A few weeks ago, my friend invited me over to their dorm to watch the new Pixar movie that had just come out. My three friends and I all piled onto a single twin-sized dorm bed with a large bowl of buttered popcorn on our laps. Our legs crisscrossed and weaved under each other as the faint glow coming from the laptop illuminated our faces. I reached forward over the jumble of limbs and hit the spacebar on the keyboard. The computer screen flashed crimson red as the opening scene of Pixar’s Turning Red began to play. For the next hour and forty minutes, we were absorbed into Meilin Lee’s coming-of-age story and watched as she navigated the chaos of her adolescent years.
The story follows the heroine, Meilin “Mei” Lee, a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl growing up in early 2000s Toronto. Mei is a bubbly sociable girl, excited to embrace her newfound independence as an “adult”. She is also a dedicated student with a strong work ethic, exemplified by the “This girl loves math” and “Read!” stickers plastered on her flute case. Outside of school, Mei spends her afternoons diligently maintaining her family’s temple and giving tours to visitors. A constant in Mei’s life is the relationships she has with those around her. She is very close with her parents, though she struggles with her mother, Ming’s, expectations of a “perfect Mei Mei”. Outside of her family, Mei is best friends with Miriam, Priya, and Abby. The girls’ friendship is fueled by their love for the teen boy band “4TOWN” and their determination to see the band live in concert. As with most animated movies, there is always some aspect that includes a bit of magic or supernatural occurrences. For Mei, when she feels any strong emotion she transforms into a giant red panda, a trait passed down through the family’s female lineage. Although I am now an adult, I must admit that animated Disney movies are a personal favorite of mine. Their glittery, colorful, imaginative visuals transport viewers into a world filled with endearing and expressive characters. Some may see them as a frivolous waste of time, but these movies offer more than just an hour or two of mindless fun. At their core, they reflect the truth of real-life situations. Turning Red is no exception to this and out of all the many films I have watched in my life, the movie stood out amongst the rest in its portrayal of friendship between teenage girls.
One difference between Turning Red and other movies that I found particularly relatable was the characterization of the four middle school girls. The movie does not shy away from depicting Mei, Miriam, Priya, and Abby’s “fangirl” status. Over the years, I have become more aware that society views young girls’ interests as distasteful. Trends that are popular among young girls are labeled “basic”, “cringe” or “foolish”. Growing up, I had witnessed this repeatedly. People picked apart every aspect of a girl’s wardrobe, her white Adidas sneakers and pendant necklace were “basic”. This slang term may have been seen as a funny jab, but the humor surrounding it masked the sexist notion that what is popular amongst young girls is inherently less valuable. It’s a frustrating phenomenon, but more so, especially when I was younger, it left me feeling embarrassed about my likes and interests. Similarly, terms like “fangirl’ have been used negatively. Society has painted an unfair picture of overly obsessed, annoying, immature “fangirls”. In contrast, the movie rejects depicting the girls in this way and fully embraces the dedication, thoughtfulness, and admiration that come with being a “fangirl”. I look back on the time with sadness that I was misled to believe the value of my interest was less than others. I hid my interests from others in fear that I would be labeled a “fangirl”. By offering a positive take on the idea of “fangirls” and the value of girl’s interests, I saw myself reflected in the characters and sympathized with their shared love for “4TOWN”. If only I had been exposed to movies like Turning Red, which offers a much-needed respite from the societal onslaught of disparaging comments, I may have understood the value of my interests sooner.
Reflecting on the movie’s success at dispelling negative stereotypes of “fangirls”, I have come to realize there are many movies that depict toxic dynamics between young girls. These depictions fall far short of understanding and embracing the special qualities of female friendship. They fail to capture the unique dynamics that have been present in almost all my relationships with female friends. As I have come to know through these friendships, there is a baseline understanding amongst young girls. Almost like a vault of shared experiences from childhood that is easily unlocked in each other’s presence. This understanding comes with little effort and explanation, making it easy to bond with one another. Philosopher, Elizabeth Telfer, examines the nature of friendship between people in her piece “Friendship”, published in The Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Vol. 71. According to Telfer, friendship is built off of three “conditions”, “reciprocal services, mutual contact, and joint pursuit,” (224). If Telfer’s argument, that these three stipulations, “are all necessary conditions of friendship,” (Telfer 224), then the relationship between the girls in Turning Red provides a clear demonstration of friendship.
The girl’s love for the boy band “4TOWN” is the glue between each other. They know all the songs and dance moves by heart. Their love for the band brings the girls together and helps their relationship thrive. Driven by their passion for “4TOWN” the girls seek out each other to celebrate the band. The girls’ actions exemplify the mutual contact part of Telfer’s argument,
“The sense of a bond, or the sense that we have something in common with another person, is a quite separate reason for seeking his company from the existence of liking,” (227).
