I agree mostly with your review on Turning Red. The movie is nice but a lot of elements only work if you're looking at it through the lens of a 13-15 year old. If you don't mind my asking, what did you mean by the whole "being the red panda wasn't empowering" part?
Yeah, in the review I said that her using the panda look to gain popularity and money wasn't "empowering" or very compatible with the narrative of "finding out who she is" because there's specific problems attached to that and they're not really looked into because the focus remains on Ming's flaws and not Meilin's.
Hustling the panda is hailed as individuality because it's specifically against what Meilin's mother/family expects of her, but it takes more than putting up the middle finger to your family to "find yourself", and "red panda who gains money for her looks at the expense of her grades and honesty to her parents" isn't an identity. If you're looking at it as a metaphor for sexuality (which I've seen some people do), it gets kinda problematic because...Meilin is selling that stuff. But even if the panda isn't a metaphor for sexuality (for example, I personally think it's just attached to the "messy sides" of people's personalities that they're afraid to confront in adolescence), there are things Ming still should be worried about - Meilin's dropping grades, her reliance on validation from friends/peers that puts her self-respect and confidence at a low, lying to her parents, putting other kids in inadvertent danger, etc. - and making it seem like Meilin had to distance herself from her mother to gain the validation of her peers just because "it's cool to rebel" is a generally weaker and less complex reason than if it had been just focused on Meilin choosing an identity/a hobby that only she and her friends enjoyed, and not being hung up on fitting in with other kids or using her looks for money (even though the movie doesn't label this as a compromise, so...).
There's also the issue that as much as Ming does get controlling and borderline dangerous when she wants to protect her daughter to the point that she denies agency to Meilin (which is still wrong), Meilin can't just continue scoring low grades and attaching her popularity points and self-esteem to the panda. Either situation isn't sustainable. Granted, the movie kinda leaves the ending open to "Ming is less controlling in general and lets Meilin have her own life", so one can be left to assume what kind of life that is, but the basis of Meilin liking her panda is the basis of any tween/teen liking a new thing - it makes them likeable to their peers without calling their peers' liking into question. It's not an entire identity, and it's not very individual because so much of her liking the panda is the fact that it makes her peers like her, not because she actually discovers her "potential" or that it makes her powerful. (Because again, making money off of your looks isn't "potential"). Of course you deserve a little more agency as you get older, but such a thing is usually gradual - Meilin is still 13, not 16 or 18. There are people who would try to take advantage of her for her panda. There are concerns that she'd continue to sneak behind her parents' backs and unintentionally put people in danger. I'm glad the movie at least mentions that she can learn to control it and live with it rather than just telling her it's fine the way it is - "repression is the real monster" and all that.
TLDR - Turning Red isn't necessarily bad for not addressing these things, because the focus is still Ming's and Meilin's relationship and the aim is asserting Meilin's independence. No matter what you see the panda as a symbol/metaphor for (whether it's puberty, general messy sides of people, "cringe" habits that are still a part of you, or even sexuality), the panda is a narrative vehicle for Meilin to be different from what her parents expect. But again, that narrative of individuality is complicated by the fact that Meilin uses her panda to please other people and then uses her "other self" to please her parents. Choosing one or the other isn't empowering because she's still bent on pleasing people. Choosing something she genuinely likes for herself regardless of what people say is a more familiar and solid narrative work (so for example, if she had gotten in trouble by the police or something for being the red panda and then chose to keep it, or if she had continued being a straight- A student while doing what she liked with friends without having to internalise any kind of dislike to her former identity). Which, one can argue, the movie shows her kind of doing in the end? She still keeps to her duties in the temple and a good relationship with her mother, but she's allowed to wear what she wants, hang out with who she wants, like what she wants. In that context, the whole "making money off the panda" phase can be seen as an intentional narrative choice that shows how negatively Ming's controlling behaviour impacted Meilin despite their close relationship and how kids risk continuing to fall to peer pressure and the very things parents don't want them to do just to feel like they're able to do something outside of their parents' expectations/strict rules. So yeah, I'm not super angry about it or anything (unlike. some people I've seen. there's really not much to look super into and make bad implications about, she's 13 for goodness sake), I'm just. pointing that out. Things don't become part of your identity just because someone told you not to do/like them. As a former teen (who grew up in a similar Asian household), you don't have to sacrifice grades and good relationships with your parents to keep good friends and your own agency. It shouldn't be an issue of one or the other.
