Red Panda

 
This is a show with a lot of controversy. 

I find that my controversy with it is based on stuff no one else seems interested in mentioning. So here we go. (This is from a series of FB posts.)

1st, to get it out of the way, I think its awesome that they addressed femaley things like that, and fall firmly on the side of the mother/daughter conflict was good... on the surface.

 

2. From a storyteller and artists perspective, though, I felt this movie - artistically - fell very short. So many comments were out of place or left unresolved (like a writer who didn't get their story content edited before publishing to "trim the fat"). The targeting of the audience felt all over the place for me (again, from a storytellers perspective, when targeting teens you want to shoot for about 2 years younger than your main character, kids have more leeway. In this case the MC was 14, looked 12, and was animated to appeal to 10yos. And add to that your comment about targeting my cohort, and those a few years younger than me. Who were they wanting to reel in? I'm not sure they even know) And the visual cues conflicted with the storytelling (From an artistic POV there were other aspects they gave the MC and her purple buddy that really conflicted with the words being said)

It felt so much to me that there were two people trying to helm this movie, each with drastically different agendas.

 

3. Oddly, my 6 and 11 yo have been excited for this show for weeks. They were both totally bored with it by about half way through, and I was glad I didn't force my 14yo 8th grader to watch it. He would have been SUPER bored, and that leads me to thought 4.

4- For me there are far more ... controversial aspects to this show that very few people seem to notice or being willing to talk about. (I have included them further down.)

 

But, that being said, i find I'm in the tiny minority here. Seems like most people are loving it. And that's cool, too. It's weird to find myself on this side of things, its a first for me. I totally think, though, that parents who want their kids to watch it should watch it with them and form their own opinions. It does have some good points, and not everyone is as sensitive to things as i am.

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For the record, I think its great that they made a movie that helps make girls aware of the existence of their period, and helps nornalize it so its not so embarrassing or shameful. They hit that nail on the head great.

There were a couple points on the mother/daughter dynamic that I felt went too far, but overall, I think that's fine too.

 

I think the "rebelling against your parents" thing is more nuanced than it seems, though. And I felt the movie went out of its way to make sure to show a Mom making "too big a deal" oit of something "harmless", so that any mother who then has concerns about the "harmless" movie can't really say anything without appearing to their kid as a parallel to the crazy mom in the film. If any of that makes sense. The impact of that sequence didn't hit me until I started thinking about how I would discuss the movie with my kids. It primed them to be defensive and dismiss my concerns, among other things.

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So, I decided that in order to give this movie a fair shake down, I needed to watch it again. (And I took notes, so that I couldn't blow things out of proportion or misremember them as easily).

 

Interestingly, a second view through changed my opinion in both directions. 1st, I like the surface story a little more, and can see the charm and appeal that a lot of folks are praising.

 

2nd, it seems that my vehemence about my original point 4, is somewhat stronger than the movie deserves. Let me explain.

 

While I found a few more things that were blatant for my point 4 above that I didn't catch the first time, it also became clear that the amount of it is kept low enough, that someone like me complaining about it is easily dismissed as a fanatic. There is simply not enough present to make a solid argument.

I'm glad I watched it a second time though. I still find it entirely 'meh', but I get now why people like it.

 

Also, I like what incredibly fertile ground it is for discussion points.

Speaking of which, I still stand by my opinion, though, that The Panda is female sexuality, not her period, and certainly not puberty.

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IN DEPTH COMMENTS ABOUT POINT 4 ABOVE (or at least some of them)

Ok, I've held off on this to make sure that my opinions weren't just passing thoughts. So, at this point, there are 3 things that I find unforgivable about this movie, cute though it is. The first 2 are things only an adult might pick up on. The 3rd, though, directly impacted my kids, specifically my 7yo daughter, and is ultimately the reason I nixxed the show, and they're no longer allowed to watch it.

This will be a little long, so my apologies.  A little background stuff first. So, the first 2 items I approach as an a) adult who b) has studied animation styles and c) a writer who has made an in-depth study of emotional, mental, and physical abuse/abusers/etc, d) a person who has had too many brush-ups with p*rn and pedophilia, and I approach all 3 as e) a parent who has made a point of making sure I know the signs of abuse so that I can hopefully identify it if my children ever find themselves being abused. All 3 of these are things that flagged for me based on my own life experience & knowledge, they're not things i picked up from other people's internet ramblings. In fact, they are things I haven't even seen anyone mention.

Also, I feel a strong argument can be made that-if you really must make the Red Panda a metaphor for something and you can't just let it be literally a big red Panda-the Panda is not so much a metaphor for menstruation, but for female sexuality. (Not going to get in to that here though)

The 3 major things I take issue with in detail.
1) The tail at the school scene.
When Mei goes to school the first day, she sees a cute boy and her tail pops out. It's a cute little scene, in theory. However, the filmography treatment of it bothers me. The camera is set unusually low, so the viewer's gaze is at slightly below hip level and angled upward.
Mei then shoves her tail up under her skirt. Typical animation would have done that and had it magically disappear. That's the way animation usually works with this stuff, because the point was that Mei's tail pops out, she panics, shoves it under her skirt, and we move on. But that isn't what happens. She shoves it under her skirt **and the camera pans down, focusing on the tail, and angles further up her skirt**
There's a lot to dissect with this. First, her tail is just a tail, whatever. It would be if it just disappears like typical animation stuff. But, the more Mei tries to shove it between her legs, the more it begins to resemble a large patch of red pubic hair. Again, this could be ignorable, except for the way the camera focuses on it, making it central to the shot, the way it pans even lower and looks up her skirt, and the fact that the shot LINGERS on it for nearly 4 seconds.
Again, if the shot had been left at hip level, if the tail had "magically" disappeared after the 2nd attempt to hide it, if the shot had been half as long, it would be nothing. But as it is, it clearly isn't.

