Modern animated films are shining a raw, real light on puberty
This story originally appeared on The Established
A slew of stories are putting tweens and their struggle at front and center
I vividly remember the day I got my first period. I was on a family vacation in hilly Matheran and had just returned to our hotel from a session of horseback riding. Feeling uncomfortable in my stomach, I ran to the bathroom, only to witness more confusion. As my mother found me, she connected the dots, “Sit down, we need to talk.” I knew something had gone terribly wrong. Having recently overheard some of my classmates talk in hushed tones about the “P” word, the 13-year-old me was aghast to have crossed over to the other side. Not fully comprehending what I was in for, I only recognised a feeling of deep shame. I locked myself in the bedroom for 30 more minutes, grappling with the idea that the unspeakable had just happened to me.
Fast forward to the present day, teen sexuality remains a highly taboo subject, with only a marginalised presence in mainstream media. Sex-positive, social media influencer Dr. Tanaya Narendra, whose #ScrewTheShush campaign aims to crush myths around sexual health, concurs. “Masturbation is interestingly something that most people experience for the first time as teenagers, but the negative connotations around it can be confusing, guilt-inducing and discouraging,” she explains. “Orgasms feel so good, how can they be bad? Nocturnal emissions, a very natural and normal part of sexual maturity, compound the problem. The sudden new changes in their bodies can leave a lot of young people feeling disconcerted.”
I now understand that the guilt my pre-teen-self felt was less a result of my mind not being able to catch up to speed with my body, and more a result of the Chinese whispers that tends to surround menstruation and sexual awakening for many young teenagers around the world.
Need of the Hour
It is this crushing silence around puberty—and its various challenges—that Pixar’s most recent release, Turning Red (2022) skillfully tackles. The animated feature manages to deliver a no-holds-barred commentary on a pre-teen’s nascant sexual journey even while using the unlikely (but rather adorable) metaphor of a fluffy red panda to drive home its point. The coming-of-age tale revolves around 13-year-old Mei Lin—a Chinese-Canadian girl navigating school, friends and her relationship with her orthodox mother. Lin turns into a giant red panda every time she undergoes an outburst of emotion.
Despite its seemingly outlandish premise, Turning Red is unapologetic in its portrayal of the intimate and awkward journey of its protagonist. Mei draws “horrible awful sexy things” of her boy interests, is asked by her mom whether “the red peony bloomed,” and eventually goes on to embrace the messy, not-so-likable parts of herself. Writer-director Domee Shi even describes it as a “love letter to puberty.” The filmmaker explained her creative impulse in a recent interview, “From the very beginning, [I was] just really trying to not hold back with telling the story about a girl going through puberty. We’re going to go there. From the very first version, it had pads, it had puberty, it had the weird boy crushes and drawings. All of that was in the very first version.”
For a ’90s kid whose idea of on-screen adolescence has thus far been limited to Lizzie McGuire and Hannah Montana doubling as pop stars, Mia Thermopolis inheriting the kingdom of Genovia and Enola Holmes shaking up Victorian London with her sleuthing skills, Turning Red really hits the spot. Even films and shows with explicit depictions of menstruation have only granted it fleeting moments—from the gory blood-trickling-down-leg scenes in supernatural movies like Carrie (1976) and The Reaping (2007), to the brief reference in Friends when Monica and Chandler debate the best time to have sex.
Closer home, the conversation around period positivity is limited to the handful of biographical or documentary-style films like Period. End of Sentence (2018) and the Akshay Kumar-starrer Padman (2018)—both inspired by the life of “menstrual man” Arunachalam Muruganantham who invented a revolutionary way of creative low-cost sanitary pads and empowering rural women in India. While a bold leap in the right direction, these docudramas nevertheless throw light upon the phenomenon from a detached lens, with the filmmakers striving to drag the subject into the zeitgeist. The question of relatability—especially for the tween population—remains uncharted territory.
Portraying Young Adults on Screen
Turning Red is only the latest of Pixar’s recent slew of thoughtfully crafted coming-of-age films. From the Oscar-winning Encanto (2021) to Inside Out (2015) and Finding Nemo (2003), the animation studio has a strong track record of producing thematically poignant stories that strike a chord with most demographics, particularly the young ones. Even as some parents complain about the subject-matter being “too mature” for kids, Mumbai-based child psychologist Dr Ridhi Golecha approves the change in the on-screen narrative, “Teenagers are mainly shown in a uni-dimensional light on the silver screen. They’re labeled as ‘stubborn’, ‘selfish’ or ‘rebellious,’ while what they’re actually trying to do is navigate confusion, seek connections, learn about their bodies and minds and the world around them,” she explains. “It’s time to allow for multiple personalities to exist within teens.”
Perhaps it is the lack of a show-stealing celebrity actor that allows the thematic integrity to shine through, or the sheer range of ingenuity that 3D animation allows. However, for a medium that one traditionally turns to for familiar, comfortable fables with universal messages, it is refreshing—even (dare I say) ‘rebellious’—to deliver myth-busting, trailblazing content that speaks to both adults and children alike.
