the movie as an 8th grader and I feel like it captures the energy of middle school and friendships very well! I did find it kinda funny how the scene when mei was in algebra class they referenced the quadratic formula which was exactly what I was learning about in class.
Given your previous videos about boy bands and how society sees teenage girls, as well as about Asian diaspora culture, I was wondering what your thoughts were on this movie. Thank you for sharing!
I love the way they looked. It really gives an exaggerated bit realistic view of the awkward look of girls transitioning from children to puberty. The awkward phase. Like how your body starts looking different in young girl clothing as you're growing. Just the awkward phase between the girls aisle at a clothing store and the young adult one. I guess women will understand. It definitely looked like the 2000s to. This was like a PG PEN15. People act like this movie said that you have to fix your mother too. But seemed liked just growing together. Not that the child has to fix them. It's literally symbolized that EVERYONE is there to help by singing in the circle. There relationship I wouldn't sat was abusive or anything 🙄 She was over protective but she wasn't using her child like a therapist or anything. I'd say it was normal. Or what I think is normal. This isn't a trauma movie for Mei. I'd say her mother yes.
I’ve seen so much hypocrisy with this movie. ‘The animation is too generic’ Huh that’s funny- everyone seemed to love and praise diary of wimpy kids animation, you know the movie about a male middle schooler navigating life. Yeah starting to think a lot of the unfair criticism is just people making things up because they can’t straight up say why they don’t like the movie 🥴
Nah I saw comments saying how the movie looked so faithful to the original book. When the movie dropped the talk stopped because everything was copy and paste.
Also 80% of the teenage girl chara design on Disney and Pixar movies follow the same damn model to the point Mirabel was THE FIRST main female character with glasses after decades of those studios existing and pumping new animated long features yearly.
Turning Red is such an adorable and fun film from Pixar also, Both Soul & Luca are great too. Nice video on character designs as well as tween female empowerment.
cheyenne i love how you talked about being overstimulated because that’s the exact same reason why i don’t go to theaters! i never have heard anyone talk about that and it always made me feel left out and uncomfortable when i’d be dragged along with a group of friends to experience the worst type of activity in my opinion. i still haven’t seen turning red but it seems so cute and fun and i’m excited to watch it :)
I related to Mei and her mother and grandmother so much. I had the same arguments with my mother, my mother and grandmother had the same arguments about how to raise me. It truly is a universal 13 year old girl experience everywhere lol
i love all of your takes and learning about the things you talk about :) it’s so insightful to me as a girl and it’s really valuable having people like you making the content you do for girls our age
I enjoyed it, too. And I completely understand what you said at the beginning, because growing up I always saw movies at the second run theatre, three months after it came out. 😏🙂
Like, I'm not chinese, I am an AMAB person, and I still found It relatable. Hell, the relationship with the Parents and the embracing of Mei's true self Is something that ressonated with me, even if It's done for a "very specific Target audience". People saying It's not relatable are being just obtuse. Even if It wasn't, I give this movie props for being a project that came from a very personal space for the director, a big budget mainstream animated feature with a personal vision, from a Disney out of all Places. Art can be anything from universal to personal.
this movie was so relatable. i mean, that was exactly how being a 13 year old girl felt. no matter if you were chinese canadian or not. i loved this movie so much and im glad it exists
to clarify: im not chinese, im white. and im really glad that her culture was an important part of the movie! it did not take away from the relatability in the slightest, and even if it did, who cares? people who don't usually see their identities represented get to watch a story they can relate to.
The way that people don't like the turning red character design reminds me of when the Netflix she-ra was unveiled and men cried because she didn't look as fuckable as the 80's version.
This movie struck a very specific chord with me, and it really brought me back to those middle school years. I may not connect directly to Mei’s specific familial and cultural setting, but I think that the movie’s general themes are accessible to a wider audience. The specific interests and expression of those interests may differ from Mei and her friends, but I am sure that the intensity of your feelings is more or less a universal one. Like, I never had a “boy obsessed” phase and wasn’t really into boy bands. However, that is partially because I didn’t want to be seen as silly. “Girly” interests are often downplayed by people who aren’t interested in them, and I have members of my family who would intentionally or unintentionally make fun of such things. On the other hand, I definitely can remember my more cringey ways of showing my interests, and being loud with my friends in a different way than I was with my family. So for people out there, like me, who can’t relate specifically with Mei’s interests, just think back to something you were interested in that other people would maybe make fun of, or you would have been embarrassed to admit. It’s really the same thing. You know, we just got to remember to not immediately shut down the experiences of others that we may not intuitively understand.
i am so sorry your experience in movie theaters has sucked so much omg, its never been like that where i am... the 'having to reserve a seat' thing is also weird af also yeah i. i agree so hard with everything this video said!! just all of it!! not every movie needs to be relatable, not every movie needs to be high stakes! movies set out to tell a story, not every single one needs to be relatable or high stakes. but like, this movie *is* relatable. not in every single way to every single person, but in so many different ways to different people. the fangirl culture in it really struck me personally cause, while i wasnt a boyband kid, i was such a fan for online stuff, i still am! just not as harshly as i used to be. that and i wasnt even alive in 2002, more like 2012, so thats also different. it felt like looking at an alternate universe of me and my own friends though ngl. the energy, the art! that was me and my friends!! anyone who dislikes this movie are mostly just being sexist, in my experience. that and they seemed to have never grown out of the whole 'periods are gross and taboo' mindset, as if half the human population doesnt experience periods.
I really liked the background art! I'd assumed it was something from TR promo materials that I wasnt familiar with. Great video essay, keep up the great work!
I hate how people act like this movie isn't relatable because I am a 15 yr old dude and I loved this movie so much because I related to being smart and living up to expectations and also having to hide yourself
Seriously, any argument about the movie not being relatable is absolutely ridiculous.
Girl or Boy, we've all been kids/teens struggling with the balance of growing up and what it means to become an adult. We've all wanted to do things and go places, whether it was a concert, a movie, a sporting event, a camping trip, a convention, etc, only for our parents to say no. We've all had to deal with the burgeoning sexuality that comes with puberty, whether it was our own attraction to others, someone else being attracted to us, or just the general societal expectations thereof.
It really speaks to just how much prejudice still exists that a story is somehow considered of less value if it's about girl.
Speaking facts 🙌
Thank you
Can totally relate to the drawings part. If my parents ever found any of my sketchbooks, I would probably die right then and there.
@@charlieandhisantics9954: _No, dad, I didn't lock my door because I'm hiding drugs. I just didn't want you finding the dirty "laundry" I left lying around._
Paraphrased from an actual argument I had as a teenager. Fortunately he never had a problem with me having a password on my computer, that's where I kept all the even more embarrassing stuff.
Yes! I'm a teenager and a boy and I honestly kinda related to mei in a way. I just really loved the movie in so many ways.
I asbolutely love the breath of fresh air the art style in Turning Red is. The young girls are able to look like young girls and not be sexualized. They have dynamic features and silhouettes.
I don’t get the backlash either. I think the artistic choice they made for this movie was the right one, the art style is reminiscent of early 00’s anime and aesthetics that attract preteens girls: round and cute proportions, big sparkly eyes, goofy anime facial expressions. And Mei and her Friends is what many girls in my middle school and friend group typically looked like. I think this era’s current obsession with ‘ school age kids having glow ups” on social media may have contributed to the general public having a distorted image of the average preteen girl.
I can tell them apart from just their silhouettes. Like with the overwatch characters it's probably intentional and I like it, they stand out more.
I think the movie looked horiible because that "rounded" artstyle is just ugly in general.
I agree with you that the sillouettes of the friends made them much more unique. I personally did not like the art style 100% (reminds me of other studios with more soft, bendy features. Best example I can think of is Captain Underpants), but it is different from other Disney projects where I was like... all their eyes and faces look the same, they're all starting to homogenize or at least the ones with human/humanoid characters.
I liked the movie a lot, and its so nice to see a story aimed towards girls that isnt super stereotypical from the perspective of guys. It felt so real and didn't condescend girl's interests
I LOVED the movie. I found Mei just so charming. Yes it is cringy at times but that is being a 13 year old and that's okay. I saw a lot of my younger self in Mei and the arguments she had with her mother reminded me so much of fights I used to have with my mother. This movie encapsulates being a 13 year old so well!
especially the conflict between mei and her friends! it was so obviously written by a woman didn't follow the cliches
I mean, we’re all stereotypical in one way or another.
Yes!! Finally a movie that doesn't straight up hate and scorn the things little girls enjoy
It was one of the first times the main staff and creators were all women! They are all awesome people, embrace the panda on Disney plus is a great watch
4:48 "They're 13, why do they need to be pleasing to look at?"
I imagine it would be a single-circle-diagram of these people and the people who justify why underage characters in anime need to be sexualized.
creeps focus on the small body size lol you're confusing pleasing with sexual. kids aren't sexual but they can be cute. you're afraid to call kids cute and adorable now?? lol these kids look like trolls. next time someone says your baby is adorable better call the police!!