It’s a simple human inclination to want to belong and connect with those that share your same interests. Additionally, the girls engage in a joint pursuit to go to the concert. Together, the girls formulate a plan to deceive Mei’s mother, raise enough money for tickets and attend the concert as their first step into “womanhood” (41:33). To raise enough money to go to the concert, the girls work together and create a business using Mei’s red panda persona to sell merchandise, pictures, and autographs to other students who have become fans of Mei’s fluffy red fur and cat-like ears. Telfer's piece, “Friendship”, offers an academic perspective on the nature of friendship which can be used to understand why I find the girl’s friendship in the movie relatable.
Now, I am not trying to say that the girl’s friendship is facilitated by their love for a group of famous boys. That idea would short-sell the strength of their bond. Telfer argues that in coordination with the three “conditions”,
“Friendship depends, not only on the performance of certain actions but also on their being performed for certain specific reasons-out of friendship, as we say, rather than out of duty or pity or indeed self-interest,” (Telfer 224).
This “passion” is driven by specific elements. Telfer writes that one of these elements is “affection” and that friends must have genuine affection for each other. “I define ‘affection’ as a desire for another’s welfare and happiness as a particular individual,” (224). In the movie, Mei’s transformation into a giant red panda represents all the parts of her that she feels are chaotic and messy. Mei feels she must hide her interests from her mother, who bluntly voices her disapproval of provocative dancing, “4TOWN” and Mei’s burgeoning interest in boys. Intensified by her mother’s expectation of “perfection”, Mei has to fight the inner turmoil of living up to others’ expectations or being her true self. Throughout the movie, Mei’s friends show great care and concern for her well-being as she struggles with her rapidly changing circumstances. To calm her nerves and contain her red panda, for example, Mei imagines herself in a dream-like atmosphere, surrounded by her three friends as they coo soft words of affirmation to her, “The important thing is you tried,” (36:31). Her relationship with her friends is what uplifts her and allows her to embrace her new self. In stark contrast to her mother, the girls unconditionally accept Mei for who she is. They don’t ostracize her when she is unable to go out with them because of her obligations at work and school. She is always invited to join them even though they know she is likely unable to. In this way, Mei’s friend’s become her source of strength, a sort of ever-flowing fountain of support and acceptance.
The movie prompted me to look back on my friendships at this age. Away from the comfort of my home and family, middle school was daunting. My palms grew sweaty and my cheeks flushed red the minute I walked through the doors of the school. I felt small standing in the crowded hallways and lunchrooms. At home, I was funny, charismatic, and carefree, but at school, I retreated into myself. I hid away all the best parts of me out of fear of my peer’s reactions and not fitting in. Without the constant support of my closest friends, Anna and Moira, I would not have been able to navigate the precarious social ecosystem and increased academic rigor. Their constant friendship and support offered a home away from home where I could again feel comfortable enough to act like myself. They encouraged me to grow and always showed patience in moments when I hesitated. Like Mei, the unwavering stability of their friendship allowed me to endure turbulent times.
At this point, I feel that I have offered enough examples of how I find Turning Red more relatable in its portrayal of adolescent female friendship. I’ve also dwelled enough on the fact that Hollywood, up until recently, has rarely portrayed female friendships in the way I have come to know them. So after watching Turning Red, I started to wonder why the friendship depicted in this movie was more relatable than others. What was the special ingredient that this movie had and others did not? I like to consider myself a problem solver, so I began to research to find out why previous films perpetuated unrelatable and, in my opinion, inaccurate portrayals of female friendship.
It is a sad fact that throughout history, women have been restricted from participating in the arts and artistic expression. From my cultural knowledge and experiences, western gender norms throughout history have limited women’s involvement in anything outside of the home. Rigid restrictions on what women could be involved in eclipsed their potential to be more than the role society, unwillingly, bound them to. In her piece titled, “Women as Artists and ‘Women’s Art,” art historian Madlyn Millner Kahr wrote,
“Legend and literature associate virtuous women with specific types of activities that can be conducted without stepping over the threshold into the public world,” (28).
This fact of history makes it easily recognizable that the majority of female characters were written by men due to the lack of women in the profession. Female characters, therefore, were written in relation to men and from a man’s perspective. As the English writer and pioneering figure in modernist literature, Virginia Woolf wrote in her extended essay, A Room of One’s Own,
“They are now and then mothers and daughters. But almost without exception, they are shown in their relation to men. It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen’s day, not only seen by the other sex but seen only in relation to the other sex,” (69).
