“Hey, Lei, how’s it goin’ eh?”
“Good.”
“Good, eh? How’s that teenage girl of yours, eh?”
“Ruby is fine, Buck. But I’m worried about you. What’s up with all the ‘ehs’?”
“Lei, our specialty is doing film reviews to advance cross-cultural understanding, right?”
“Right!”
“Well, this latest Pixar movie, ‘Turning Red,’ on Disney+ is a family comedy about Mei Mei, a 13-year-old Chinese girl coming of age in Toronto, Canada’s Chinatown. You can’t miss the Tim Horton’s! I was just speaking Canadian-ese.”
“Oh, so you end every sentence with ‘eh,’ eh? Buck Ryan, this is 2022, you can’t be spouting stereotypes like that!”
“Which brings me back to the movie, Lei. It definitely has its lovers and its haters, but one criticism is about stereotyping, especially the girl’s mother as a ‘Tiger Mom.’”
“Well, Buck, there’s always some truth in stereotypes. As I’ve said before, I test positive for Tiger Mom. Just the other day I saw a satirical TikTok — we call it Douyin — about a Tiger Dad.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, his son confesses that he got a ‘B’ in geography on his midterm, and the dad goes ballistic. My favorite part was: ‘I swam all the way from China … when I went to school, I had to walk 20 miles uphill, both ways, 26 hours a day, on one foot. My other foot was starting a business.”
“LOL. So it’s a real thing, eh?”
“Oh, Buck, you’re hopeless.”
“OK, Lei, here’s something for you: Director and co-writer Domee Shi, who won a 2019 Oscar for the best animated short film ‘Bao,’ based the story of ‘Turning Red’ on her own experiences growing up with a Chinese-Canadian family in Toronto.”
“I see, Buck, that makes sense.”
“Why do you say that?”
“From what I can see of immigrants living overseas, they act more Chinese than the Chinese people I know in China.”
“Hmm, do you mean more strict?”
“Well, Chinese parents are strict around the globe, maybe more so abroad so their kids don’t do something foolish in public, cause embarrassment and fail to live up to their Confucian purpose in life — to bring honor to the family.”
“Then what about Mei Mei’s mom who is so overbearing and controlling, not giving her daughter any privacy?”
“I can relate to that. I know of Chinese moms who rifle through their daughters’ diaries and bedroom drawers.”
“How about when Mei Mei’s mom blatantly confronts her daughter’s boy crush in the Daisy Mart?”
“Now we’re getting closer, Buck. Chinese moms try to keep their young daughters away from boys, for sure. But my parents were never that extreme.”
“Talk about extreme, I couldn’t believe Mei Mei’s grandmother, the way she interacted with her own daughter.”
“Yes, Buck, I didn’t have to be that timid and overcautious around my mother.”
“What about the family temple to pay homage to ancestors?”
“Bingo! There’s truth there, but it makes the movie seem extra cartoonish to me.”
“Tell me more.”
“Well, Buck, all you had to see were the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Winter Olympics. Yes, we love our traditions, but we are moving on in modern ways. Hollywood still portrays us in dynasty-lag time — that’s where you feel the stereotype rub.”
“So, Lei, what would you say this movie is all about?”
“Puberty.”
“Oh, that’s different.”
“Yes, Buck, we did an entire film review about another Chinese girl, ‘Mulan,’ without mentioning that.”
“How do the Pixar folks describe the film, Lei?”
“Are you ready for this, Buck? Here goes …
Mei Lee (nicknamed Mei Mei, played by Rosalie Chiang) is a 13-year-old girl who is torn between being her mother’s obedient daughter and the chaos of her youth. As if that were not enough, when she gets too excited, she turns into a big red panda.
… The panda thing is a family curse, and I guess ‘gets too excited’ are code words for what happens when the girl has her period and causes a rift with her mother.”
“Egads, Lei, we’re really in new territory here.”
“Yes, Buck, Mei Mei starts out in the movie fragile in the confidence department, then by the movie’s end, she rides a new wave of self-assurance.”
“I’d say she flies her freak flag in many zany episodes, including a crush on a boy band.”
“Yes, Buck, I guess Mulan flew her freak flag by trying to crush the Huns.”