@@GotoMaki4Micah I love how you started with a point I kind of agreed with then destroyed your own credibility by claiming I'm somehow afraid of finding kids cute because...I jokingly compared people like you to creepy anime nerds.
Never change internet. Never change.
Exactly!
@@garaj1 and when they said they look like Trolls because they aren't all skinny, small nosed, big eyed, feminine girls.
Weird how they cant "relate" emotionally with tween girls or just the subject matter itself but need them to be attractive to them for them to care.
Personally, I love how they made Mei's design in a way where you can see both of her parents shine through she takes a lot more from her father but you can see little accents of her mother as well, its clear they thought out her design and didnt just slap together a "tumblr art style to get a certain audience" Pixar may be changing but change isn't always bad and In the end I think people are hiding their unwillingness to cope with change under the lens of "this art style is ugly"
Hiding their unwillingness to change AND racism AND misogyny. I agree with your point, but I think a lot of people are going against the style to avoid talking about what's really angering them deep down.
I see what you mean!! I agree that misogyny is a big part of some of it (I mean theres people outright mad that pixar didnt make a group of 13 yros attractive ew) I should just say hiding their underlying negative views in general (hell I mean there were people mad about the TYPES of races represented in turning red as if them including a cast of poc in general wasnt a good thing in itself which is so odd as well)
@@theeccentric7263 I always thought the "cal arts" artstyle was someting they hated because its associated with liberal/progressive producers. A lot of the 3D movies in 2010s looked pretty much the same as Spaghetti with a Chance of Meatballs and nobody complained about that.
@@candydrool4207 The fact people wrote rants about too many hijabi extras in the background as an agenda is where it gets pretty dumb. This was the most character diverse movie Ive seen in a long time. They even include more than one ethic group of Asian, and biracial characters and didn't make a big deal about it. The team went above and beyond with the characters. Where as the people complaining are likely comfortable with it being all white with 1 brown or black person, to call that comfortable for them. Then far right conservatives and racists freak out when that population ratio isn't reality.
@@GeteMachine I agree^^ Its a really cute fun art style that makes the kids look unique and genuinely like kids. I love pixars older films but they definitely had a habit of same face syndrome when it came to designing kids or teens (granted in most pixar films children were very rarely the main characters up until recently).
this movie made me ugly cry. this captured the middle school experience so well and i felt so happy with the way everything was played out. that fanfiction scene took me out lmaooo cause the only time i remember any mention of a middle schooler being into fanfiction was bob's burgers haha.
seriously i mean why on earth do people not think its relatable?? im not asian or have experienced immigration but i cried so much?? its a movie that has
-generational truma
- ending an abusive cycle
- realistic pre teen life
and thats only really the main charchter/ family. there were other charachters who viewers can easily relate to
Bruh didn't you complain about this movie being antiblack tho like make up your mind🤧🤧🤧😭
@@selfproclaimedesper778 You're allowed to like something while also acknowledging it's faults. Is your brain working?? 😟
@@selfproclaimedesper778 You can dislike certain aspects of a movie and still like the movie as a whole. I mean, that was her whole point.
@@selfproclaimedesper778 You can still criticize something and still like it
The idea of this not being universal feels wild to me. The only way I could imagine someone not relating to this film is if they had a perfect relationship with their parents growing up...and like, how many people is that really?
Even someone with a hypothetically "perfect" family probably at least still had friends who went through some kind of family struggle growing up.
Absolutely. Especially considering just how realistically the girls act like 13 year olds. I remember having fights with my mom with a similar energy when I was 13. That's just part of growing up. Breakign away from your families expectations and also being moody, going over board in a fight. It's such normal preteen/ teenage behaviour and it's just mind boggling that some people act like this isn't part of the experience of growing up.
I don't know if any relationship is perfect but I do know teens can be really close with their parents. I guess a "perfect" relationship would have to be an extremely dependent and clingy child which could turn out harmful to the child's development.
@@frozenyogurth Everybody's going to have disagreements and some parents can just be too strict on their kids. Kids can rebel as young as 2 and it gets more pronounced as they grow up and start becoming more independent as well as forming more mature and complex opinions in the preteen/teen years. But despite it all, you should still bond and love on your parents at any age. Don't completely shut them out and be ungrateful to them. If you're going through problems, go to your parents. They have more experience than you and they may likely help you more than your friends will.
I liked how Mei wasn't ungrateful for the sake of being ungrateful and her goal wasn't to fuck or to use drugs, she was just being a normal kid who wanted to go to concerts. Many teen movies/shows tend to exaggerate teens as druggies and ungrateful and always mean to their parents and that's not always true, it's just a stereotype. Mei is a good kid and I'm sure she would've behaved better if her mom hadn't been so strict.
for me i actually like not being universal because it shows me other people's experiences
As a genderqueer woman, I never really related to any of the female Disney characters growing up because they were always SO feminine (and often sexualized). My vibe isn't particularly masculine or feminine, but I guess the closest I related to was Lilo. To me, it's always refreshing to see girls and women on TV who aren't primarily feminine, but instead look goofy, or even *gasp* _normal_.
There's a mix of tomboy but not anti-feminine and conventionally feminine girls but not HYPERfeminine, which was refreshing
The thing that really gets me as well is that people complain about how Disney doesn't make anything "original" anymore, and how everything they make is just a reboot, remake, or revival. Yet when they do, the same people complain about how it's too different from Disney of old (thought you wanted something new?), isn't relatable enough to them (because every single movie has to relate to the same demographic apparently) or, (and this is the most used complaint these days) it's too "woke" or that looks like "woke trash". It's to the point where I think it's just a trend to hate on anything Disney nowadays. Like even Marvel has been getting similar treatment, with people saying how they hate all the jokes the in MCU movies, or how the MCU is "ruining cinema". And don't even get me started on Star Wars.
All in all, Turning Red is a fun movie and really doesn't deserve the hate. As for the character designs, they're perfect and I really hope Disney and Pixar (especially Disney) will continue to experiment with unique designs to help differentiate their movies. One thing that people stated when Disney shut down Blue Sky Studios was that, now every animated movie were going to look the same. Either the Disney look, or the Illumination look (something people were worried about when NBCUniversal bought DreamWorks). Yet here we have fresh new designs for characters and their complaining that literal children aren't pleasing enough to the eye? Wow. In the words of Meilin Lee, "sorry I'm not perfect!" I really hope Pixar continues to experiment with movies like this, Luca, Soul, and Onward. Their willingness to experiment was one of the reasons some people preferred their films to any animated movie from WDAS or any other Disney-controlled animation studio.
I remembered admiring Nani for looking like a normal, non-euro centric hyper-supermodel. She was a normal human being and she was beautiful. Beautiful as is, and especially for stepping up at 19 YEARS OLD and raising her sister after they lost their parents!!
My favorite obvious example of female vs male character design in a recent Disney movie is Big Hero 6 - the boys in the group are all different sizes and shapes, with some unique features, while the girls in the group are both thin and have the plain, conventionally attractive Disney girl face. The only difference is one has glasses and one is slightly curvy. I love that movie dearly but this has always bothered me! I loved hearing someone else discuss this.
No offense but BH6 came out 7 years ago (also yeah. I was shocked too)
@@themyofmy it is in fact offensive to my brain to point out that BH6 came out 7 years ago 💀
i'm indian but i related to turning red so much. ming and mei's relationship reminded of my relationship with my mom (but like... with less closure). i remember being around 14 and having my friends be blamed for all of my bad decisions and i so desperately wanted to explain to my mom that i was never the ideal daughter she wanted me to be in the first place. also i really liked one direction and literally everything the girls felt towards 4town i felt towards one direction. i even had that exact same fight with my parents where i was desperately begging to go to a concert and they were like you're insane it's too expensive and their music sucks
this is exactly how I felt watching it
First, I love the art in the background. It is so cute! Second, I really like how you pointed out that people have related to literal rat that cooks but say that they can’t relate to a tween girl. It just doesn’t make sense. Women’s stories should be heard.
And it’s sad that they’re not considered universal or standard when most of the human population is female. 😂 We shouldn’t be marginalized or other-ized.
soo relatable!1! I too was a rat that used to live in the sewers, I was so quirky and not like other rats. I was sick of eating trash and moldy cheese and liked GOURMET FOOD. I then got lost from my family in a river and then ended up in a gourmet restaurant and started mind-controlling a person by yanking his hair out to make them achieve my dream for me since im a rat and rats are said to not belong in a kitchen. #RATSBELONGINTHEKITCHEN #RATSDESERVEBETTER Anyways I as a dirty rat became the professional gourmet head chef now better then all the other cooks...
