TURNING RED'S FAMILY FRIENDLINESS
One of Turning Red’s biggest controversies is its unforgiving discussion of puberty, a topic that’s often skimmed over or deemed inappropriate for younger audiences. Mei’s period is discussed openly, and she has a crush on a boy band which she appears to swoon over for most of the movie. Alongside this, the movie also depicts instances of disobeying your parents, when Mei decides to sneak out of the house. Many people have voiced their distaste for these topics, claiming that this movie is a bad influence for children, and they will grow up learning to disobey their parents and have no filter towards discussions that should be private. The ratings for Turning Red have plummeted as a result—but is this really a good reason to dislike the movie?
Turning Red isn’t the only movie to promote these kinds of themes—not even the only film from Pixar or Disney. Inside Out shows Riley, a young homesick teen, stealing her parent’s credit card and sneaking out of her house to take a bus to her old home. Mulan steals her father’s sword and takes his place in war. The Little Mermaid’s Ariel finds a way to reach the surface world against her father’s will. Mulan sails out to sea despite her father warning her against it. These are only a few of the examples of Disney movies, movies that are commonly watched by young children, that show the main character disobeying their parents. None of these movies were scolded for this, so why is Turning Red?
While it can’t be consistently proven, a reason for Turning Red’s criticism may be related to its setting and cast—that meaning, the fact that it is a movie centered around Chinese characters and depicting their culture. Many movies, especially ones for children, are usually in an American or white setting. In more recent times, Disney has seemed to branch out—movies like Moana, Encanto, and Coco all stray from the typical cast of white characters, seen in films such as Frozen and Tangled. Some of Disney’s white audience are growing frustrated with this, and are using any excuses they can get to criticize the film without exposing their true reason for distaste, which is usually linked to racist opinions. As such, it has resulted in this hypocritical argument of family-friendliness.
