The Bechdel Cast - Turning Red with Rekha Shankar

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

On this episode, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Rekha Shankar gear up for a boy band concert, deal with puberty, and discuss Turning Red! (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast. Follow @rekhalshankar on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.

All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister? Or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller

from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, They're just dreams. swaps of different meds, but by culture and society. By looking closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care. Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 was murdered.

There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm too seen. Dragged.

I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health

is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life.

It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. EPM 110. 120.

She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this?

We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy's effing vast

start changing it with the Bechdel cast Jamie Caitlin what's up I'm going through puberty. Ew, aren't you like 36? Yeah, it didn't happen until now. Sorry, I didn't mean to shame you. Yeah, rude. Okay. But there's another thing. There's another layer. Okay.

When I go through puberty, I turn into a cat. Oh, yeah. Well, that sounds fun. I love that that's her friends reaction they're like yeah that's awesome well could you do it more actually because i think it's awesome yeah and you can take pictures with me but you also you have to pay me oh okay okay girl boss yeah i'm trying to capitalize cat access i think that was a solid intro that was 20 out of 10 no no this won't take it a second time uh agree agree yeah um so welcome to the bechtel cast my name is caitlin durante

my name is jamie loftus and this is our podcast where we look at movies from an intersectional feminist lens and uh and have a little fun and goof around and you know turn into the animal of your choice and it's metaphorical and if you get it you get it and if you don't yeah whatever whatever i do okay my brain is in 500 places today we're going to get around to talking about the bechdel test in just a second but i do think caitlin that we should reiterate that you noticed a correlation between turning red and despicable me that I do feel like is worth repeating at some point in the episode. Yes, I think I'll do it during the recap. I should have said that off mic, but it really is important to me that because we mentioned it, but there's a paywall and I really feel like this should be publicly accessible

information. I agree. So there's a there's a an opportune moment in the recap that I will bring it up. I trust you. Rest assured. So anyways, we use the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussion. But but what is the Bechdel test, Kayla Durante? It is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. There are many versions of it. The one that we use is this. Two characters of a marginalized gender must have names. They must speak to each other. And their conversation has to be about something other than a man.

And ideally, it's two lines or more of dialogue and a narratively meaningful conversation. So it can't just be like, how's the weather? It's good to shut up. And that does pass, but it's not important. Unless the movie is about weather, you know? Weather denial. Okay, well, not really an issue for this movie so no we'll we'll circle back to that a while from now but today yeah uh we are covering i think it's been a little while since we've covered a recent release true but a pretty new movie uh was released

on i think disney plus exclusively a couple months ago called Turning Red and we have an incredible guest with us today. We sure do. So let's get her in here. She's a writer for Grand Crew and Animaniacs. It's Rekha Shankar. Hello. What's up? Welcome. Hey not freaking much. How about you guys? We're good. Just hanging out. Wow. That's beautiful. Feels good. Feels right.

Hanging out, watching Pixar. Yeah. It does feel good. I hadn't watched a new Pixar movie in a bit. What are recent ones? I still haven't seen Soul. I haven't seen Soul either. Yeah.

I saw Soul. Did you like it? Brag. I liked it. I didn't love it. I liked liked it did it pass the test oh gosh i honestly never remember to even pay attention and that applies to movies that i am watching for this podcast i i simply don't even pay attention anymore whoops oops um look sometimes you just gotta watch movies for fun and that's what we do whenever we're not getting ready for the show this movie though i mean this movie was tailor-made to be talked about on our show so i'm very very excited hold on sunny is

chomping on my recording cable so let's not that's because he heard that this movie was made for the bechdel test and he's like, I will say, yeah, for listeners, uh, my dog Sonny is over today and he really finds the subject matter to quote him fucking nasty. So you might hear some, you know,

some objections in the background, please disregard them. We're having him de-radicalized. It's just taking longer than expected. Classic bad dog Sunny, though. My horrible incel dog. Sunny. Rekha, what's your history with this three-month-old movie?

Yes. So when it came out, I think I'd only seen promotional art, so I really didn't know what it was about. But a friend of mine uh is Chinese American and I am Indian American and she was like Rekha you gotta see this movie and I was like why and she's like I think it is tailor-made for you so I went to her house and we watched I was like oh yeah this is tailor-made for me I was fucking obsessed with boy bands as a kid I'm like yeah it was a great great movie for me uh so that's my three month-ish history where I didn't know what it was,

but then quickly afterwards I learned what it was and then I watched it. Hell yeah. Well, we just hell yeahed in unison. It was something else. My history with this movie is that I had seen this director's short film and really liked it before Incredibles 2. She made one of the Pixar shorts, Bow, which I guess won an Oscar, which is awesome. But I remember really liking that. Didn't realize that she was like writing and directing a feature. And then I went to my cousin's wedding a month and a half ago and part of my

maid of honor duties was to babysit the best man's nine-year-old daughter for a couple of nights and so I actually have seen this movie three or four times that's funny because it was like she loved it she was horrified by the fact that I was alive in 2002 and like knew what they were talking about like it was so I had seen this movie with the target audience and then also feel like we are the target audience which is awesome and I was pretty close to that I was a little older in 2002 but not far off we were all there like the it's yeah so anyways I've seen this movie a couple times now and it was fun to like watch with the podcast in mind as well so I'm a fan Caitlin what's your history I saw it a few days after it was released on