@@nuggets8229 Your story is so inspiring and relatable. I was a car that really wanted to race in the desert. But now I'm the fastest race car and have a girlfriend. Dreams do come true #cachow
What you were talking about with character design in animated films reminded me how I was so happy that we got a character like Luisa in Encanto. We hardly ever see female characters that have body types that are outside of the thin norm, but there are so many people out there who look like her that don’t really get represented. In fact, Luisa reminds me a LOT of my own older sister. I was also really happy to see the character designs of Turning Red as well. They felt really realistic to how me and my friends looked in middle school. I’ve generally been thin all my life but in middle school I still had baby fat and my body hadn’t fully developed and I loved that the film actually showed what AFAB people look like while they’re going through puberty. I think a lot of people’s ideas of what preteen and teen girls actually look like has gotten kinda skewed by media where the characters are played by actors who are definitely no longer in their preteen or teen years. It’s kinda sad to see. I really hope Turning Red brings back a resurgence of media that displays the true awkward charm of people’s preteen years. We were all cringe back then, but there’s nothing wrong with that, we were still growing. There’s a growing weird expectation that people (especially AFAB people) have to be super grown up by the time they’re like 14 which I think is so unrealistic and so unhealthy (it’s especially happening a lot on TikTok). Just let kids be kids.
Idk, it’s just something I’m thinking about I guess. I hope that all made sense.
Most of my friends were thin. However, they were sometimes lanky in an awkward way, most were very much flat chested with no curves. We were not hourglass, we were this rectangle shape, with pimples, arms that were slightlty too long, short with big feet, or still losing our last tooth. We then grew pimples or some got braces and glasses. When someone grew a lot (no matter if it was height or hips), they would be clumsy and bump into things hard. Scraped knees, messed up hair. Shitty make up. No sense of style, or we would go overboard.
Yeah I really wish teens would just be teens. They're still kids they should not be doing drugs and shit. I feel like that peer pressure is extending beyond 13 it's like 11 or 12 now.
agreed, just let kids be kids
@fix_it Felix assigned female at birth, so that includes cis (not trans) girls, trans boys, some non-binary people, and some intersex people whose intersex condition wasn’t diagnosed at birth :)
i agree, i hate that tweens and teens aren't allowed to have awkward, goofy phases anymore, or else they're mocked relentlessly and called cringe, as if being cringe is an excuse to bully children.
also i definitely agree abt luisa, i was so worried that her charcter arc was going to be something like "i wish i was more feminine like isabela, i hate my gift :(" and it not being that was such a breath of fresh air, so many pieces of media act like women can't be both muscular and feminine, so luisa being both, and being proud of her gift was refreshing
I'm a 13-year-old teenage girl, and while I can relate on that part, I'm also American and the whitest person you'll ever meet lol. Even so, I could easily relate to Mei despite having very loving and non-controlling parents. It could be the fact I'm a "gifted" kid so I'm immediately placed on a pedestal and people automatically expect more from me. You don't have to be a teenage girl, and ESPECIALLY not an Asian American one to relate to this story! Every person was a kid once, and most kids know what it's like to feel the growing pressure of parental expectations. That's what this movie is about.
This is an awesome comment!
A quick note from a 32-year old formerly gifted kid: You’re awesome. Aside from what you DO, you are awesome. One day you’ll find yourself feeling “behind.” That doesn’t mean you’re losing your touch or that you’re suddenly a terrible person, or just means that you and the difficulty of life are becoming more equal. That’s ok! That’s normal. You might feel like you fell off your pedestal… but you shouldn’t be on a pedestal in the first place! Find a comfy beanbag instead. Be content with having flaws and being imperfect and making mistakes. Nobody who loves you will ever give up on you just because you step off of a pedestal and onto a beanbag.
I wish I had known that when I was younger so I would have been prepared as an adult for things to slow down. I felt like such a failure. But I’m not :) I went through years of felling terrible about myself and only recently am learning to love myself again.
Burnout is real. The people who really love you don’t care if you’re perfect or not. You are not what you do. Lean into your interests, no matter how silly they are. And love yourself always :)
@@StudioHannah i'm not who you originally replied to, but i am/was also a gifted kid, and i've been dealing with mental health issues and burnout for a while now, and just felt like a huge failure. your words really helped, thank you
Such eloquence.
@@levi_ackerman_119 Thank you? 😂
The fact that some of the people who crap on Turning Red for being a girl's coming-of-age movie are the same people who would praise Spirited Away as a masterpiece feels super weird. They're both coming-of-age movies with female protagonists. Chihiro is kinda grating before the spirit stuff kicks in, but somehow that's different to Mei being unashamedly a thirteen year old girl at the start of Turning Red before gaining character growth via panda powers. Turning Red and Spirited Away aren't the same movie, but they're similar enough for this to be baffling to me. Heck, let's throw the Jim Henson movie Labyrinth in there, too! Sarah starts as very much a kinda cringe-inducing teen (I acted like Sarah around her age so I can say it) and then starts growing up via the goblin-induced coming-of-age adventure nonsense she hurls herself into by accidentally saying the Right Words™. I can even see people making a case that the movie is "too h*rny" because of Jareth's ballet belt and the ballroom fever dream distraction scene! Yet I'd be willing to bet that if some of these "Turning Red is bad because girl's movie puberty coming of age boy feelings eww" saw me dressed up as the Goblin King they'd say a Labyrinth quote at me.
Where is the logic? Trick question: there's none, and in the best case scenario they're just angry because they want to be angry at something. It's silly. It's like being super angry at those paintings that are just straight lines with one solid color underneath, but even _worse._ Because now they aren't even trying to hide the gross underbelly of their anger.
Right?! Glad someone else sees the hypocrisy with this film...actually heard people say the subject matter is "too mature" for sensitive preteens. Preteens?? Who are also going through puberty?!!? GTFOH😂
The only actual difference with weight between Seeing Red and Spirited Away/Labyrinth is the fact that Seeing Red depicts an extremely modern + childish character with extremely modern/childish friends.
Like, Mei looks like a Claire's store threw up on her in the best way, and aside from reminding me of my absolutely classic-cringe neon pink + lime green glittery cartoon monkey backpack (bought from Claire's when I was 12), it also perfectly captures her specific character - just like her other friends each have their own style to match theirs. Mei is an energetic + highly monitored/sheltered overachieving preteen in 2002 Toronto, and she acts and dresses the same way thousands of other girls just like her did at that time.
Mei's journey is not about trying to grow up, physically or emotionally, or within her family dynamic. She is seeking space from her mother, and trust in her abilities as she is 'officially a teenager', but she still has that giddy, juvenile mentality of being 13 specifically. As the first year of being a 'teenager', the age 13 is an extremely awkward age, because you are very much still behaving + dressing like a child, but are also pushing your parental boundaries because "I'm not a kid anymore, I'm a TEENAGER".
Chihiro and Sarah are both very different pre/teen girl characters, as Chihiro is 10, and Sarah is 16.
Sarah has the settled energy of a teenage girl who's already handled most of puberty + is about to venture into the adult world, so her journey is about the steps between teenager to adult, as depicted by both Jareth the goblin king's (sexually-coded) advances, and her responsibility towards her younger brother's safety.
Chihiro has the energy of an assertive single child (much like Coraline) whose journey is between her childhood + her future, as depicted by her family's move + her experiences within the bathhouse/with No Face's advances.
Part of me wonders how much of the backlash against how "annoying" people are finding Seeing Red/Mei is about the actual movie/character itself, and how much of it is about a complex web of interconnected pieces such as;
1. Mei being unapologetically childish + hyper-energetic vs Spirited Away/Labyrinth/Coraline
2. Seeing Red not having a 'villain' to defeat or life/death stakes vs Spirited Away/Coraline
3. The coming of age narrative being centered around self-identity/respect for different life choices vs Spirited Away/Labyrinth/Coraline
4. The puberty 'metaphor' being openly acknowledged as puberty instead of being quietly suggested at/avoided entirely within the narrative.
5. Puberty being depicted in a coming of age narrative that APPEARS to be directed towards children (which is hilarious to me for multiple factors - like I know people who got their period at age 8, and it's much worse to be surprised by random blood than being given a heads up before you're considered 'old enough' to HAVE to know about it. Also - one of the major points of a coming of age narrative is to give a heads up to the kids about to go through that stage, or to provide guidance/perspectives for the kids going through that stage. Depicting periods as a normal thing for kids between the ages of 8-13 to me is not even a question, it should be standard/considered normal.)
6. Periods being depicted in a matter-of-fact way instead of through allegory, vague commentary, or subtextually. Why can we have books for babies/toddlers about pooping (Everybody Poops + I Need My Potty come to mind) but we can't have a movie for preteens that acknowledges that periods exist with the actual WORDS like period, pads, cramps, etc?
