“Pixar has always wanted and strived to tell different, meaningful stories,” director Domee Shi said about her film Turning Red, which premieres on March 11th on Disney+. During an early press day for Pixar’s 25th animated feature, the director talked about what inspired her follow-up to the 2018 short film Bao. “You could say Bao is the appetizer to Turning Red,” she joked. “They're both companion pieces, but I think they also explore the parent-child relationship from different perspectives.”
(Disney/Pixar)
While promoting her directorial debut, Domee Shi recalled being asked why Bao was a boy. “I only had eight minutes to tell this story,” she explained. “For a mother/daughter story, I'd need an entire feature film to unpack that. But luckily, I was soon given the opportunity to do a lot of unpacking when Pixar asked me to pitch some ideas for a feature film.” Domee pitched three different coming-of-age stories that centered around a girl, but “Red,” as it was known at the time, was the one that moved forward. “Out of all three ideas, Turning Red was the most personal to me and I think that’s why Pete [Docter] and the creative leadership at Pixar ultimately picked it. It was real, it was weird and very specific. At the end of the day, that’s what draws people to these ideas and stories. It was inspired by my own relationship with my mother.”
Domee’s personal life is reflected in Mei, the main character in Turning Red. Just like Domee, Mei moved from China to Canada as a toddler and was close to her mother as a child. As she entered her teenage years, Domee found their relationship strained by her social life with friends and interests, like anime and boy bands. “Turning Red is just inspired by this universal struggle of growing up and trying to figure out how to honor your parents but also stay true to yourself,” Domee added about the message of the film. “And for Mei Lee in the movie, the red panda is that magical spark that sets off this internal conflict within herself. Because up until that point, Mei thinks she has it all figured out, like we all did before we woke up one day and realized all of a sudden, we’re covered in body hair, we smell funky, and our emotions are all over the place, and we're hungry like all the time.”
(Disney/Pixar)
The film comedically parallels the changes one goes through in puberty with turning into a giant red panda. “We use the red panda in this movie as an adorable metaphor for the scary, unadorable, awkward, and cringy changes we go through during this age,” Domee added, explaining why she chose this specific animal. “They are the less popular panda that I wanted to bring into the spotlight. I think they're super cool, in that they stay cute for the entire span of their life. Like, even if they're old, they're really cute and they're native to China. And actually from an area where my family is from in China, the Sichuan province… There's a little homage to my background, too.”
Set in 2002, Mei’s world also reflects the world Domee grew up in. “We really wanted a fun, specific backdrop to tell this coming-of-age story, so we decided to set it in Toronto, Canada in the early 2000s,” she explained about the height of tweens controlling the music scene by rocketing boy bands and pop idols to the top of the charts. “We also just wanted to avoid social media topics and just tell this story in a simpler time of flip phones, CDs, jelly bracelets, and Tamagotchis.”
(Disney/Pixar)
For viewers who recall the early 2000s, part of the fun of the film is the fictitious boy band 4*Town. “They're definitely a homage to all the boy bands I loved growing up in the late '90s, early 2000s,” Domee recalled, citing Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, O-Town, and 98 Degrees as specific sources of inspiration. “Boy bands have often by ridiculed by the media, as most things that teen girls are obsessed with are, and we really wanted to pay tribute to this cultural phenomenon in the film, and not just make fun of it. Make fun of it a little bit, but mostly honor it.” The film features three original songs written by Billie Eilish and FINNEAS.
Pixar’s films always have universal appeal, but part of Domee Shi’s vision for Turning Red was to create a film for her 13-year-old self. “It'd be cool to point to a film or a piece of media that goes, hey, this part of your life is gonna be messy, and it's gonna be scary and funny and awkward and embarrassing,” she shared about her intentions. “But it's gonna be okay. You're gonna survive. We've all been through it, and it's going to be okay.”
(Deborah Coleman / Pixar)
You can step back in time to Domee Shi’s version of the early 2000s on March 11th when Turning Red premieres on Disney+.