#Noone likes an angry giant. movie
#Noone likes an angry giant. full

The film also sports cheeky period references, from Tamagotchi to Sailor Moon. Mei’s favorite band, 4*Town, is a hilarious amalgamation of every early 2000s boy band, sporting all the nasally vocals, heavy synth, and drum pads you could want from a nostalgic trip down the backstreet. Those descriptors could easily fit millions of teen girls and adult women, but it’s rare, outside of Bob’s Burgers’ Tina Belcher, to see this kind of femininity lovingly, playfully depicted on screen. Mei is a boy-crazy fangirl who’s confident, passionate, and loves school.

#Noone likes an angry giant. full

Its Toronto setting is full of local color and details to delight the natives. In many ways, Turning Red will be a deeply familiar story to many members of its audience. The controversies, such as they are, range from claims that this film isn’t relatable to insistent discomfort with the depiction of a young woman in puberty, a child having autonomy, and the very reality of - yes, sometimes cringeworthy - 13-year-old girls. While that’s probably not true, the dust-ups around Turning Red keep gaining attention and going viral - maybe less because lots of people are mad than because the things a few people are mad about are just.

#Noone likes an angry giant. movie

And they’ve been loudly celebrating Turning Red’s unique elements: Its early-2000s Toronto setting, its celebration of teenage girlhood, and especially its thoughtful depiction of a child grappling with complicated issues of family, community, and repressed history.īut the buzz around the movie in the days since its March 11 release has been tinged with drama, and might well give you the impression that Turning Red is Pixar’s most controversial film since - maybe ever.

The vast majority of the film’s audience seems to adore its main character, a 13-year-old Chinese Canadian girl named Mei, with her proud fannish hobbies and her loyal geek squad friends. But the quest to pick an objection, any objection, to this quirky little movie might have conscripted Turning Red into larger ongoing conversations about parents, kids, and - deep sigh - the culture war.

What makes a controversy? In the case of Turning Red, Pixar’s delightful new film about a Toronto teenager who discovers she can turn into a (huge) red panda, it seems no one can make up their minds.