7. Racism + gender expectations/stereotypes. I'm not gonna expand on the racism bit bc I'm white, and while I do have some things in mind, that's not my lane, but I'm noting it bc it IS a factor, and ignoring it entirely is not an option. The gender stereotyping is my lane, and I could expand on it, but it's mostly boilerplate basic misogyny + the refusal to engage with a female main character/female-based narrative due to her/her journey not being 'relatable' (while millions of girls relate to/enjoy/engage with male main characters in franchises like Harry Potter, Star Wars, or the MCU, plus the thousands of other male-focused books/movies/tv shows/etc like Sherlock BBC, Hannibal, Breaking Bad, Transformers, M.A.S.H, Star Trek, etc) because they're so used to be spoon-fed narratives that don't challenge them to expand their worldview beyond their own gender-restricted perspective that the idea of a movie about a goofy teen girl doing silly low-stake teen girl shit for 140mins having value + being relatable is jarring conceptually, bc No Fighting No Explosions No Sex No Men = no point 🤷♀️
It's literally just like, maybe they need to just get over themselves + watch a different movie if they don't like this one. Nothing in Seeing Red is or should be considered controversial in the year 2022. They need to grow up tbh.
Turning Red is an alright film. There are parts I didn't relate however I feel that the red panda metaphor doesn't work. It needed better execution.
@@sakunaruful I think it worked perfectly. Especially when you consider that children st the age of 10 learn very literally. Something needs to literally happen for them to completely understand it. It's a stage in child development where kids will not yet think about the world in abstract ideas. So having a 13 year old *Literally* change into something else and that being a part of growing up that is also okay to happen is a really good way to convey that idea to preteen kids in an understandable way.
@@frozenyogurth I understand your point. I just think there are other coming of age films out there with better execution.
It really is a breath of fresh air watching the characters be embarrassing and out there. It blows my mind how many people try to say “this isn’t realistic because that’s not how little girls act” when in my exp they act WAY weirder. I’m glad you pointed that out and what you said is so SO true, kids are being rushed to grow up and no longer have space to be embarrassing 😔 very cute art btw :)
When you talked about how stories about women's issues are seen as "low stakes," I truly felt like you were saying the words I've been searching for for so many years. I'm not a woman, but many of my interests (especially growing up) were/are regarded as feminine, and I was always aware that people viewed many of the things I liked as frivolous or superficial. It makes me sad to think about all the beautiful universal truths I've found throughout my life in stories about women/girls such as Turning Red, that are overlooked by many because of the pretense that women's stories are of lesser value than those of men.
Also, it’s funny this is considered low stakes. They conflict is normal becoming-a-teenager and going to a concert, but because both are emotional Mei may be a rampaging panda forever or unhealthily hold her emotions in. And Ming does end up as that rampaging panda who had to hold her emotions in, and that panda is not harmless and permanent transformation is high enough stakes. But because it’s about a girl becoming a teenager and subsequently gaining her freedom by going to a concert, it’s suddenly “low stakes”.
I mean, the conflict is low-stakes in that it is eventually about going to a concert but it is still meaningful and ramped up because of the panda inhibition thingy. Those accusations aren’t thrown at any other movie portrayed like this, like The Thirteenth Year.
The funny thing is that Mei and her friends just act like totally normal tween/teens. I think the "let's cringe over literal innocent children" trend is SO wrong, children/tweens/teens should be alowed to just being themselves and learn from their mistakes. Their designs just feels very close to home, it just gives... a very different vibe from other pixar movies (I felt something similar with Onward and Soul), the nostalgia over teens trying to look 'aesthetic' and wearing things teens of that time totally would want to wear felt... realistic and cute. The animation was so good as always and the design was as cute and lively as Luca's one.
* Flashbacks of 2016 when cringe compilations were everywhere *
I wouldn't be surprised if same people who are hating on Turning Red also make fun of Dream stans and Jelly Bean
:) thanks for talking about turning red. This video means a lot, ESPECIALLY the female character designs, because it's been so long since I've seen something mainstream that was really about young girls and adolescence. Despite some clumsy plot points here and there, Turning Red was a breath of fresh air.
Wish I had it a couple years ago tbh, as someone who was an anxious kid who dealt with some pretty high parental expectations.
Also, sorry about your movie theater experience! Where I am, the movie theater is pretty spacious and vacant, so I've never had to deal with much of the social anxiety there, despite the sensory issues and overstimulation :,)
I also care a lot about shape language and character design, because of how rarely I see variation in character design. It always breaaaaks my heart at the end of a Disney movie when they show the concept art that went into making the film. It gets so watered down, especially with 3d animated Disney movies, and _especially_ for female characters.
Thanks again for talking about this.
The relatabilty thing is so stupid. As women of colour we are expected relate to the stories of white men time and time again and we do. Yet relating to a young Chinese-Canadian girl coming of age is too much? Rats and inanimate objects like the brave little toaster is easy but humans of a different race and gender is hard?
Oookkkaaay 🙄
I like the characters designs it's cute and different something we dont often seen given to female characters
I've already seen several girls and women who are white who related so much to this movie, so it's hilarious that men can't possibly. They're lazy and self centered and don't want to relate to different people.
It’a just easier to relate to a rat than a Chinese girl smhsmh 🙄🙄
Right??? It is and it sounds absurd lmaoo.
The relatability thing is rarer than other arguments against the movie. Pay it no mind; it’s probably coming from people ashamed of being “cringey” teens.
We’re not being forced to relate to stories of white men, just to find their stories engaging.
The thing I found the most ridiculous was that the character and theme of the movie wasn't just even about her just being Chinese. She was Chinese at home with her famiy but under her bed and with her friends she was hanging out and doing everything they were doing at school. Then the conflict was from her mother who was worried about how it was influencing her daughter. How is that not relatable? Thats literally everyone. She likes something her mother doesn't understand and thus thinks its bad. Its her who wants to see a boyband, doing the trendy handshakes, going to protests, etc. The only difference is that she's asian. Where as an immigrant you're either just what their lens of stereotypes think you just exist in or are, or they other them entirely when it isnt. There's a lot to say about that and the perpetual foreigner bias immgrants get.
Such a good point that I've never actually heard put into words before: not every story has to be relatable to every person! I don't understand why people think they can only enjoy things that are obviously relatable to themselves anyways. You learn and grow more as a person by pushing those boundaries of allowing yourself to be exposed to things that differ from oneself.
You also do a great job of summing up the idea that when we dig deeper at the 'differences', you'll find we're really all very similar and going through similar things in our lives. Even if some kids played tamogachi and some kids played with their pet rock or stuffed animal. All of them are practicing empathy and social awareness.
I really loved Mei and her friends relationships cause I don’t feel like a lot of movies/shows highlight that kind of love. Me and my friends always told eachother we loved eachother, and that’s important.
yeah
;(
I get so annoyed when i hear people talking about how its "not appropriate". Movies like this are important for teen girls to have, and to relate to! Being open with your child is important, and hiding these things never ends up benefiting them. It just reminds me of how a lot of kids I know opted out of health because it made their parents uncomfortable. All any of that ends up doing is making kids unsafe.
For me honestly I like the design. The character's are awkward, expressive balls of energy, that just want to make the most of there school life and friendship. And honestly I feel the designs match that as a whole, while looking like real kids I feel. Cause kids are awkward, loud, have a lot to say, and there words can be cringy at times. Plus a lot of kids look ugly. Not a lot of them are pretty let be real here. As a adult I remember being like that as a guy. I liked people and expressed it in odd ways by drawing or trying to beat them in mario smash brothers. As well as geeking out about DBZ, Yu-gi-oh, pokemon or what ever I liked a the time as a teenager to my friends. Then again I can laugh at my past, and what I did, while other's can not.
And as for girl things and how people view them. I know I'm not one to talk, but I feel it boils down to if you like it or not. Not gender being a issue with it. Just going on anime that are said to be aimed for girls I like; Card capture sakura, Princess tutut, The original Sailor moon (Have not seen the new one so no comment on how I feel about it), Futari wa pretty cure, and Mew Mew Power. And for things not anime, but I think at the time My little pony was pretty good, but the fandom was a hot mess that I am glad is over and done with. And I hear one of the Barbie Tv shows really slaps with some random clips I see form time to time on youtube.
Now for other girly things I will admit I didn't like, and it's because I couldn't get into it, due to my taste alone. Not because I'm a guy just, because there are things I just can't fully get into due to my likes and dislikes.
I felt Twilight was boring, and how the writer is with certain things made me glad I dropped it on book one. And some popular novels aimed at teenage girls to young adult woman pretty much would have the troupe in the novels of older men praying on the main female lead in a sense, or abusive relationships being seen as cute or something to prove you can over come it for the relationship, and honesty I can't really get behind that.
Over all I think turning red is cute, a good movie, and I am glad I watched it. The only issue I have with the movie as a whole is the Mei's mom. Just seeing her crying as a child hurt me so much that even if the movie was done, and she was okay with her daughter being herself. I couldn't help but wonder if her issues are fully resolved. I know her mom hugged her and told her that she never blamed her for anything, but I just can't help but think about her walking as she grew up crying and feeling sad, and how she kept everything in as a adult. That's really the only thing that messes with me in the movie. Not something I hate, but just something that I can't help but think about. What else did she had to keep inside? What did she miss out on when trying to be perfect for her mother as she was growing up? And what passion she might have had, and gave up on to make her mom proud? Sorry I wanted to bring this up, cause yeah. Messes with me...
