“Turning Red” Made Me Feel Understood As a Chinese-American Teen

“With her giant red panda confidence, Mei is an inspiration for me.”
Turning Red
©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection

All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.

In this review of Pixar’s Turning Red, 14-year-old film critic Tabitha Yuen explores how the new animated film accurately represents young Asian girls.

Turning Red isn’t your stereotypical Asian-led Disney movie. There aren’t any fantastical dragons, and the protagonist doesn’t know kung fu. Instead, the film centers on Meilin Lee, or “Mei” (voiced by Rosalie Chiang), who is going through an awkward stage of huge hormonal changes. Writer and director Domee Shi builds milestones in Hollywood with an all-women team of writers and revolutionizes Turning Red as the first Pixar feature film to solely be directed by a woman, and the first to feature an Asian lead in 13 years.

This film features Mei as a confident Chinese Canadian teenage girl who juggles being a perfect daughter and becoming more independent. Her life takes a turn for the cuter when she turns into a giant, adorable red panda whenever she gets mega-emotional!

I relate metaphorically to her morphing into a giant red panda, which is an allegory for the uncontrollable chaos that is puberty. Domee Shi told HuffPost that the idea came from “wanting to make a movie for that 13-year-old Domee who was struggling with her body and her emotions and fighting with her mom every day and wanting to understand what was going on at that time, but in a fun and unique and magical way.”

Similar to Mei, I struggled with the bodily and emotional changes that come with being a young teenage girl. From deodorant to pads, the change can be overwhelming. When Mei’s perfect academic scores slipped after becoming the red panda, I was reminded of having just started puberty during middle school, and failing my first test due to its distraction. Like Mei, I was afraid of disappointing my parents, but felt overwhelmed by all of the responsibilities in my life. But I eventually adjusted to my changing body, just like Mei, who comes to embrace her inner panda.

As a Chinese American, I felt a strong connection to one specific scene in the movie: when Mei looked to her parents for approval on her bao wrapping skills. Wrapping baos and dumplings are something #VeryAsian I do with my own mother. I love seeing Hollywood movies capture how central food is to many Asian American cultures. From Rachel Chu bonding with her fiance Nick Young’s family during a dumpling-wrapping party in 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians, to Domee Shi’s previous 2018 short film Bao, it's clear that dumplings have a place in the hearts of Chinese families everywhere.

Turning Red also shines as a mixtape of representation. I especially enjoyed the boyband 4-Town, a diverse group of multi-ethnic heartthrobs. As a fangirl of groups like Blackpink and more, I understood Mei and her friends. And like Mei, I’ve been dying to go see an upcoming pop concert (Olivia Rodrigo in my case) but was also told by my parents that I couldn’t go. 

While watching the scenes of Mei and her friends at the 4-Town concert, I hounded my parents even more about going to my own concert. But like Mei's friend Miriam (voiced by Ava Morse), I also have parents who thought the ticket price was too expensive. So when Mei and her friends came up with magical panda money-making schemes, I began dreaming up my own fantastical idea of creating NFTs to sell. (Spoiler alert: I still have no idea what NFTs are or how to make one.)

Furthermore, Mei’s multicultural school mirrors my own classmates in everyday life. Mei’s BFFs Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Abby (Hyein Park) remind me of my own South Asian American and Korean American friends. I even saw classmates that I rarely see on screen, like characters wearing hijabs and characters with diabetes. Interacting with people of different backgrounds is what real life is like, and this film celebrates it in a refreshing way.

However, despite all the stereotypes it successfully breaks, there’s one that remains. Mei’s mother Ming Lee (Sandra Oh), while hilarious, comes off as a stereotypical Asian “tiger mom.” She controls Mei’s schedule so much that Mei doesn’t have time to go to karaoke with her friends after school because she has to go straight home to clean the family temple. Cringingly, Ming Lee even breaks into Mei’s schoolyard to embarrass her in front of her classmates by announcing, “You forgot your pads!” 

But the final straw is when Ming takes Mei to confront her crush, mortifying Mei to the point of sparking her red panda transformation. Even though my own mom has high expectations for me, she isn’t overbearing or controlling like Ming. While there may be controlling mothers in some Asian families, it’s important to note that not all Asian mothers are tiger moms.

Overall, this film is a whimsical coming-of-age story about an Asian Canadian girl navigating her life as a teen. You will snort with laughter at Mei’s awkwardness, like when she draws her crushes as mermen and hums along to 4-Town’s catchy tunes.

With her giant red panda confidence, Mei is an inspiration for me as I learn to take up more space as an Asian American girlboss. Like Mei, I wear what I want, say what I want, and am not afraid to let everyone know! Turning Red will be “never not on my mind, oh my, oh my” for a long time.

Turning Red is now streaming on Disney+

Let us slide into your DMs. Sign up for the Teen Vogue daily email.

Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: