By Eden Haddad | Activism Junior Editor
How Animation Movies with Real-Life Depictions Angered a Mob of White Men.
The scene is the early 2000s. Animated movies in the West mostly revolved around toys, cars, animals, monsters and/or all four. Shrek and the Incredibles, Finding Nemo and Toy Story. All movies that nearly everyone is at the very least familiar with and at the very most, incredibly fond of. Fast forward to 2022 where the majority of Pixar movies have turned into content about human beings. What a shock to the film connoisseurs of the world. Coming of age features with humor, actual depictions of teenagers – and most horridly, teenage girls – sprinkled with some generational trauma.
Obviously, this is detrimental to the movie community, so the Johns and Chads rose up around the world to take this issue straight to the international court of law and public opinion, or otherwise known as reddit, rotten tomatoes, or letterbox. Turning Red is the latest Pixar movie where a 13 years old, Chinese Canadian girl called Mei Lee, starts turning into a red panda when her emotions go out of control. Basically, a thinly veiled allegory for puberty. This was an issue, because the topic is not deemed appropriate for children, especially as they outright said the word “pads” – never mind that most people assigned female at birth get their periods around 13 if not younger. One specific review that took the internet by storm was “Some Pixar films are made for a universal audience. Turning red is not. The target audience for this one feels very specific, and very narrow. If you are in it, this might work well for you. I am not in it. This was exhausting.” Everyone is entitled to their own opinion; however, it is important to note that this sort of narrow-mindedness and borderline casual racism, especially about a movie regarding different cultures with the main lead being young girl, is detrimental to two main things, besides the obvious disrespect and dehumanization aspect: being able to receive more movies with more representation for previously ignored or stereotyped groups of people and creating a space that exists outside of one person’s own little bubble.
The outrage exposed a larger issue within the film industry, particularly within children’s movies as racism and homophobia and sexism battle for first place in the discrimination Olympics. TV shows are not exempt from this of course, but normally receive less attention due to the generally smaller platform rather than the large Hollywood theatrical releases. When we speak of art mediums, we must be able to do so in the widest possible space conceivable – that is to mean, with all groups of people taken into account. Only by doing so can we not only begin to accurately reflect the real world, but also by improving it for our own sakes and for the generations to come.