Honestly very valid. I put it this way. Mei's entire family learned from the incident. And I think it probably gave them a lot to think snd talk about. I hope Ming and her Mom talked in depth. Often younger generations breaking a mold can lead to the older generations making amends. At least in stories with happy endings like this one.
About the part about Ming in the spirit realm...I remember when Meilin was leading her mother through the bamboo forest that her younger selves are slumped and downtrodden but when we get to her present age we kinda see that while she's still looking down, her posture is straight, and while that might be something she learned due to her job, I also see that as her, as a mother, not wanting to show her child weakness, basically show her better side to be a good role model. Heck, when Mei looks back she reflexively wipes her tear and kinda looks to the side until her daughter faces forward again.
It's honestly heartbreaking how we see, visually, through that short walk what she went through: from her as an adolescent, hunched over and a mess, to her growing older, less hunched and more put together then to the present her, straight posture with her presentable work clothes... but all through that she remained looking DOWN, possibly internalizing her guilt and sadness all these years.
Surw
Coop
Cool*
Lmao I didn't even notice the "unfemininity" of the character designs. Did that seriously trigger people? The characters are so adorable
They were actually very feminine. Maybe I am far too agnostic, but to me I recognized them as girls of differing ethnicities.
It’s just that in this case they were not overtly feminine.
Another thing that struck me more than I expected was how the Red Panda transformation was treated. I think the Red Panda is the expression of intense emotions as well as a metaphor for puberty. They say as much throughout the movie, whether in excitement or anger or emotional. And since intense expression of emotions is often labeled as “hysterical” or “overreacting” (which I think a young girl can hear a lot of) it was a cathartic experience to see Mei embracing that louder side of herself. And alternatively, I appreciated the movie showing that while her mom, aunts and grandma had seemingly given up on their red pandas, they always keep them close by. By the end the movie shows that having intense emotions is not wrong, but that it is also important to use your personal discretion in their expression.
For me, the biggest takeaway from Turning Red is this: the emotions of kids are VALID y’all. You might look back on your younger self when you are older and think “Why was I ever like that?” but the truth is no matter where your feelings are directed and no matter how much of an overreaction they may seem, they are NOT fake. The movie is not saying “friends and boy bands are more important than family” but that Mei’s feelings are just as real as her family’s, and ignoring them will cause real damage.
THIS!!!
I’ve been so frustrated about so many reviews and what not talking about the panda just being a metaphor for puberty WHEN THE MOVIE explicitly tells us it was a manifestation of strong emotions!
That Sun Yee was blessed with a gift of her emotions and used them to serve, protect and love her family and community. But that gift became ‘inconvenient’ when the family moved to a ‘new world’! I can’t personally speak to the experience of diaspora, I can emphasize with the experience but I have never felt it myself. (And I’m also kinda annoyed with that integral part being described by some as just flavor text)
But the experience of your emotions being too much (especially as an undiagnosed adhd girl) resonated with me so strongly!
I thought this movie was real cute and also it actually helped my sister find a new creative way of dealing with anxiety! she had to go to the dentist today and confessed to me that this movie gave her the idea to think about her loved ones supporting her to help her get through it and i'm so proud of her!
Who cares if it’s low stakes? I get really bored because I feel like every movie is high stakes & that’s not my cup of tea. Low stakes things are so interesting to me, I’m a very character focused person. I’m not big on the plot, but I want to know how the characters personalities & relationships develop & I think there should be more movies like that :))
It’s why I like The Simpsons & The Amazing World Of Gumball so much.
Also I feel like the backlash is pretty misogynistic since it’s because edits “not relatable” & the designs are “unattractive” (also no they’re not they’re super cute & as artists, me & my best friend were OBSESSING over the style lol)
I absolutely love slice of life movies and TV, so I'm tired of hearing about how everything has to have high stakes. Also, the characters are adorable and remind me way more of myself, my sisters and my friends as kids.
People apply the Marvel standards to everything, even genres that are the polar opposite of superhero movies. As a casual anime watcher, the same thing is happening in anime. The Shounen (young-teen range aimed at boys) fans complain that Shoujo (young-teen range aimed at girls) is too slow and nothing happens when shounen is all about fast-paced heroism and action and shoujo is about slow-burn love, comedy and slice of life. These two are the polar opposites, yet we mainly see men and boys complain about it, the other side is just chill and doesn't equate their standards to shounen genre.
@@SugiyamaHiromin honestly, men and boys can be really loudly competitive cause that's what society shapes them to be.
Even if someone were to say they didn’t like it because it’s stakes are too low, the city was about to be destroyed by a large animal at the end of the movie and that sounds pretty high stakes to me.
@@Aster_Risk I agree 100%!!
I can also relate to when you talked about feeling like a loser for not "growing up fast enough." Even at age 7! I got mocked for still watching the Teletubbies. I was still playing with dolls right up until high school. And even after I turned 18, my own father would ask why I was still watching cartoons and Disney movies. Being a kid is such a catch-22 man.
It's really eye-opening and crazy that that person said female characters are hard to animate because "they have to keep them pretty." That's just wild, but looking back at every movie, yeah it's frightening true. I'm glad to see this changing, especially with Turning Red, they actually look and act like 13-year-old girls, and they aren't afraid to go wild with the faces, it's really refreshing to see.
Yes to all of this! It's so limiting not only to artists but children only seeing the portrayal of one kind of female, unless they're a villain. I really enjoyed this movie, I thought it was done so so well
I love how you explained their looks. Watching turning red, I almost didn't notice this because it was so wonderful to see different body types that I think I just felt immersed rather than surprised.
18:27 responding to the story not being "for everyone" : I 100% agree. We have this idea that male is the default human experience, and female is human experience plus plus, with special details that are often put away because they're "mysterious" or supposed to be "secret". I'm a guy and this movie was super relatable and I loved it, it's a new favorite for sure. I'm also 100% here for Pixar's new Ghibli-inspired direction of movie making.
Although I'm not the target audience, I can only imagine how important this movie would be if I was pre teen, seeing characters be entirely unsexualized and allowed to be goofy and fun and kinda dumb would have been so validating
Great video! as a child of immigrants this movie hit hard
I’m so confused with the discourse on this movie lol. Even as a guy, this movie was relatable and extremely entertaining. Definitely one of my favorite Pixar movie recently. But I guess if characters aren’t self inserts or widely unrealistic people will riot.
People really need to unpack their feelings and think deeply about why they are always so uncomfortable or “annoyed” with completely normal young girls. 🤔
Turning Red is a gem. The art style, the humor, the relationships are lovely.
And there are so many nods to Sailor Monn!!
The fact that I am not even Canadian or from an English speaking country and I am not Asian, didn’t stop me to relate to this film. Periods, puberty, fangirling, crushes and mommy issues, made me remember when I was 13. I felt happy that many girls no matter where they are in the world, related to the movie as well. And it made me happy to see all of these issues presented in the movie as a normal thing and I hope it helps kids nowadays feel comfortable with themselves 🥰
The line “I understand the feeling of needing to be perfect…and if I taught that to you, I’m so sorry.” Hit me real hard, cuz my mom would never. And it just. Ming felt like it was too late for her, like she couldn’t help herself, but damnit if she’s not gonna End that cycle. She lets Mai do it. It’s such a nuanced discussion and they did it perfectly.
As an artist who likes to design and make fanart of mostly teenage characters, I’m always happy to see both art and support for art that depicts adolescents as, well kids. They’re not all drop dead gorgeous supermodels and rarely ever are. Kids don’t have to be portrayed as glamorous and it’s great to see more media embracing designs that make people look, well, like people.
And, while the context is kinda sad, it’s great getting to see people supporting this film.
Also your background was lovely (^з^)-☆
I think you nailed it with this. We are all incredibly used to viewing the male experience as the universal experience, and now that this is finally changing, it's astonishing to me to see how men especially struggle with empathizing with a variety of life experiences (not that a tween girl is even all that niche of an experience considering about half the population experiences it!!). Someone in the comments mentioned how female coming of age stories like Spirited Away don't get this treatment, and I would say that Turning Red is much more *unapologetic* and *in your face* about its subject material. Maybe I'm just dumb but I saw Spirited Away and Totoro and etc as adventure films as a kid and it wasn't until I rewatched them as an adult that I was moved by finally realizing they are coming of age films. I think Ghibli films are much more layered and less obvious about their messaging and takeaways.
That isn't to say one approach is more artistically valuable than the other. They are both valuable. I just think the audience reactions to them is quite telling. We like girl coming of age stories but they can't be so *in your face*. Wider audiences (aka men) can only sympathize with female experiences if they are layered in so much symbolism it might take multiple viewings to view them as coming of age. It seems people had a problem not with a female coming of age story, but with one that was so unapologetic about it.
