‘Turning Red’ Writer-Director Domee Shi On Dipping Into The Well Of Her Own Childhood For Her Oscar-Nominated Animated Feature
03.03.2023 - 21:25
/ deadline.com
After bringing home an Oscar in 2019 for her animated short Bao, Domee Shi returned to her well of childhood experiences for Turning Red. Due to a family blessing/curse, 13-year-old Chinese Canadian Meilin (Rosalie Chang) transforms into a red panda whenever she experiences strong emotions, which is less than ideal for a teenager. Using Mei as a surrogate character, Shi replicates her childhood experience of struggling to please her mother as she entered adolescence. The film’s portrayal of the mother-daughter relationship sparked dialogues between teens and parents going through the same experience and gave Shi a chance to become closer with her own mother.
DEADLINE: When we spoke on nomination day, you mentioned what this nomination meant to the Asian community. Can you expand on that?
DOMEE SHI: This film is one of the first, if not the first film, at least from Pixar, that really shines a light on and highlights the Chinese Canadian community. The protagonist is this Chinese girl struggling with this very specific yet universal issue of her mom being super protective. It’s so important and amazing to see that this film, that is so specific and has such a specific protagonist in such a specific setting, has been embraced globally. Just seeing the commercial and critical success of this movie, hopefully, shows other studios that universal stories can be told by people of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds.
I also feel like it’s just amazing seeing the reaction to our film from the Asian community as well. I have a lot of fans write me letters, like an Asian teen girl who’s dealing with the exact same thing with their mom and trying to be perfect, and this movie really helped them accept that they get Bs
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