Disney plus there was quite a bit of hype about it. And a lot of people were saying this is the best Pixar movie in 10 years. And so I was really excited to see it. I also love red pandas. They're my favorite wild animal. Cats are my favorite domestic animal. But any video with a red panda, I'll just, it is the best movie I've ever seen um so i was excited to see it i liked it a lot i humbly disagree with it being the best pixar in 10 years because what about coco you think that's cars 3 okay no yeah caitlin's a closet cars 3 fan god she literally once said eat shit wally call me back when your car is three yeah yeah yeah you might not be able to see caitlin's room but it's sort of decked out in cars stuff yeah she has a lightning mcqueen bed which is kind of awesome which is kind of disgusting to be honest but they make them for queen-size mattresses that That's kind of awesome. Yeah. No, I had it custom made.

Oh, my God. That's awesome. And the bed part is not where you'd think. That's what's kind of surprising. Yeah. It's technically a bed, but it's also very much a sex toy. Wow, I can't believe you're blowing up my spot. Anyway, so I liked it a lot, but...

That's annoying that it's like, oh, it has to be the best Pixar movie. It's a good Pixar movie. It's a great Pixar movie. Totally. And we can just... Yeah. So I watched it with our mutual friend, Bryant, Jamie, and we had a nice time. Nice.

And that's my history with it amazing um yeah i guess that there's really not much work but there i guess to like before we start discussing like the plot of the movie i think the first i heard of this movie i maybe just like missed when it was like announced as coming out but the first time i heard about it was when people were already like mad they're like why is there a movie about periods i feel freaking sick right now like there was very much like a like i mean and it would it was not you know it was from the sources you would expect but there was like some columnists at more conservative papers that were like why is this like you know it was like yet another like disney's gone woke kind of right vibe which did to be fair i was like oh i didn't

know it was about puberty i thought it was just about pandas because that is kind of like originally i was like oh this seems cool and i really like the short this director made but there are so many disney movies about turning into a random animal that i'm like, hmm, do I need to watch this? Yeah. I also thought it was just about turning into an animal. I thought it was like, oh, she has like a tick. Like anytime she's mad, she'll turn into this panda. So the whole thing is like her releasing her anger or something. I had no clues about periods. Right. And I was like, this is actually like the first spin on this in a long time that I'm like oh this is really cool and I'm like totally yeah in I just remember

feeling so brave is a Pixar movie right I was just so betrayed when brave turned into like why is my mommy a bear and I'm like why is your mommy a bear that's not what I thought I was going to watch. Speaking of soul, and I'm hoping, I hope I remember this correctly, but the guy who ends up in the afterlife goes back to Earth, but then it's either his soul or someone else's soul ends up in a cat. So someone is a cat most of the movie. So there's that. One, two. They just love that.

I mean, it moves merch, I suppose, but it's just, there's a one two they just love that i mean it moves merch i suppose but it's just right it's there's a lot of it yeah yeah anyways so anyway should i do the recap yeah and uh reika feel free to jump in at any point in the recap it's a loose cap oh love it Love it. Okay. So it is 2002. We meet Malin Lee, a 13-year-old girl in Toronto. She goes to school. We learn that she is very high achieving and smart. We meet her best friends, Miriam, Priya, and Abby. Her opening monologue is so cool. Like I was just like, yes, okay, in, good.

She's just like talking to camera which i don't think really ever happens again right right but i loved it yeah there's like voiceover sprinkled in and out but yeah it's a fun opening montage yeah whenever i see voiceover only in like two random places i'm like was this a studio note where they're like they're not gonna understand unless you put in aggressive voice over here that's like and this is a video of my mom and she's standing next to my dad they are married and they are my parents or whatever and i love them so much but it's complicated okay movie starting yeah which is kind of what's happening yeah but also i was like it's done in a fun enough way yeah i don't mind it.

Totally. Yeah, I didn't mind it at all. There's definitely more egregious examples of that. Oh, for sure. In other things. Yeah, yeah. I was like, do you remember that movie? Oh, my God.

