"Turning Red" - The Danger of Fake Representation

Disney wastes a golden opportunity in this inventive but disappointing period piece.

May 19, 2022

On March 11, 2002, 18-year-old Avril Lavigne released her debut single, “Complicated.” She got discovered by music executive LA Reid and signed to Arista Records two years before, the presumptive leader of an “anti-Britney” movement.

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Donning a white tank top, black cargo pants, and a striped tie, Lavigne unleashed an anthem about staying true to yourself, getting wrapped up in the collective, and wrecking friendships. It surged into the consciousness, becoming an international chart-topper that rocketed her to fame.

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Parents who had long expressed concerns over Madonna, Christina Aguilera, and Spears now complained that Lavigne’s influence was damaging to children. She encouraged reckless behavior, like that displayed in the “Complicated” music video when Avril and friends wreak havoc on a local mall. She championed the pseudo-punk movement that forsook glitz and glam for dark makeup and gender-defying clothing. No matter how stringently they adhered to her style, Lavigne was the idol of teenage girls everywhere. She was not watching her back like she couldn’t relax; she didn’t become someone else around everyone else. She wasn’t trying to be cool, and the only people who saw her as a fool were those too clouded by conservatism to accept a different spin. She did her own thing, charted her own course, and found her own way.

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It is disappointing that Turning Red, set in 2002, does not acknowledge the very person responsible for creating the mindset with which its protagonist, Mei Lee, imbues herself on her journey of self-discovery. It makes a point of establishing the period but does little to reflect the era in its presentation. We have a lamely-named boyband reminiscent of the Backstreet Boys copycats from the late 90s and early aughts, like Blue, 98 Degrees, or O-Town, but Lavigne is absent, a damning oversight for two reasons:

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1. The film occurs in 2002, the year she became a global sensation beloved by teenage girls seeking identity and embracing individuality.

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2. She is Canadian.

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Turning Red has received praise for accurately depicting the cultural tightrope Asian people walk living in foreign countries, but this means little to audiences unfamiliar with the concept. Mei Lee’s struggles are so general, her approach to life so commonplace, the familial disputes so familiar, that the specifics of her circumstances can only get seen by those to whom they apply. Anyone can relate to the coming-of-age struggles Mei Lee faces. Parents can empathize with the instinct to protect their child (often from themselves), but what opportunity the film had to sink its teeth into the cultural experiences of its protagonist is wasted. It is a film for everyone, as the cast emphatically stated following a controversial review that criticized the film, seemingly for not depicting the perspective of White people.

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It is a film for everyone, but Pixar’s best offerings are films for everyone that feel singular. Turning Red is written by a Chinese-Canadian who grew up in Toronto; the experiences in the film are hers.

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You would not know it by watching.

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If there is a distinction, audiences cannot see it. The film should not have depicted anyone else, but in mostly forsaking the cultural component to embrace a typical narrative, the value of seeing a different worldview playing out on-screen gets lost.

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Aside from eating dumplings, nothing distinguishes Mei Lee from her Canadian friends. Mei is prepared massive quantities of food, is expected to obey her parents' commands, and live her life according to their expectations, but that’s hardly specific to Chinese families. A connection to heritage fuels the narrative insofar as it arbitrarily connects Mei Lee to her mother, but nothing with the thematic urgency to feel necessary. We’ve gotten taught that experiences are universal and unifying despite our differences; that is a worthy lesson. However, many films have taught us that; it’s time to tackle culturally dense subject matter. It is more worth a studio’s time to let artists wholly embrace their heritage and connect it to universal themes instead of doling out faint representation and asking audiences to praise it.

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It’s a shame: Turning Red’s approach to the onset of puberty and the nature of adolescence is atypically forward. It chastises taboo and refuses to veil its intentions, granting children insight into struggles many parents are too concerned with themselves to address correctly, if at all. Teenagers get lectured by their parents about forsaking notions of autonomy. After all, they were there once; they were teenagers and endured the awkwardness of puberty; they struggled with the seismic changes that forever altered their life course. Who is their child to pretend their perspective is unique?

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It makes us more insistent on doing our own thing and making our own moves, 24/7, 365. We do and say what we want, but without the self-awareness to realize we conform with every breath, even if that means conforming to non-conformity. We imagine each small step as a giant leap, turning eighth grade into the defining moment of existence, incapable of realizing that our first year of high school will inspire similar sentiments, as will each following year.

