It seems a somewhat superfluous and arbitrary decision to set the coming-of-age events of Turning Red in the year 2002. And yet, upon further consideration, co-writers Domee Shi (who also directed) and Julia Cho might be on to something with opting for the time period that appeals to the current state of “echo boomer” nostalgia more than ever as said generation starts to raise their own children into semi-adults. Granted, the argument goes that surely anyone from a generation other than the millennial one has to be more adult than these semi-functioning ones—featuring the likes of Anna Delvey as a mascot among their key representatives.
As we see Turning Red’s heroine, Meilin “Mei Mei” Lee (Rosalie Chiang), experience her childhood in the 90s, complete with a snapshot of her and her mother, Ming (Sandra Oh), freeze-framed at the beginning to show how close they are in 1994, when she would have been eight, the segue to 2002 comes with another photo of the duo. Although mother and daughter are still unhealthily close in their visible enmeshment, it’s obvious that Mei Mei’s rebellious side (by Chinese-Canadian progeny standards) is starting to rear its (actually rather cute) red panda head. And yes, the film’s title is both an allusion to a girl getting her rag for the first time and the red panda “totem” that is a supposedly symbolic essence of Mei’s family lineage thanks to Sun Yee, the matriarchal ancestor whose obsession with and fondness for red pandas led her to ask the proverbial gods to make her become one in a wartime crisis back in the day. Sun Yee, not realizing the inconvenience of bestowing this “gift” on her female descendants, decided that they ought to have said ability too. One that appropriately gets tapped into when it’s time for their first period to come along.
Despite Ming being well-aware of the inevitable transition, she seems taken aback that her precious Mei Mei should get “the curse” so soon. Even if thirteen is the standard age for a girl to receive her rag… in fact, that’s even considered “late” in life at this point. It’s clearly a case of wanting to deny that Mei could ever “transform,” especially into something other than Ming’s obedient little girl. Indeed, the grotesque term “good girl” is used a few times in Turning Red—arguably the last thing any woman wants to be called, least of all by a man, for its connotations both demeaning and pedophilic. Yet that’s all Mei has ever aspired to be in her naïve need to seek approval (the signifier of “love”) from Ming.
Meanwhile, Mei’s three best friends, Miriam (Ava Morse), Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Abby (Hyein Park), seem to have it much easier in terms of parental laxity, with the trio constantly trying to get her to break free from her after-school responsibilities to Ming at the temple they run. What’s more, Ming doesn’t much care for any of the company Mei chooses to keep, particularly Miriam—who is white (therefore perhaps deemed an automatic “bad influence” in Ming’s eyes). And, with regard to Mei’s rainbow of friends, if one can’t help but marvel at the “diversity” (a.k.a. normal representation) in Turning Red, it’s owed at least in part to being set in Toronto (where Shi also hails from)—the true melting pot of North America. As such, a Chinatown presence is to be expected, and that’s precisely where the Lees reside.
But back to the time setting. 2002 was arguably one of the last moments in twenty-first century history for technological innocence. And sure, 9/11 had just happened, ergo a newfound jadedness about humanity, but even so, with the perspective of the present, it’s not hard to see that this was still a pure(r) era. One in which there was no fear of things being posted to the internet without your consent (unless you were Pam and Tommy Lee)—this presently a legitimate phobia of being a post-millennial youth. Other “historical details” of the 00s peppered into Turning Red include Tamagotchis (the true height of technological advancement), a fellow classmate wearing butterfly clips in her hair, another classmate trying his best to look like a miniature Nelly and Miriam’s present to Mei of a burned CD (the “mix tape” of the day).
To that end, there was a very specific kind of music that was popular circa the early 00s, and it was: boy bands. Hence, the presence of 4*Town as integral characters to driving the plot of Mei’s rebellion against her mother. After all, there isn’t really any music in the present that one would sacrifice their entire being for the way girls once so readily did for the likes of *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys and O-Town (all being clear inspiration for 4*Town).
Finneas O’Connell (who voices 4*Town member Jesse), despite being five years old in ’02, perhaps remembers the oversaturated influence these clean-cut yet convict-looking men had on the girls and women around him, thus Disney enlisting him and his even more non-millennial sister to write some of the songs 4*Town sings, including “Nobody Like U,” “U Know What’s Up” and “1 True Love.” Alas, the ultimate parody of the boy band trope was already done in the actual time of the phenomenon’s peak, via the MTV movie called 2gether, in which the fictional boy band of the same name offers their screaming tween fans hit singles like, “U + Me = Us (Calculus)” and “Say It (Don’t Spray It).” The lampooning quintet even opened for Britney Spears during some of the shows for her 2000 tour. All of this is to say, the 00s were truly a time to be alive as a teen girl expressing the kind of devotional worship to boy band idols that could make her defy her overbearing parents at all costs.
Whereas now, with all of youth culture being essentially relegated to online existence, the formerly intense drive to do or see things (in real life) seems to have gotten lost along the transitional path from one generation’s youth to another’s. Therefore, the ultimately prudent decision of Turning Red’s filmmakers to set the narrative during a period when embarrassment was incurred in more analog ways (that Mei’s mother turns into an art form). Plus, it was easier in ’02 to scheme and dream without the burden of technology tracking a teenager’s every single move. In this regard, Turning Red might make those who did not grow up in the millennial heyday feel a pang of their own nostalgia for a time that was overtly simpler. Even if far less “woke” (complete with using the word “gay” to mean “stupid” or “lame”).
During one of the many iconic scenes of Diablo Cody’s 00s cult classic, Jennifer’s Body, Jennifer (Megan Fox) asks her frenemy, Needy (Amanda Seyfried), “You got a tampon?” When she replies that she does not, Jennifer retorts, “Thought I’d ask. You seem like you might be pluggin’.” Just as Mei seems like she might be whenever her emotions take hold and her inner red panda boils to the surface. But where Jennifer proves “hell is a teenage girl,” Mei is an emblem of harnessing that “female rage” for good and using it to become more self-assured in one’s own identity while not capitulating to the version your parents have in mind for you as they continue to oppress and manipulate for as long as they can while you’re still under their legal and financial control.
The encouragement to unleash one’s “inner beast” might be ill-advised in some instances, however. Particularly if directed at boys of the incel ilk. And yeah, those Columbine kids probably shouldn’t have. Or, you know, any potential school shooter just lurking beneath the surface of an “average” disgruntled teen. An increasingly garden-variety disgruntlement that actually appears more likely to occur in the generations that will continue to follow millennials as Earth becomes a less and less pleasant hellscape without even the distraction of a boy band to make one’s youth come across as a bit… rosier (no menstrual allusion intended). So yes, Turning Red did well to set its coming-of-age narrative in what was probably the last “manageable” epoch to, well, come of age in.
