{"id":9034,"date":"2022-03-21T13:04:56","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T17:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pixarplanet.com\/blog\/?p=9034"},"modified":"2023-09-10T21:45:37","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T01:45:37","slug":"turning-red-on-celebrating-cringiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pixarplanet.com\/blog\/turning-red-on-celebrating-cringiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning Red On Celebrating &#8216;Cringiness&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Turning Red <\/em>took the world by storm last Friday on Disney+; a storm I was eagerly anticipating since I saw its early screening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I&#39;ve been sitting here after watching an early screening of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TurningRed?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#TurningRed<\/a> trying to put my initial reaction into words, and all I can come up with is&#8230;I think Turning Red is going to be a sensation. <br><br>I feel like we&#39;re in the calm before the storm. The red panda storm. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/R0Q5OJ5HxP\">pic.twitter.com\/R0Q5OJ5HxP<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Upcoming Pixar (@upcomingpixar) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/upcomingpixar\/status\/1495894705028091906?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 21, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Turning Red <\/em>has achieved a lot of \u2018firsts\u2019. Around four years ago, I was beyond excited when Domee Shi\u2019s directorial debut <em>Bao <\/em>was announced. It felt like Pixar finally taking important steps towards equality and diversity in their storytelling. <em>Turning Red <\/em>feels like proof of this. Imagine our past selves \u2013 our na\u00efve, 2018 selves \u2013 learning about <em>Turning Red<\/em>; about its female leads, its female director, producer and writers, and about its wonderful observation of female relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I attended a virtual interview with the cast and crew (an all-female panel!) of <em>Turning Red <\/em>before the Disney+ release. You could sense the pride everyone felt from being involved in this film. The characters really resonated with all of them, and obviously this was especially true for Domee Shi, who took inspiration for the story from her own childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s interesting and oddly poignant that out of all the childhood stages Shi had to choose from, she went for perhaps the cringiest stage of all: the early teen stage. It was a brave move to make for the movie, to create four main characters at an age that many of us try our best to forget about. Shi didn\u2019t just choose to make Mei and her friend group 13 years old \u2013 she made the decision to portray this life stage painfully accurately. <em>Turning Red <\/em>doesn\u2019t shy away from \u2018cringiness\u2019 \u2013 it <strong>embraces <\/strong>it. And this is to the movie\u2019s benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"872\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.us-east-1.wasabisys.com\/upcomingpixar\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/domee-shi-03-22.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9036\" srcset=\"https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/domee-shi-03-22.png 872w, https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/domee-shi-03-22-300x241.png 300w, https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/domee-shi-03-22-768x617.png 768w, https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/domee-shi-03-22-375x300.png 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 872px) 100vw, 872px\" \/><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CbHfK62rBXE\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Director Domee Shi uploaded this amazing illustration to her Instagram following the release of <em>Turning Red<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Often, films centred around young teen protagonists have the habit of giving them the \u201cdifferent from other kids\u201d trope, suggesting that you can\u2019t be the hero of a story if you\u2019re just some regular kid. <em>Turning Red <\/em>doesn\u2019t do this. Mei, Miriam, Abby, and Priya are 13-year-olds being just that \u2013 13-year-olds. They like boy bands. They\u2019re goofy. They get crushes. And their friendship is a huge part of their lives. Their supportive and dorky little friend group might be the most accurate depiction of female friendship I\u2019ve ever seen in a movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"659\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.us-east-1.wasabisys.com\/upcomingpixar\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Concept-Art-Keiko-Murayama-1024x659.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9040\" srcset=\"https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Concept-Art-Keiko-Murayama-1024x659.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Concept-Art-Keiko-Murayama-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Concept-Art-Keiko-Murayama-768x494.jpg 768w, https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Concept-Art-Keiko-Murayama-1536x989.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Concept-Art-Keiko-Murayama-2048x1318.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption><em>Turning Red <\/em>concept art by Keiko Murayama<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"548\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.us-east-1.wasabisys.com\/upcomingpixar\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Turning-Red-friend-hug-1-1024x548.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9043\" srcset=\"https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Turning-Red-friend-hug-1-1024x548.png 1024w, https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Turning-Red-friend-hug-1-300x161.png 300w, https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Turning-Red-friend-hug-1-768x411.png 768w, https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Turning-Red-friend-hug-1-1536x822.png 1536w, https:\/\/upcomingpixar.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Turning-Red-friend-hug-1.png 1904w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, Mei ended up being a little different to a typical 13-year-old after she discovered her \u201cinconvenient\u201d red panda transformation trait. But I loved how her <em>and <\/em>her friends were the heroines of the story, even before the climactic sequence. They\u2019re all dealing with such a difficult amount of change, and they\u2019re supporting each other along the way. <em>Turning Red <\/em>is going to be an important movie for so many girls growing up into adolescence, but it\u2019s also made me come to terms with how my past, cringy self is such a superhero. I didn\u2019t have to deal with turning into a giant red panda every time I got emotional, but wow did I have to deal with a whole lot else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sandra Oh, voice of Ming, said it so well in the virtual interview:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u201cI just really appreciated how it\u2019s like all these girls, even in their young womanhood, are in charge of their lives and they\u2019re making <em><strong>their<\/strong> <\/em>decisions.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>There are many themes in <em>Turning Red <\/em>that I\u2019m a huge fan of: the mother-daughter relationship, the coming-of-age story, the early 2000s vibes\u2026 But the thing that I\u2019ve had hanging around in my head the most (aside from 4*Town\u2019s music) after watching the movie for the fourth time now is: the impact and value of female support networks, and how well the movie represented that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When asked what advice she had for aspiring women directors, Domee Shi replied:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u201cFor me, it was \u2026 being able to find a support system and a community at Pixar. That was so valuable for me, and really built my confidence and my voice as a filmmaker and a storyteller. When I first started at Pixar, there were only, like, four or five women in the story department, out of a department of, like, 30 or 40. But we started having lunches together and kinda sharing stories \u2026<br>It can feel so lonely being a woman, being a person of colour in this industry, that I think it&#8217;s so important to find those colleagues, those allies, to &#8230; just help you not feel alone as you struggle and work your way through this industry. So that was huge for me.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"tmnf_excerpt\"><p>Turning Red took the world by storm last Friday on Disney+; a storm I was eagerly anticipating since I saw its early screening. Turning Red has achieved a lot of \u2018firsts\u2019. Around four years ago, I was beyond excited when Domee Shi\u2019s directorial debut Bao was announced. It felt like Pixar finally taking important steps &hellip;<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":9043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[323,13,278,269,423],"tags":[320,275,432,430],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Turning Red On Celebrating &#039;Cringiness&#039; - Upcoming Pixar<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pixarplanet.com\/blog\/turning-red-on-celebrating-cringiness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Turning Red On Celebrating &#039;Cringiness&#039; - Upcoming Pixar\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Turning Red took the world by storm last Friday on Disney+; a storm I was eagerly anticipating since I saw its early screening. 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