OH!!! Thank you for talking about how only men get to have character designs that are meant to reflect their personalities. It drives me insane that even in shows like My Hero Academia or How to Train Your Dragon where females at least aren't damsels, even if they are always prize/side characters, they all only get one body type. In My Hero, even though this is a vast world with characters filled with animal characteristics or Sci-fy qualities- women only ever get to be "Attractive" No fat, nothing too non-human, nothing that might make a male seem weaker than them etc. In the main class there is a vast cast of character designs.....for men. Women can't be unconventional or just plain ugly. The most the author was willing to do was make one pink, one vaugly froggish, and one invisible.......great.
You must remember that MHA is taking place in Japan, where the obesity procentage isn't high and you're always encouraged to look your best. The same goes for men too. Times are changing, but it is very much a traditional country, and standing out in any way will get you bullied.
That's not to say those things are okay, but I think it's important to understand a culture before you start stripping it down.
@@smarsh7779 Okay, let's tone it down a little bit. First of all, Horikoshi (the author) is not sexist at all. Yes, he's a pervert and he has openly admitted to it on twitter. But he treats every one of his characters with respect nonetheless.
Ochako, the main female lead, is seen having a crush on Deku. This is normal teenage behavior, getting a crush is not something you can control.
However her main goal in life is something that doesn't relate to Deku at all; her goal is to become a hero so she can get money to support her parents. Her life didn't start as soon as she met Deku, her life was already well-developed before she ever even met him.
Momo, the smart girl in class, has her insecurities and deals with every day life problems with the aspect of being a rich girl. If you actually knew Japanese culture, having money is actually seen as a bad thing due to various circumstances from the past. And while she tends to flaunt her body, it's all within reason and not solely for fan service. Unlike most other women, she actually does have a bit of a belly unlike the flat toned stomach we usually see in anime.
I could go on and on about every female character tbh, cause women are more than just their weight; it's about their motivations, their goals in life and whether or not they are being heard. And these women are being heard. You're just too butthurt to see it.
@@Urube23 I think you missed a big part of OPs point. I like mha, but it's true that character design for women is limited to like 2 body types, with varying boob size, which are thin and thinner. Meanwhile, male characters are allowed to have all kinds of diversity and creativity, which makes female characters look even bleaker by comparison. I think the one with the most different body design in main cast is froppy, and even then she's still small with big doe eyes, contrast her with other characters who also have mutant type quirks like Tokoyami and you can see there is a double standard, regardless of whether you think that makes him sexist or not. Of course you could blame it on it being an issue with shonen as a genre, but even shows like Fairy Tail got creative with female character design from time to time, even more so with secondary characters. And FT it's sexist AF. so there's really no excuse for MHA to lack variety in their female character design. (I've been legit trying to think up one single female hero student or pro with a design that isnt sexy and I cannot)
@@alexparra15 So I guess Recovery Girl and Mirko are non-existent.
And besides, as you said, they're all heroes. Which means they're public figures. Would a Hollywood star go out in public without looking their best? No.
Midnight, the hero who's openly sexual (which, btw, is a thing frowned upon in Japan), even dresses casually in her free time. And she even uses glasses, which some people think are unattractive (for whatever reason).
And besides, these people exercise on the regular. Unless you have a quirk like Fatgum's, gaining weight would not be beneficial to them.
tbf all the students are training to be heroes so they need to be fit. all the mae students in 1a are ripped.
Surprised to hear the character designs were so controversial, I thought that was the best part. I loved seeing the girls have different-shaped heads! Thanks for this review :)
The "oh this story isn't universal cause the target audience is girls and therefore bad" criticisms piss me off so much, it genuinely makes me see red (pun not intended). Like sorry to the grown white male "film critics" who have thousands of movies they can "relate" to that me, a 17 year old black girl who was awkward and geeky in middle school and still now as a senior who's trying to figure stuff out finally gets a movie where I see myself and relate to even a little bit, I just can't have sympathy for you. Especially in a medium that is so important to me like animation, where despite consuming a lot of it western or otherwise, I rarely have characters I relate to or that even look like me (I've been in love with this movie's animation and character/art design for months now so that complaint too gets on my nerves as well), but no one's heard me complaining cause that's the norm. I was already really excited for the movie, but didn't realize just how much I wanted a film like this until I watched it and teared like three times because of how happy I was to have something like this exist. Like I've never felt more seen by any type of media than the scene where Mei is crying on the floor because of what are basically cramps cause I've done that too many times to count lol (also the concert scene at the end cause I went to a Twice concert last month and that was exactly how I reacted to seeing them in person, the crying, the screaming, everything)
I personally liked the movie. It was refreshing and relatable. I am not Chinese, but I did have friends who were second and third Chinese who had parents that would blame us not Chinese friends for anything they deemed "unfit."
I'm simultaneously the same kind of person who gets overstimulated as you (because I'm autistic), and the kind of person we get annoyed by because of ADHD impulsivity, restlessness, and poor awareness of surroundings when I get engrossed in something.
But I tend to avoid theatres, for the same reasons as you and also because I like having subtitles and reacting verbally to movies with the people around me and I know that's not something that's acceptable at a movie theatre.
Side note: thank you for adding subtitles! Very much appreciate it, makes it easier to process what you're saying because sometimes my brain struggles a bit with deciphering speech, partly from sensory issues, partly from being easily distracted. Subtitles gives me something to DO while watching, reading them helps me keep my attention on it. Subbed anime introduced me to how helpful subtitles can be and I've used them ever since whenever possible
B) sensory issue club
@@magnificloud we meet in a quiet and dark room with corners and places to hide, and a section for doing sensory things that could be overwhelming to others that's separate :)
There are free sunglasses and sound dampening headphones to use as well.
@@Alex-fc8xn omg take me there 😭
@@magnificloud actually sensory rooms do exist. Some places like stadiums have them set up for kids and adults with sensory issues who might need somewhere to calm down. Some might just be quiet dark areas to sit while your brain processes what was overwhelming, but I think I remember hearing about some that do have different sensory toys and things to interact with. Maybe when things become safer again you can go see one near you if there are any
Warning Spoilers.
So I, a 28 year old guy, really resonated with Turning Red. Like, so much that I've been having to work through a lot of messy emotions it brought to the surface. I had a protective mother, maybe more so than Ming. I was a "gifted" kid that could never really live up to the expectations. Especially once my ADHD got worse in my preteen years, which the panda reminded me of a lot.
In fact the scene where she's beating herself up and begging it to just go away hit me really hard because it was almost exactly the same as my reaction to my ADHD getting worse. "Why am I like this? I wish this would just go away!"
I also realized that the "cure" has parallels to ADHD medications. "You can cut out this problematic part of yourself to better conform!" (Note that back when I was diagnosed the medications available had some nasty side effects, so I never used them. They've come a long way since then.) So the ritual scene, with her struggling over the choice and the visualization of ripping yourself apart to fit other people's idea of what you should be, hit me pretty hard too.
Top all that off with the "I'm not going to regret this... Am I?" Since I chose not to use the meds I've had a lot of struggles. I wonder sometimes if it was the right choice. So just... Yeah.
A movie hasn't caused me to reflect this much in a long time. Basically I found it super relatable and it's quickly becoming one of my favorites.
I hope you can found your peace and have a great life, Sir.
I'm in the middle of watching this but I just wanted to say thank you so much for adding subtitles and speaking outloud the text on screen in addition to having it written out. As a person that is hard of hearing, it's so difficult watching TH-cam videos until subtitles come out, and most of the youtubers I watch never add them. So it really makes a difference being able to combine what hearing I do have with being able to read out what you're saying. Thank you again so excited to finish this video!!
The character design point is excellent. I found the animation and design a bit unpleasant in the beginning, but then realized that it was purely about Pixar still finding their footing with it. By the end, the style just looks GORGEOUS!
Not me, I instantly saw the trailer and I fell IN LOVE with that art style XD It's like Chicken Run vibes, but combined with Luca and also has some slight anime thrown in there and I love it! ^u^ More respect that they actually make the teen girls look like teen girls instead of overly sexualizing them
It was ugly.
I stopped singing around the house when my step-dad (a church choir director) insulted me offhand. When I was 16. I'm now 30 and can't even sing in the shower without asking myself if anyone is home.
That stuff sticks. So I'm so glad you kept drawing and feel comfortable enough to share! Thank you for all your beautiful work, you beautiful soul.
One of the bad reviews on google was literally talking about how inappropriate the movie was because the main character is 13 and is going through puberty. They said that the movie should have been PG-13 instead of PG cause it mentioned puberty. And like, Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse has a teenage boy who mentioned puberty, and people aren't clamoring for the movie to change its rating from PG to PG-13.
basically the are all ethinically diverse, Meilin is chinese, Abby is korean, Priya is indian and Miriam is ashkenazi jew, and tyler is half vietnamese, half afrocarribian, all around you can see muslims with hijabis and the school guard are a sikh.