“Oh, Lei, you are too funny. So did you like the movie?”
“Well, not really, but Ruby liked it.”
“That makes sense. You’re not exactly the target audience.”
“Buck, I’ll never forget watching ‘The Joy Luck Club’ movie with a film major friend who is a Brit. I wept and he yawned.”
“So that cracking lad was knackered.”
“Bloody righto, Buck, and I’m so glad you didn’t add ‘eh.’”
“So, Lei, I’m kinda getting the impression that ‘Turning Red’ is a Rorschach test. Whether you like it or not depends on your personality and emotional functioning. The red panda is like a big inkblot.”
“That’s so deeeep, Buck, that you’re now standing in a hole.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a kids movie, Buck. A cartoon, for goodness’ sake. Lots of color, lots of flash, great animation, some really funny scenes, music with a beat you can dance to. It was made for kids like Ruby, not you or me.”
“Sorry, Lei, I keep looking for a message.”
“Well, Buck, the message is that when Disney goes out on a limb and hands the reins to all women — mostly Chinese — you’re going to get a movie that causes cognitive dissonance for some people.”
“All women?”
“Yes, Buck, ‘Turning Red’ is a first for Walt Disney Studios — a film directed, written and produced by women. The story was co-written by the director, Domee Shi, along with Julia Cho and Sarah Streicher, and the production design was done by Rona Liu.”
“Wow, that is quite a message. Unfortunately that dissonance thing has become part of the storyline about ‘Turning Red’ — a film review since deleted with the reviewer apologizing.”
“If he’s not nice, Buck, he’s obviously not from Canada. Who is the reviewer?”
“Sean O’Connell, called ‘the biggest name in North Carolina entertainment news.’ He was born on Long Island and raised in Washington, D.C. Let’s just say he brought unwanted attention to his hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina.”
“What did he say that was so bad?”
“Well, I’ll go easy on you, Lei, beginning with a tweet by O’Connell. He doubled down on his widely condemned review for CinemaBlend, where he serves as managing editor for “One Of The Web’s Most Popular Entertainment Sites” …
“Some Pixar films are made for universal audiences. Turning Red is not. The target audience for this one feels very specific and very narrow. If you are in it, this might work very well for you. I am not in it. This was exhausting.”
“Well, Buck, I get the feeling something worse is coming.”
“OK, Lei, hold tight. Here’s an excerpt from the original review …
“Without question, Turning Red is the horniest movie in Pixar history, which parents no doubt will find surprising. I recognized the humor in the film, but connected with none of it. By rooting Turning Red very specifically in the Asian community of Toronto, the film legitimately feels like it was made for Domee Shi’s friends and immediate family members. Which is fine … but also, a tad limiting in its scope.”
“Oh, Buck, that’s ridiculous.”
“Yep.”
“What could be more universal than a teenaged girl coming of age, becoming a young woman with new desires and energy, not to mention loving, nerdy friends who literally embrace the crazy, furry side of her.”
“So, Lei, you give the movie a thumbs up, eh?”
“No, Buck, an A+ for moms and daughters who wish to share a little girl-power time together.”
About the authors: Buck Ryan, a University of Kentucky journalism professor, and Lei Jiao, an English lecturer at Wuhan University of Technology, Hubei Province, China, collaborate on articles to advance cross-cultural understanding. Ryan, who is doing a “participatory case study” of the News + Record, has been a visiting scholar at three universities in China, including Jiao’s WUT.
You can read their five previous film reviews here:
https://www.chathamnewsrecord.com/stories/love-conquers-slings-and-arrows-aimed-at-new-version,6690
https://www.chathamnewsrecord.com/stories/raya-meets-camus-so-you-think-its-just-a-kids-movie-eh,8702
https://www.chathamnewsrecord.com/stories/your-kids-will-flip-over-shang-chi-while-it-trips-over-a-china-divide,10663
https://www.chathamnewsrecord.com/stories/2-blockbusters-fight-a-box-office-war-across-a-us-china-political-divide,11950
https://www.chathamnewsrecord.com/stories/the-matrix-4-gets-a-red-pill-thumbs-up-and-a-blue-pill-thumbs-down,12169