Big red panda just the role model tween girls need Turning Red can be valuable resource for parents By: Jen Zoratti Posted: 3:00 AM CDT Friday, Mar. 25, 2022 Last Modified: 9:13 AM CDT Friday, Mar. 25, 2022 Updates

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/03/2022 (1653 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Turning Red, the buzzed-about animated film from Chinese-Canadian director Domee Shi now streaming on Disney Plus, is a heartwarming and groundbreaking entry into Disney-Pixar’s catalogue, thanks to its thoughtful, honest — and funny — depictions of puberty, menstruation, adolescent rebellion, and life as a 13-year-old girl.

It’s also become a lightning rod for controversy for its… depictions of puberty, menstruation, adolescent rebellion, and life as a 13-year-old girl.

Set in Toronto circa 2002, Turning Red is about a Chinese-Canadian girl named Meilin “Mei” Lee, who is trying to reconcile her life as the overachieving, dutiful daughter of parents with sky-high expectations — particularly her overbearing mom, Ming (Sandra Oh) — and as the quirky, boy-band fangirl who loves her besties, drawing, having crushes, and school.

When Mei gets her period — or when “the red peony blooms,” as her mom puts it — she finds out she was born with hereditary blessing/curse, passed down through her matrilineal line: the ability to transform into a giant red panda whenever she experiences an intense emotion, be it anger, humiliation, happiness or excitement.

If that sounds like an on-point description of what it’s like to go through puberty, bingo.

This storyline has created some discomfort among parents who have taken to social media to express their concerns that the film is “inappropriate.” Which is too bad, because Turning Red gets so much right: the division of family and friend life, and the pain of having to hide pieces of yourself from both; the potency of hormone-fuelled rages and crying jags; the discovery that your parents are people, too; the agony and ecstasy of figuring out who you are and what your values are; and the importance of having bodily autonomy.

Also, it’s pretty incredible to see boxes of maxi pads — a normal fixture of bathroom vanity cabinets the world over — in a Pixar film.

This idea that talk of menstruation is somehow “mature content” seems misguided, considering the average age of one’s first period is 12. Some kids are 10. For my part, I was 11 and still in elementary school, young enough that were no maxi pad dispensers in the girls’ bathroom — which would have been, uh, really handy. Point being, those are solidly kid/tween ages. This conversation needs to happen way sooner than one may think.

This idea that talk of menstruation is somehow “mature content” seems misguided, considering the average age of one’s first period is 12.

Others took issue with a scene in which Mei is drawing her crush as an anime-style merman. Look, just because 13-year-old girls are noted horndogs, it doesn’t mean they are actually “doing it.” When I was in Grade 8, the inside of my locker door was positively plastered with magazine photos of Joshua Jackson, who played Pacey Witter in Dawson’s Creek, a show that was actually probably too mature for me. But I also wore oversized Umbro soccer shorts and Northern Reflections T-shirts — a uniform that practically screamed, “I am not nor have I ever been sexually active.” The point is, I was figuring all of this out in a completely benign way. Just like Mei.

Never in the history of time has silence around totally normal things such as getting your period and navigating one’s nascent sexuality made these things go away. The red peony will bloom whether you talk about it or not. All silence does is create confusion and mystery and, eventually, shame and secrecy.

Being a teenage girl is hard, but being a tween girl — that little space between 9 and 13 that’s neither child nor teen — is a particularly confusing cusp. It is also a woefully under-served market when it comes to media that isn’t, say, a Judy Blume novel.

In an interview with Vulture, Rachel Shukert, creator of The Babysitters Club, the recently cancelled Netflix series based on the beloved series by Ann M. Martin, mused that “people are extremely uncomfortable with this period in girls’ lives. It seems to be the time of life that girls lose faith in themselves, and I think it’s because they don’t see representation of where they’re actually at. Girls are expected to go straight from Doc McStuffins to Euphoria. They’re not ready for TV about having sex, but they don’t want to be little girls. So who are they?”

We need more media that, as Shukert puts it, meets tween girls where they are. That Pixar is dipping a toe into coming-of-age narratives should be a welcome move; Turning Red is actually an incredible resource for parents navigating these conversations, should they choose to see it that way. As Mei herself notes, “We’ve all got a messy, loud, weird part of ourselves hidden away, and a lot of us never let it out.” Let’s create the kinds of conversations and spaces where we can unleash our inner pandas.

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @JenZoratti