Managing Identity Crisis in Turning Red (2022)

Abstract

The paper discusses how Turning Red (2022) works out various crises that center on the identity crisis of the female protagonist, Meilin Lee (Mei). At the core of conflicts lies the question of which identity and which way of life to choose: the “ancestral” Eastern, Chinese one or the modern Western, North-American one. This analysis presents how this Disney/Pixar animated film addresses the questions of multicultural, dual, hyphenated, diasporic identities as well as cross-generational conflicts through displacement. Mei Mei has to decide if she keeps her red panda (her Chinese part) or cuts herself off of it enclosing it into a talisman while leading an entirely American/Canadian way of life. Her choice is both, a decision that none of the women in her family made before her. Turning into a red panda can both be a curse and a blessing for the female family members and it seems that all of these women viewed it as a curse and a burden before Mei Mei reinterpreted it. While fighting red panda, all female family members have to revisit their own ‘red pandas’ thus solving not only Mei Mei’s identity problems but also questions of agency, including those of her mother, which affects all female family members leading finally to reconciliations. The solution to this identity struggle and to the cross- and transgenerational/cross- and transcultural fights over meanings and identities is resolved with the help of humor and peer support.