2) Abby
This one is more complicated. I have to reference some animation techniques first. I have a 13yo, i have nieces and nephews who are tweens. At best, they look maybe 10ish. Of the 3 girls, Mei's visual treatment pushes the boundaries of how young you could make a 13yo look. To me, she seems animated to look 8. I don't remember 13yos looking that young - heck there was a boy in my Jr high who wore a full beard at 14. Many girls were wearing bras by 11, and this was 20 years ago (coincidentally, the time this movie is set in). Mei's animation style really pushes her to look younger than she is. There are techniques to this - larger eyes to face ratio, larger head to body ratio, stuff like that. (Don't even get me going on the pigeon-toed stance in girls and women in animated images). Mei pushes these boundaries.

Abby ignores them all together.

Everything about Abby's character treatment screams "Baby" - even her name is an anagram for "baby". From her body shape, to her proportions, to the infantile purple they dress her in, the clothes she's given, and the fact that when she gets upset her speech literally devolves into unintelligible baby-like babble. They slapped some makeup and earrings on her to make it less obvious. But *everything* about her character design is based on the concept of baby.
Yes, arguments could be made - some kids are fat like that. Some kids like overalls. Some kids like purple (Sorry, i got shamed into submission in 4th grade for wearing GREEN pants once. I never wore anything but denim afterward. You can't tell me that anyone could get away with wearing a full purple outfit in 7th grade. Didn't happen.) Some kids...etc
Yes, that's true. But you need to remember that nothing happens in an animated show *by accident*. You can't accidentally design a character like this. Each of these decisions are deliberate, each set on top of each other with consideration and intent. These decisions, and the design you end up with, are very deliberate. Putting all these things together was intentional. Abby points to baby. She was meant to.
This then becomes kind of disturbing. What is a baby character doing in a movie about female sexuality? Why makes a toddler so angry. Why on earth should a toddler have such anger issues? Why the **** are you even putting a toddler-character in a story about sex?
To say nothing about Abby's blatant internal RAGE. She is very physically violent, and letting out her rage brings her catharsis. The behavioral traits of this girl speak so strongly about an abusive past, and would, even if you gave her decent clothes.
This character I could have let go of if she'd been given clothes that weren't toddler onesies and wasn't made to devolve into incoherent baby babbles every time she gets angry. But as it is, I find the choice to include a character like this very disturbing.

3) Mei's self-abusing behavior
This is the one that my 7yo started mimicking. We had to sit down and have a talk about how she doesn't deserve to by hit. Not by anyone else. Not by herself. to say nothing of the verbal abuse Mei models. This is the reason my kids aren't allowed to watch this show.

After Mei's mom embarrasses her about her drawings, Mei has some serious mental issues, and berates herself - "you sicko! Why would you draw those things, those horrible, awful, sexy things?" She then cries for her mother. She then represses her emotions about it, insisting that it will never happen again.
When she hides in the bathroom as a panda, she starts hitting herself. I didn't have the heart to copy down the words she used, but the scene goes on with her calling herself demeaning things, insisting somethings wrong with her. She cries and beats herself to try to stop crying, to try to stop feeling the way she is, even as she verbally assaults herself.

This is heartbreaking. On so many levels. The thing is that this sort of language and behavior doesn't come naturally. The words that Mei uses on herself are *learned*. A person doesn't say those sorts of things to themselves until someone else as said them first.
My daughter, my sweet 7yo, started hitting herself in the face, mimicking this scene. It's bad enough that even when she was 6, her father and I have had to curb the comments she brings home from school about how she's fat and needs to lose weight. (heck, my 10yo bean-pole of a son has said those same things, and we've had to talk to him, too). i had to sit down with her and tell her that NO ONE is allowed to hit her, that she should NEVER accept being hit, not even from herself. at freaking 7.
WTH is a child's show thinking it's ok to teach young girls that physical or verbal abuse is an acceptable way to treat themselves?

On a deeper side, though, is the fact that the words she uses... I'm sorry, but every scene where she hits herself, and the dialogue she uses - if you put an adult in the scene and have the words come from the adult's mouth, and the hits from the adult's hand, not a word of it, not a moment of it would be out of place. Those scenes are the scenes that come after an abuser has abused their victim, and are assaulting them while telling them to shut up, to stop crying, to not let anyone know. To repress the emotions about it. Every last damn word.

And my daughter then mimicked it.

So, yeah. Those are the 3 main things that I feel strongly about. This could have been a really great movie. it's cute, it's funny. But the undertones of pedophilia and abuse just are too much for me to accept.