There is a moment in Turning Red - one of many - that I adore. It’s just one of the many that was made for a theater screen. At the 4*Town concert, Mei reaches for Robaire’s hand as he descends to the crowd in his angel wings, haloed in light. They gaze into each other’s eyes and their fingers almost touch. This is before the concert is brought to a sudden halt.
Turning Red is about the chaos of puberty, symbolized as Mei’s transformation into an 8-foot tall red panda whenever she’s overwhelmed by positive and negative emotions. Mei’s adolescent journey is further complicated by her fractured relationship with her mother and the unique pressures of being a first generation Chinese girl. All of those ideas are handled remarkably well. But they are also balanced alongside the joys of being a teenage girl, which reaches its apex in the dreamy moment between Mei and Robaire.
Mei’s longing in this scene is so palpable. While I never had the same concert experience, I understand how desperate she is to reach the boy of her dreams, to climb on other people 1 to touch his hand. That longing was also mine.
I love this interview Domee Shi gave about 4*Town and this in particular:
It was important for us to take boy bands seriously in this movie. Boy bands are often kind of ridiculed in media—as a lot of things that teen girls like are—but when you’re that age, boy bands are our gateway into the opposite sex. Into boys, into relationships, into the concepts of love and dating and heartbreak. And it’s all done in this safe, pretty, well-dressed package. It’s a coming of age for a lot of girls to obsess over their first boy band.
That was true for me. My 4*Town was B5. I collected magazines and hung up posters in my room, wrote ‘Mrs. Patrick Breeding’ on every available scrap of paper. I also wrote down all the dreams I had about them in painstaking detail. I was resolutely convinced the dreams meant something, no matter how bizarre or illogical. And I was so sure that the dreams predicted our meeting, and Patrick falling in love with me. I have to laugh at how ridiculous 13 year old me was, but I love that girl!
So yes, the depiction of Mei and her friends’ boy band obsession is done respectfully, lovingly!, but it’s also just very accurate. I honestly was not expecting 4*Town to be so prominent, nor for the plot to hinge on their concert. It’s not that the stakes aren’t high enough - they are - but everything is treated earnestly. The movie couldn’t be as successful otherwise.
Mei climbing on other kids is so impressive to me, because it’s the kind of thing that can only be done in animation. There’s no way that could happen in a live action film without seeming cruel. Just one way Turning Red defeats the tyranny of realism!