Hearing you talk about your experience as a teen girl made me realize that I didn't relate to much of it at all and I was born a girl too. Those people saying girl stories are boring because they can't relate are just fishing for excuses.
How can anyone hate this movie?!?!!i grew up similar to Mei - the whole boyband, tamagotchi, drawing , and like being a perfect A's student. Although I am Mexican, I can totally relate it! I love this movie so mucy it made my tween inner child so happy!!!
I love it! 😇
me too! ( also mexican!! omg )
Mexicans unite! I was also super appreciative of the story that was told because I had the same relationship Mei had with Ming but with my father who is second generation. Also, like you said, all of the interests Mei had were very similar to mine.
I (also Mexican) have not watched it but from what people mention it I feel like u would relate a lot. My dad is 1st gen immigrant but my mom is 2nd gen so I get a taste of both parents. Neither of them went to college so I have had to face their pressure to be the first. Always keeping my straight A grades, I'm not valedictorian in HS, and I have to be perfectly behaved. My mom is my best friend but when we argue it HURTS hurts. I have to live up to the daughter she has imagined me to be and not who I truly want to be. She shames me for not being skinny anymore. She thinks it's dumb that I'm into boy bands like CNCO and KPop groups as well. But in the end, I want nothing more than to make her happy.
@@-astor-9844same with me
I remember seeing the trailers for Turning Red and thinking "Aww, they're so cute, goofy, an baby!"
honestly, i'm nonbinary ( afab ), and also the child of immigrants, so like this movie hit pretty hard for me, because i was just as much of a weird kid that didn't really like the same things as my peers either ( you mention mtv, i was 13 in the 2010s so for me it was more like i wasn't picking up on loving one direction as much quickly as the others and didn't get a phone until i was about 14-15 while my friends had already had phones for awhile ) but i also relate to the whole not being allowed to do anything, because your parent is so controlling and protective, i wasn't allowed to do anything without my dad's permission, it was a miracle that i was allowed to even go to birthday parties, and if he ever found out that my friend's male cousin showed up at our sleepover once, he probably would have freaked out because he is one of those parents. to be honest, i still relate to mei because i'm still going through the whole, fighting my parent just to be an individual despite now being an adult ( although granted, my dad is probably far more toxic than her mother given he's well, to put it kindly, physically and verbally abusive on top of being controllng. )
So happy you made a video on this. I just seen this movie recently and I can't tell you how much I resonated with this movie. I remember how difficult being 13 was for me. My strict dad shamed me for having crushes, my older siblings made fun of me for being obsessed with Hannah Montana lol, and to top all of that, puberty was just super stressful. This is probably one of the few movies I found myself relating so much to :3
I have literally never been in a theater where people take calls, are on their phone, or take stories of the movie??? That’s literally blowing my mind wth. I wonder how theater cinema culture varies from place to place, everyone’s always really respectful when I go to movies (Seattle area)
In Austin at the Alamo Drafthouse theatres, instead of the standard courteous "Please silence your cellphones" announcement before the previews, they play a clip that goes "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....ut the f*** up."
They do here in New York City it's so annoying 🙄
@@joannewang86 that's great 🤣😂😂
Ditto.
Midwest greater St.Louis area and the worst disruption I've ever experienced at my local theater is the occasional overly talkative child that hasn't learned volume control yet or who gets scared and starts crying.
You're from Seattle and haven't seen people on their phone? I'm just a few cities away from Seattle and even during my viewing of The Batman, MULTIPLE people had the flash go off on their phone, someone brought a talkative child and I could hear people talking from rows/seats away. But I feel like it was never this bad, I think some people have forgotten theater etiquette because of the pandemic.
I was dying to see your take!! I'm so glad it was a relatable story, it was to me as well on so many levels. The art style was also not my favorite but I don't hate it; I think it's perfect for the story and I'm waiting to see what Pixar does next!
You had me at "pre-plague". I subscribed. I loved this film, and didn't think I'd love it that much to be honest. As a Canadian, the Canadian references made me chuckle. And I loved how real yet atypical it was. I loved the character designs. The art style is cute, but they got cultural accuracies SO well and HOW did they do that!?
turning red absolutely perfectly represented the emotional rollercoaster that you go through in puberty. where you run through every single emotion in just a few minutes and all the emotions are turned up to 11. both showing how it feels to the teen girl and also the way it looks on the outside to your mom.
Yessss love the background art and the whole “it’s not relatable” thing makes me so mad like not every movie is gonna be made for you
The friggin' line that got me in this movie was towards the end, as each older family member reseals her panda. Ming turns around and tells Mei: (paraphrasing) "You do so much to please everyone, but you're so hard on on yourself. If I taught you that, I'm so sorry."
I would give anything to hear my mom say that to me. It took therapy for me to realize where the pressure I constantly put on myself came from. To know that even though making my family proud makes me feel good, that being in constant fear of disappointing them is not healthy. I don't think I'd be able to bring that up to her without her feeling very hurt and attacked about it.
Movies like "Turning Red" and "Encanto" are absolutely wonderful. They make me feel seen and understood in ways that films from when I was a kid didn't. I still love all those older movies too, but these newer ones make me so happy for kids like my nephew and little cousins.
I also enjoyed turning red, especially since I was 12 years old in 2002 and grew up in Toronto. I found the movie very relatable to my experiences as a preteen girl. Plus there are a lot of Toronto easter eggs sprinkled through.
The only thing i did not find believable was that 13 year olds would be really into a boy band in 2002. That specific time period was after BSB/ NSYNC but before the Jonas brothers and One Direction and was more defined by solo artists and bands like linkin park or white stripes. But I think it's possible and my experience may have been different from others at that time
Also the point about Luca being the downfall of Pixar animation makes no sense to me. While watching Luca, I kept thinking to myself that it was such a beautifully animated movie, especially the landscape of the Italian Riviera. It was also different from other Pixar movies and felt almost like Pixar mixed with Studio Ghibli
I'm really glad that rational people on TH-cam are talking about how good this film is because the negative reviews are really gross
I’m honestly glad that I realized early that being childish Isn’t all that bad and trying to act mature, like watching more gory or violent shows or being proper and holding emotions in isn’t always “cool”
How can anyone NOT like this movie?? Even though I didn't 100% relate to her, since I'm not asian but Gen-Z and (at least what I heared of) this movie is rather directed at millenials. But like- I don't need to 100% relate to everything. The movie had some good story telling and representation and it was just all in all a good time
i'm gen z and i related pretty easily tbh i don't think it's targeted at millennials, but rather targeted at any anybody who's dealt with the whole generational trauma and definitely afab puberty
Inside Out was also a small-scale story about a tween girl but no one complained about that. Girl or boy, I think everyone should watch Turning Red because captures all embarrassment and awkwardness that comes from puberty. There is nothing more universal than puberty.
When you spoke about Male and Female character designs, I felt seen!!!! When I mentioned this to people they think I'm nuts 🥜
I love the background art! Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the movie. I think you really dived deep into why the criticism for Turning Red was part of some larger issues.
I really like that background! It looks so good!
I was putting off watching Turning Red but I saw Cheyenne post a video about it so I watched it specifically to come back and watch Cheyenne's video lol I quite liked it. I really liked the character designs. I also really liked the mother-daughter dynamic. Mei throws her friends under the bus to avoid conflict with her mom and in the moment I was thinking that felt out of character, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I would throw my friends under the bus to not disappoint my mom too. So as someone that "this story isn't for" I really found a lot to relate to and enjoy.
Character design wise, "critics" are absolutely wrong about people not looking right. The mom's character design was AMAZING. There was a moment where I felt like I was looking at a drawing of a real actress. Ming was gorgeous and they were all just so expressive. Mei totally looks like a girl I could see on the street, even if a bit caricature-ized.
Also, I realllly loved what you said about Ming being 2nd gen being the reason she was able to recognize her fault and apologize. That was a huge issue I had with encanto, that the grandma didn't really have a moment where it felt like she understood the trauma she inflicted on her family with the expectations she had of them. Ming had a genuine moment where she realized she passed down the things she hated about her own childhood and you see her remorse so visibly in the bamboo grove. It resonated with me as a 2nd gen Mexican-American, thinking growing up how when/if I ever had kids, I would NEVER treat them the way my parents treated me, and I've worked hard for the past decade to unlearn some of the really harmful characteristics I was taught for 20 years.
Oh, God, Cheyenne! Thank you sooooo huge for this review! I've watched this movie because of you and it was a sobbing-laughing-tenderness experience.I paused and cried and paused and laughed and rewinded ever so much.
Turning Red is 10/10!
Just finished! I completely agree with you. My friends and I watched this together, and I'm the child of a 1st generation immigrant, my one friend is an afab person, and my second is a cis guy. But we all liked and could relate to some parts of the movie, and even parts my cis guy friend couldn't *directly* relate with, was engaged with the story and cared about the characters. And we talked about it afterwards, and it was like... isn't that kind of the actual general goal of movies? To just be engaged and care about the characters? I don't need to relate to batman to enjoy his story and laugh sometimes when he's a bit too much of an angsty drama kid, and I enjoy it that way. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I'm so glad this movie came out I think it's my current favorite 3d animated film!!