This characterization of women in literature carried itself over to the film industry, where most female characters have been limited to specific tropes. In her master’s course thesis, “Recycled Tropes, Suffocating Stereotypes, or Hope For Film Heroines”, Samantha VanDale argues that these tropes acted as a
“signifier for the male other, where woman is the “bearer” not the “maker” of meaning. Whether she is the final girl or a woman in a refrigerator, the supporting female character is usually doing just that — supporting the male hero of the narrative,” (1).
The culture of Hollywood has for the majority of its life span shut out substantive narratives about women. Furthermore, the majority of filmmakers throughout the film industry’s history have been men who do not have the lived experiences of women. This made it obvious to me the reason why the tropes around female friendship exist so heavily in movies. Hollywood cannot portray female characters realistically, and therefore cannot portray female friendship in a way that I find relatable.
As I continued my research, I began to search for the answer as to why Turning Red was able to depict a story that felt both deeply personal and universally relatable. Along with the original film, a feature documentary about the making of the film was available. The documentary, Embrace The Panda: Making Turning Red, gives an inside look into the creator’s intentions behind the film. The makers of the film are all women, in fact, the director, Domee Shi, is the first Asian woman to solo direct a Pixar film. As the director, Shi worked closely with the all-woman team to bring a fresh nuanced perspective to the coming-of-age story. Scenes from the movie were replicated after Shi’s own experience of growing independence and teenage friendships. In addition to the creators injecting their own experiences and perspectives into the film, the actors who voiced the characters did the same. The characters and actors who portray them all share similar identities. Rosalie Chiang, the voice of Mei, was only fourteen when she was offered the role. Unsurprisingly, her performance is imbued with a quality of youthfulness and teen angst that brings the character to life. Likewise, the actors of Miriam, Priya, and Abby all share similar cultural backgrounds to their characters. For instance, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and the character she voices, Priya, are both Indian-Canadians. These shared qualities make the characters all the more tangible and easy to imagine in the real world. Watching the documentary film made it all the more evident that the movie is dedicated to an honest representation of young girls and their experiences. Although the main character magically turns into a giant red panda, the struggles she faced defying her mother’s expectations, embracing her messiness, and balancing her friendships were rooted in reality.
For days after watching the movie, I replayed scenes of the girls dancing along to “4TOWN” songs, skipping through the streets after school, or brainstorming ways to deceive their parents in my head. Like a movie reel, my mind scrolled through all my memories of friends and matched up the scenarios in the movie to my own experiences. Moments of loyalty, affection, humor, and forgiveness between Mei, Miriam, Priya, and Abby affirmed my experiences with other girls. The movie felt like a depiction of my reality and showed me how, just like Mei, my friendships with girls facilitated my personal growth during my adolescent years. The underrated aspect of movies like Turning Red is their emulation of real life. When movies are successful in depicting a story that audiences find relatable, they can act as a lens through which one can understand the world around them better. No matter how fanciful or unrealistic their plots may seem, in some way or another, movies present a fictionalized truth. Turning Red has all the qualities of a typical animated Pixar film, bubbly characters, cute graphics, and a heartwarming plot that work to create a joyful viewing experience. More importantly, though, the relationship between Mei and her friends gave me the chance to understand the impact and importance of my friendships with other girls. Ultimately, with honesty, care, and skill Turning Red revealed the magic of female friendship to me.
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge all the people that have influenced my writing in some way or another. I would first like to thank the creators of the movie Turning Red. Not only did they provide me with a fun movie to enjoy with friends. They also provided me with a thoughtful piece about adolescence, one that has made me look back on a time when I was younger and appreciate the people in my life and the growth I have experienced. I would like to thank my professor, Dr. Harris, for introducing me to works by Virginia Woolf. I had been meaning to read her work in my free time and I am grateful for the opportunity to delve deep into the writing of a very thoughtful author. I also want to thank my peer review group members, Samantha, Christina, and Rachel for giving me suggestions and helping me improve my piece. Most importantly, I am sincerely grateful for all the many friendships I have had with other girls growing up. Without them, I would not have had the opportunity to write about the relationships that are invaluable to me.
References
Kahr, Madlyn Millner. “Women as Artists and ‘Women’s Art.’” Woman’s Art Journal, vol. 3, no. 2, 1982, pp. 28–31, https://doi.org/10.2307/1358031. Accessed 13 Apr. 2022.
Milsom, Erica (March 11, 2022). Embrace the Panda: Making Turning Red (Television production).
Shi, Domee, director. Turning Red. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2022.
Telfer, Elizabeth. “Friendship.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian society. Vol. 71. Aristotelian Society, Wiley, 1970.
VanDale, Samantha. “Recycled Tropes, Suffocating Stereotypes, or Hope for Film Heroines.” (2021).
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. Alma Classics, 2019.