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We never care what people think of us until we realize people may do so differently if they knew us entirely. A cartwheel is a shameless display of individuality for strangers, but those whose judgment we face daily require a gentler touch. We never realize the older boy we adore is as immature as us. We never see that our imagined maturity is undermined by swooning at doodle winks or the silliness of passing notes to someone sitting right beside us. Unfortunately, beyond that vague understanding and what small ways it imparts wisdom, it relies on concepts it makes no effort to develop.

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Turning Red only exploits nostalgia to inspire adoration; it misses the mark entirely on embracing its period. It earns an ode to the cherished “Cha Cha Slide” but otherwise drops the ball. A friend whips out a Twilight-inspired novel three years before the first book got published and six before the film series became a cultural phenomenon. It offers a Mean Girls-inspired montage in a film set two years before the movie got released. A boyband and a dated gadget are the only indications that this film occurs when it claims. It seems like a nitpick until you remember the film makes a point of setting itself in this time and making sure we know it. Turning Red banks on distracting our eyes so that we forget it has to engage everything else.

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In fairness, it somewhat succeeds. Few films have ever been not only so beautiful to look at but so inventive with their aesthetic, whether it’s the dramatic expression of a confused teenage girl or her panda form squeezing its way through an alleyway. Its insistence on visual emotion makes many of its minor additions ring true. The instant forgiveness trope appears when Mei Lee needs her friends to dismiss getting sold out but feels tangible because the emotions are always forceful. The fury of a protective mother and the embarrassment of her young daughter hit home because the movie accentuates every feature.

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It causes reflection on the relationships we build with our parents at such a turbulent time and the differences the latter group cannot empathize with to make the former feel understood. It makes us wonder why we forgot what it means to have true friends as we aged into the tried and true excuse of “drifting apart.” It forces us to recall what it meant to care about perceptions and how good it could feel to let ourselves care because sometimes people surprised us (even if the film’s acceptance feels unearned). It allows us to realize that our parents weren’t wrong to protect us from their mistakes, only for keeping us from making our own.

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Unfortunately, none of this can make us ignore that the narrative, and thus the thematics, fall apart when the actual panda gets introduced. Despite its spot-on depiction of adolescent menstruation and the resulting emotional conflicts, it acts more like a gimmick for children than a fruitful narrative device. The visuals elevate rudimentary humor to a level high enough to register; the actual narrative suffers under the weight of an idea the film has no clue how to execute.

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We also cannot ignore that the film’s half-hearted queer-coding, an insulting concept that corporations have taken and run with, adds fuel to the fire of fake representation. Tyler, the teenage bully who turns out to be a secret 4-town fanatic, feels like a cheap ploy to hint at a character’s latent sexuality. It disregards the implausibility of a young, closeted boy risking outing himself by attending a wildly popular boyband’s concert alone to force a neat ending where everyone is happy, getting along, and facing an assured future with resolve.

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Sadly, that’s not how life works, and thus Turning Red’s premise collapses. The world will not always take kindly to Mei Lee’s chosen form, and pretending that inner worth is all that matters in a world legislating the invalidation of that worth is disingenuous. It matters that we love ourselves for who we are; it does not make life peachy keen for those forced to thrive on that self-acceptance. To pretend that a boy running from himself will discard fear or secrecy to befriend people who combat his ability to flee rings false. The idea that Mei Lee, at 13, has achieved the worldly understanding we scoff at adolescents for claiming to possess does not register.

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The authentic ending of Turning Red is that of a young girl facing the first massive shift in her life and embracing its challenges. Still, she knows that, just as her ancestors struggled, she will as well, despite making the opposite choice. The true story is that of a girl not uniformly accepted for a massive deviation from the norm in a time when gays could not serve openly in the military and when no state had legalized gay marriage. The ideas it seeks to conclude on may resonate with a more progressive youth in today’s world but ring false for a film that sets itself in a more conservative time.

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It contrasts the film’s desire to be authentic in depicting the struggles of a young girl staring down puberty. All the directness in one sense cannot excuse dishonesty in any other, and so we get left with a film that does many things well, offers us a glimpse at what it could have been, but disappoints in failing to become that something. As a result, we never truly learn what it takes to balance honoring yourself with honoring your parents, forging your path while remembering there’s no place like home. It is not something you can just do and expect results, especially not at such a young age. It has to be something more, something a movie understands, respects, and relays. Turning Red is generally enjoyable, but it lulled us in with a hot start and awed us into submission with stunning visuals. Between fake representation, insulting queer-coding, exploitation of nostalgia, and thematic ignorance, Turning Red is a film that shows it understands almost nothing.