14:40 hit me like a truck. great art great video !!
As someone dealing with intergenerational trauma, this was also impactful for me. I just wish my mum didn't deny/gaslight/rationalize her actions, past and current, when I tell her that they hurt me.
I do and will continue to work hard on not continuing that trauma cycle, though I doubt I'll have kids 😅 actually I have 4 siblings, all adults, and none of us are interested in having children probably partly because of the trauma.
But yeah, big agree.
Great review! Totally agree, I loved how the character designs of Mei and her friends were so diverse and endearing, as well as their bouncy expressions. And I loved the focus on girls' friendships, as well as showing how funny and goofy teenage girls can be, because honestly, they are! I'm also glad you mentioned Encanto's design too, I didn't realize how much risks the decision-makers and animators were taking before I heard a female acquaintance complain how "fat and ugly" Mirabel and most of the Madrigals are. (Cringe but true) And though I was never into boy bands as a teenager, I could understand how badly Mei wanted to go and how it's an extremely high-stakes decision for tweens. (As you said, screw those people who jeered at Turning Red for being "low-stakes!" Also, didn't the stakes skyrocket when Ming turned into a kaiju-sized red panda and started smashing Skydome?) At Mei's age, gathering that much money by yourself in such a short amount of time is extremely difficult, as well as sneaking out of the house late at night without your parents knowing. I love how the movie treated tween girls' anxieties and desires with such earnestness (while acknowledging their goofiness, it's a thin line but they accomplish it lol), when they're usually so easily dismissed. And Ming disliking Mei's friends because they weren't straight-A model students and she considered them a bad influence was so painfully like my mother. Blaming them and the clerk at the convenience store for any "undesirable" characteristics in her child instead of admitting that her child was capable of independent thought was such a spot-on description of controlling parents! And while there are so many memes about how Ming apologizing was the most unrealistic thing in the movie, you were right to point out that it was possible because she was a 2nd generation immigrant and underwent similar experiences as Mei. The movie did hint at it with Ming and her mother's relationship being similar yet more strained and oppressive then Ming and Mei's. (which also explains why Ming's panda was huge and violent) Also loved how the grandmother and aunts dressed, lol.
I watched the movie as an 8th grader and I feel like it captures the energy of middle school and friendships very well! I did find it kinda funny how the scene when mei was in algebra class they referenced the quadratic formula which was exactly what I was learning about in class.
Given your previous videos about boy bands and how society sees teenage girls, as well as about Asian diaspora culture, I was wondering what your thoughts were on this movie. Thank you for sharing!
That background art is amazing!
I love the way they looked.
It really gives an exaggerated bit realistic view of the awkward look of girls transitioning from children to puberty.
The awkward phase. Like how your body starts looking different in young girl clothing as you're growing. Just the awkward phase between the girls aisle at a clothing store and the young adult one.
I guess women will understand.
It definitely looked like the 2000s to.
This was like a PG PEN15.
People act like this movie said that you have to fix your mother too. But seemed liked just growing together. Not that the child has to fix them. It's literally symbolized that EVERYONE is there to help by singing in the circle.
There relationship I wouldn't sat was abusive or anything 🙄
She was over protective but she wasn't using her child like a therapist or anything. I'd say it was normal. Or what I think is normal. This isn't a trauma movie for Mei. I'd say her mother yes.
I’ve seen so much hypocrisy with this movie. ‘The animation is too generic’ Huh that’s funny- everyone seemed to love and praise diary of wimpy kids animation, you know the movie about a male middle schooler navigating life. Yeah starting to think a lot of the unfair criticism is just people making things up because they can’t straight up say why they don’t like the movie 🥴
I don’t think anyone liked the animation in doawk.
literally not a single person liked the animation in the new diary of a wimpy kid
Nah I saw comments saying how the movie looked so faithful to the original book. When the movie dropped the talk stopped because everything was copy and paste.
Also 80% of the teenage girl chara design on Disney and Pixar movies follow the same damn model to the point Mirabel was THE FIRST main female character with glasses after decades of those studios existing and pumping new animated long features yearly.
I'd saythe most unrealistic part of this movie is Ming saying getting a period at 13 is early. I got mine at 9!
Turning Red is such an adorable and fun film from Pixar also, Both Soul & Luca are great too. Nice video on character designs as well as tween female empowerment.
cheyenne i love how you talked about being overstimulated because that’s the exact same reason why i don’t go to theaters! i never have heard anyone talk about that and it always made me feel left out and uncomfortable when i’d be dragged along with a group of friends to experience the worst type of activity in my opinion. i still haven’t seen turning red but it seems so cute and fun and i’m excited to watch it :)
I related to Mei and her mother and grandmother so much. I had the same arguments with my mother, my mother and grandmother had the same arguments about how to raise me. It truly is a universal 13 year old girl experience everywhere lol
i love all of your takes and learning about the things you talk about :) it’s so insightful to me as a girl and it’s really valuable having people like you making the content you do for girls our age
"Ah yes this literal rat is so pleasing to look at..."
"O NOE an expressive girl!!!"
remy be got me down bad tho
I felt every word you said in the beginning. I only seen like 8ish movies in theater.
Thank you for bringing up the "gay villian" trope of disney/pixar stuff. I never got why the villains were portrayed that way
I enjoyed it, too. And I completely understand what you said at the beginning, because growing up I always saw movies at the second run theatre, three months after it came out. 😏🙂
Like, I'm not chinese, I am an AMAB person, and I still found It relatable.
Hell, the relationship with the Parents and the embracing of Mei's true self Is something that ressonated with me, even if It's done for a "very specific Target audience".
People saying It's not relatable are being just obtuse.
Even if It wasn't, I give this movie props for being a project that came from a very personal space for the director, a big budget mainstream animated feature with a personal vision, from a Disney out of all Places. Art can be anything from universal to personal.
this movie was so relatable. i mean, that was exactly how being a 13 year old girl felt. no matter if you were chinese canadian or not. i loved this movie so much and im glad it exists
to clarify: im not chinese, im white. and im really glad that her culture was an important part of the movie! it did not take away from the relatability in the slightest, and even if it did, who cares? people who don't usually see their identities represented get to watch a story they can relate to.
The way that people don't like the turning red character design reminds me of when the Netflix she-ra was unveiled and men cried because she didn't look as fuckable as the 80's version.
This movie struck a very specific chord with me, and it really brought me back to those middle school years. I may not connect directly to Mei’s specific familial and cultural setting, but I think that the movie’s general themes are accessible to a wider audience. The specific interests and expression of those interests may differ from Mei and her friends, but I am sure that the intensity of your feelings is more or less a universal one.
Like, I never had a “boy obsessed” phase and wasn’t really into boy bands. However, that is partially because I didn’t want to be seen as silly. “Girly” interests are often downplayed by people who aren’t interested in them, and I have members of my family who would intentionally or unintentionally make fun of such things. On the other hand, I definitely can remember my more cringey ways of showing my interests, and being loud with my friends in a different way than I was with my family. So for people out there, like me, who can’t relate specifically with Mei’s interests, just think back to something you were interested in that other people would maybe make fun of, or you would have been embarrassed to admit. It’s really the same thing. You know, we just got to remember to not immediately shut down the experiences of others that we may not intuitively understand.
yesss I was hoping you'd do an analysis for this film!
i am so sorry your experience in movie theaters has sucked so much omg, its never been like that where i am... the 'having to reserve a seat' thing is also weird af
also yeah i. i agree so hard with everything this video said!! just all of it!!
not every movie needs to be relatable, not every movie needs to be high stakes! movies set out to tell a story, not every single one needs to be relatable or high stakes.
but like, this movie *is* relatable. not in every single way to every single person, but in so many different ways to different people. the fangirl culture in it really struck me personally cause, while i wasnt a boyband kid, i was such a fan for online stuff, i still am! just not as harshly as i used to be. that and i wasnt even alive in 2002, more like 2012, so thats also different. it felt like looking at an alternate universe of me and my own friends though ngl. the energy, the art! that was me and my friends!!
anyone who dislikes this movie are mostly just being sexist, in my experience. that and they seemed to have never grown out of the whole 'periods are gross and taboo' mindset, as if half the human population doesnt experience periods.
"Isn't universal..."
I am a white European dude, and the movie MOVED me.
I really liked the background art! I'd assumed it was something from TR promo materials that I wasnt familiar with.
Great video essay, keep up the great work!
When it comes to the artstyle, i honestly like it much more than the normal "Disney/Pixar."
It just looks so nice and fluffy
*i wanna eat it*
I hate how people act like this movie isn't relatable because I am a 15 yr old dude and I loved this movie so much because I related to being smart and living up to expectations and also having to hide yourself