What was that movie that sucked about Fox News ladies? Oh, Bombshell? Bombshell. Yeah. That movie, I think, is the worst example of that that I always think of where like it was so it might have even been like a reshoot where there's just two times where Nicole Kidman starts addressing camera in like a three hour movie and they're really far apart. And you're just like, this is really distracting. That's so funny. I don't know why I'm dragging

Bombshell, a movie nobody remembers five years later, but here I am. I mean, it's not undeserved. Anyway, so Mae's friends have a crush on this guy, Devin, who works at a local convenience store. But Mae likes the members of this boy band, Four Town, as do her friends as well and as do we i mean they're hot oh my god their song slaps i mean could be the best phineas eilish right a song of all time billy eilish and phineas my jaw dropped the first time i watched the movie with my nine-year-old friend, Maya. And then you're like, that's who wrote the songs? No wonder.

I feel like we did become friends. There was no one else for me to talk to at the wedding. So we became buddies. But the first, I was like, wait, Billie. And it makes so much sense because they're so fucking catchy. And they're legitimately good. I can't stand when like movie bands don't write a song that i actually love yes and this one's perfect this one is great i

would listen for fun and i will i have listened for fun okay so they love fort town and they all want to go to this upcoming concert, but the tickets are very expensive and it doesn't seem feasible. Mei goes home after school. Her parents own and operate a temple that honors their ancestors, particularly their ancestor Sun Yi, who was a guardian of animals, especially red pandas. Mei helps her mom, Ming, clean and give tours of the temple. May works very hard to impress and honor her family to the point where there's some concern from May and her friends that she is not really her own person. Mm-hmm.

Then one day, May starts doodling some flirty drawings of her i love this sequence so and that guy devin from the convenience store which her mom finds and thinks that something is going on between them so ming goes to the convenience store and screams at Devin which obviously absolutely mortifies May so the next morning when May wakes up after some nightmares she has turned into a giant red panda okay Kafka vibes that was me feeling like an absolute genius writing down Kafka vibes wow Jamie yeah it only took me on my fourth watch to be like oh Kafka vibes I forgot that metamorphosis was also about periods in a big way metamorphosis I think a close read would reveal that it's about it is about getting your period for the first time.

What is that book series that was popular in the late 90s? Animorphs. Yeah. Yeah. That's also the vibes. They turned into animals to fight evil. Like the yurks that are coming into your ears. But they couldn't always control when it

happened they would get out of control and turn into a sexy animal yes and tobias got stuck as a hawk tobias did get stuck as a hawk wow thank you for outing yourself as someone who knows the particulars of animals i don't i've never read an anamorph sorry oh it's never too late to start yeah i kind of wonder what it would be like to read them now because at the time i felt like they were like very horny coded but i bet that they're just horny right interesting and i didn't have enough information to understand yeah yeah yeah hmm oh well so good okay so may has turned into a red panda she freaks out her mom is like oh no have you gotten your period and may is like sort of and we're like yes this is the metaphor and may sometimes you're like what is the metaphor

sometimes the metaphor has to change sometimes it's a few different things i'm always having fun but sometimes i'm like i forgot what the metaphor was right so may tries to calm down and take deep breaths which turns her back into a human although now her hair is bright red yeah she goes to school as a human trying to act calm knowing that that should keep the panda at bay but this kid tyler is mocking may about the incident at the convenience store and she gets angry and humiliated which makes her start to turn back into the red panda. Tyler is triggering. I knew kids like that at that age.

Do you have any? Because I was thinking of one specific kid named Jeffrey every time Tyler was on screen. I was like, oh, my God. He used to be like, why is there so much hair on your arms? And I was like, because I'm Italian. And he's like, well, it's gross. And then he would just walk. Mine was this kid named Nick Deloya.

I can't believe you full name dropped him. Yeah. And he's going to listen. So anyway, OK. She has to stay calm so that she doesn't turn into the red panda. But then her mom shows up at school. Things spiral out of control again. And May turns back into the red panda, which her mom sees.

Then May escapes from school and runs through the neighborhood back home where she can hide. And her mom arrives home. Now, here's a little thing. A friend of mine cited this, like the mom showing up at school, as like an example of like, I think she's like the meanest Disney or Pixar villain. And I was, I could not believe. He's like, she mortified her daughter. I was like, okay, listen.

This might be some cultural relativism. My mom didn't show up at school with a pad, but she's done plenty of things that were fucking absolutely mortifying. Like calling, looking up in the directory, every Indian family and then calling them. Like, I'm Rekha's mom. Like, we should be friends. And that absolutely killed me. Thatified me I know and I'm like I don't think she's the meanest villain in all of

Pixar for that it just feels very like she's just I don't know she's just extra that seems yeah that seems harsh I've seen I've seen some criticism around her character and then it's also like which which will like get to is of like her being a character that like is like the tiger mom trope which is not a trip i'd ever heard of yes oh interesting uh but but then i also like whatever we'll we'll get there in a little bit but also like once i listened to i watched a ton of interviews with the director because I sort of just like was like, I really like her.

