10 Facts About Pixar’s Turning Red

On March 11, 2022, the world was introduced to Meilin Lee, the sweet, goofy, and “slightly” conflicted thirteen-year-old girl who is the star of the movie Turning Red. The film is a hilarious, heartfelt celebration of the joys and pains of growing up, the wonder of girl power, and the struggle to embrace your authentic self.

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, don’t worry, we won’t be sharing any spoilers. But we simply had to share some fun facts about Pixar’s latest masterpiece.

Making History

The film was directed by the brilliant Domee Shi, who previously worked on films like Inside Out, Incredibles 2, and Toy Story 4. She also wrote and directed the Academy Award-winning animated short Bao. 

She holds the distinction of being the first woman to direct a Pixar short, and the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. With Turning Red, she made history again as the first woman to solo direct a Pixar movie (Brenda Chapman, who directed Brave, shared credit with Mark Andrews).

After a screening of the movie, Shi appeared with the company’s VP Lindsey Collins (who was also the producer of the movie), production Designer Ronna Liu, and visual effect supervisor Danielle Feinberg, representing the first time Pixar had seen an all-female leadership team on stage together. 

That Looks Familiar

Near the beginning of Turning Red be sure to keep an eye out for a bao restaurant that uses the same font as that seen in Shi’s award-winning short film. 

Why a Panda???

If you’ve seen the trailer for the film, you know that it involves the main character turning into a red panda whenever she is overcome by strong emotions. But that leads to one fundamental question. Why that animal in particular?

Shi explained, “…red pandas are very attached to their moms. They sleep all day. They eat bamboo, but they’re not supposed to eat bamboo; like, bamboo doesn’t give them enough nutrients. So I kind of imagine it’s just like a lazy teenager just eating chips and sleeping all day.”

The reasoning didn’t stop there, as she also stated, “They’re native to China. And then also, it’s like red and white, like Chinese but also like the colors of the Canadian flag, too. So it felt like the perfect animal to tell this story about this Chinese Canadian teenage girl.”

Drawing from Real Life

At least one scene in the movie was drawn directly from Shi’s own experience. In the film, the character of Meilin is at school when her friends notice a woman dressed in sunglasses hiding behind a tree and spying into their classroom. It turns out to be Mei’s mother, leaving her mortified in front of all of the other kids. 

In a short clip where members of the cast described their most embarrassing memories, Shi described having that exact experience when starting out at a new middle school. It’s not the only inspiration she took from real life. Like Meilin, she is a Chinese Canadian who grew up in Toronto. She used those memories to inform the story, and based many of the characteristics of Mei’s mother on her own.

Take a Trip to Portorosso 

Last year, Pixar released Luca, an animated film set in the fictional Italian village of Portorosso. The movie tells the story of two young “sea monsters” who venture onto dry land in quest of a Vespa and freedom. 

Prior to the movie’s release, reference was made to it in the film Soul, where a travel agency poster invited people to “Visit Protorosso”. Keeping the tradition alive, Luca contained a hidden reference to Turning Red. When the main character is visiting his friend Giulia’s house, you can see a number of vinyl record sleeves on a shelf. One of them is for the band 4*Villagi. Translated from Italian, that is 4*Town, the name of the boy band that Meilin and her friends all obsess over. 

To Infinity and Beyond?

In the same spirit, Turning Red gives a subtle nod to the upcoming release of the film Lightyear. The character Miriam can be seen carrying a skateboard, which has several stickers on it. One is a pair of wings that looks similar to the Space Ranger logo, and the other is an image of Sox, the robot cat that is Buzz Lightyear’s friend in the film. 

Speaking of 4*Town…

To create the music for Meilin’s favorite band, Pixar turned to Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas (who voiced one of the members of the group as well). For anyone that remembers the heydey of boy bands like N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, and 98 Degrees, the results are basically a time machine that will whisk you back to the start of the new millennium.  

The Worst Number

If you aren’t familiar with Chinese culture or language, you might be a bit perplexed when Meilin’s grandmother sees the name 4*Town and comments on it being a terrible number. The word four in Chinese sounds very similar to the word for death, and as such has come to have negative connotations, much like 13 is considered unlucky in western cultures.  

Sparkling Vampires

Turning Red features a heavy dose of early 2000s nostalgia, from its obsession with boy bands to things like the main character owning a Tamagotchi. One particularly clever pop culture reference occurs when we catch a glimpse of the character Priya carrying a book called “Nightfall.” The font and images on the cover are clear references to Stephanie Meyers’s Twilight series of vampire romance novels that became runaway bestsellers that spawned a movie franchise.

The Golden State

In the film, Meilin’s family runs a temple in Toronto. The Pixar team studied a number of temples in Northern California when making the film, but took particular inspiration from Bok Kai Temple in Marysville.

Jonathan Lim, president of the Marysville Chinese Community, which oversees the temple, stated, “In the film, when they go to the family temple, when you look in the front it’s very similar to what ours looks like,” said Lim. “And when you go into the temple, where the altar is, that’s ours.”

To see more about Pixar’s research and their visit to Bok Kai Temple, be sure to check out the documentary Embracing the Panda: Making Turning Red on Disney +.