Turning Red FULL Reaction
Added 2022-04-09 19:46:50 +0000 UTCSo, apparently there was a bit of controversy surrounding this one?? Anyways, I LOVED the premise of this movie but the execution... I also have lots of thoughts/ questions, so I'd love to hear different takes and interpretations of the messages and themes throughout. Also, was this released theatrically? Am I completely lost, or was this just on Disney Plus?
Comments
Well, Meilin was already very respectufl and putting all the work as a teenager! She was already an ultra responsible exemplary kid! Top marks, work in the temple, praying with her mother, doing all her homework. You did have that other side in the movie already, she was pretty much perfect! The poor girl just wanted to go to a concert and be allowed to enjoy her music and like her friends without being criticized by her mum. So I think it was pretty balanced already. It would be borderline impossible to find a more respectful and responsible kid than Meilin, until she exploded cause her mother didn't allow her to be just a child for a minute.
Tx28
2022-04-10 22:02:44 +0000 UTCI personally took the beginning part as Mei feeling as if she was independent and she felt that way with her friends but she really wasn’t. Yes she liked cleaning but that was attached to spending time with her mother and on some level her mother’s approval. Her whole identity was pretty much tied to her mother’s identity. Even her grades. Later we see them slipping but if that was something really important to her she would’ve maintained those grades regardless. Mei’s growth for me was to actually gain independence separate from her mother. The fact that even after the Daisy Mart incident Mei was so out of touch with herself and her emotions that she got angry at herself for having a crush instead of being angry at her mother (normal response) for taking something so personal and exposing it to the world, spoke volumes. So because Mei had a good relationship with her mother pre-panda, she didn’t really understand what true independence actually meant. I loved the growth of Mei in this film but that’s probably because I’ve witnessed the complex nature of identity within this type of family dynamic, coming from an “Asian” background myself.
Effie
2022-04-10 10:37:55 +0000 UTCI like this movie, but I kind of feel like the hype is overblown because of the controversy. While the controversy is kind of silly, I do feel like there's something off-kilter. In the last family conflict movie I enjoyed (I won't say what it is, since I don't remember if you've reacted), the point wasn't for the main protagonist to teach his family exactly how they were wrong to impose a ridiculous rule--that had to happen, but the other side of the plot was the character realizing that there were things more important than his pre-teen angst, and that his family was one of those things. Only when he accepts himself as part of them are they able to see that the rule has outlived its usefulness and accept him for what he is. (Vague enough?) Here, Meilin starts out from the beginning saying that she's independent. Her friends may think she's brainwashed, but she clearly does enjoy her temple duties. The most serious problem she has in her family seems to be that she doesn't admit that her tastes differ slightly from her mother's. At the end, the only thing she seems to have learned is that she was even more right than she thought at the beginning, and her only problem was that she hadn't enforced this earlier. Which means that basically, she learned nothing except for something was not established as a problem until suddenly it needed to be. There wasn't growth. Ming got some--but her flaws also escalated without any particular reason. (I'm sure they just wanted the child audience to really realize how very embarrassing the situation was, but overdoing it like they did at the school and the DaisyMart really dumbed it down too much.) None of that made it unenjoyable. Unlike a movie that had more or less the same plot, Captain Marvel ("See you really are as powerful as you think you are if you just remove those shackles and LEARN NOTHING ELSE"), I did enjoy this one quite a bit, especially its spot on understanding of what it's like to be a 13-year-old girl being subjected to sudden, almost painful crushes), celebrity worship, the team of besties, the embarrassing things the body is doing, etc. Those things are great and I appreciate that Disney decided to normalize these experiences in such a fun way. It was just... the plot. The character arcs. Just... didn't entirely work. Plus, the fairly silly threat that she'd only have one chance to get rid of the panda when the movie makes it explicitly clear that the ritual can more or less be done on any red moon, and if she wanted to, she could just take it out at some other eclipse. And I'd guess, if the rest of them broke their talismans again and then changed their minds, they could do the same, as we literally see them do it here. I would say that to some extent, Ming is learning to deal with her panda, now that Gao put it into the Tamagotchi and has to constantly take care of it.
FernWithy
2022-04-10 02:19:41 +0000 UTC