And I kept just letting the videos play. But the director, Domishi, it sounds like this story is like super particular to her specific life. And it's like, this is what her mom was like. And she's not trying to imply that all Chinese Canadian moms are like this. Totally.

Which is so fair. Yes. Right. Yeah. Sorry. I totally interrupted. I just simply had. No.

That's why we're here. Yeah. Not meanest. The meanest Pixar villain would be who? Randall from Monsters Incorporated. Oh. Oh my God. He's pretty mean.

Maybe climate change in WALL-E. That's true. That was a bad one. We can't forget i would say as a cars 3 expert um whoever the villain of cars 3 is i it was like i don't i've never seen it i was i was gonna say you if you could name the villain of cars 3 off the top of your head i'm like you might actually be the number one cars 3 expert i would not who is the villain in cars one one fossil fuel industry i i think the cars movies stink whoa caitlin okay you're gonna have to trash all that gear see people say that

and then they see lightning mcqueen literally driving around disneyland and they lose their minds do you not get thrilled when you see lightning McQueen driving around? No one's in the front seat. I have not seen this. So I know. Okay, well, let me tell you, he is shirtless. He is hot. He looks incredible. Better than in the animation. Ripped. It is kind of like, not to like wax poetic on this, but you're sort of like not to like wax poetic on this but you're sort of like this is the coolest thing i've ever seen and then sometimes he'll park and you can take a picture with him and you can take a couple if it's not busy look okay the movies i don't couldn't tell you a single thing that happens in the movies besides tractor tipping which is hilarious oh my god are those cows yeah that's that's cars cows cars cars cows are tractors that's interesting oh okay so different movie may's mom ming arrives home and explains to

may that this is happening that she's turning into a red panda because long ago, their ancestor Sun Yi had asked the gods to turn her into a red panda to be able to protect her family. So, she developed this ability to harness her emotions and transform into a red panda which she passed on to her daughters who passed it on to their daughters but after many generations, when the family decided to move to a new place, and, you know, they're living in this modern society, this blessing became more of an inconvenience. But the good news is there is a cure, where on the next red moon, they can perform a ritual that will seal May's red panda away.

For example, Ming's panda is sealed in a necklace that she always wears. But the thing is, this is where a few like plot things get confusing for me. There are like, and I'm like, I'm not trying to be like Mrs. Cinema sins here, but there were like, I don't understand why trying to be like Mrs. Cinema sins here but there were like

I don't understand why Ming it didn't occur to Ming that this could have been what was happening earlier yeah even though she like plays it off like she's like oh I just thought you were too young but like she's 13 I agree with that I thought she was using that as a cover at first to be like like I thought she wasn't it was like not something known it was like not everyone in the family gets i don't know i like or it was going to be a secret from her mom or like skip certain people or like something like that yeah yeah i was just like she would have seen this coming she knows it's going to come which also makes me wonder because it's a possibility that it could happen kind of at any time why she would do something like show up at her school with pads which would she knew

trigger her daughter right into turning into the panda right totally so yeah that got a little I'm like huh for me but it's fine but you're like man it's a it's a but I do have one more thing though yeah her friends are about to show back up and they're like oh my god you turned into a panda and I'm like hold on did not everyone at school see her turn into a panda yes two hours ago or no I watched this scene very carefully a couple times okay because what happens is when Mei turns into a panda in the classroom, a burst, like a plume of pink smoke obscures her. But even though she lets out a pretty loud roar and you think you would be able to sense the presence

of a very large animal right behind you, no one turns around to look and everyone's attention is still on Ming outside okay okay I feel better thank you so it does sleep again we do visually understand why no one sees although there's like maybe one or two girls one or two students at the school who sees her as a panda but most people don't Anyway, so the thing with the panda is that strong emotions release it. And the more May releases the red panda, the more difficult it will be to seal it away come time for the ritual.

And it's also said that this is her only chance to seal it away. But then later in the movie, all the characters who have a red panda spirit steal it away again so it isn't their only chance anyway yeah because may may has triggered a societal collapse with the sheer power of her panda right i don't want to be too nitpicky about a movie that i really like but i do have some little nitpicks is all anyway so there's this one chance to steal the the red panda away which is the next red moon which is a month away on May 25th and here's the despicable me connection oh so Rika have you seen despicable me

unfortunately no that's okay major spoilers ahead please that's okay i know that i know my minions but i haven't seen their origin story that's okay that's okay so in despicable me the first one from 2010 there's a plot point where grew has to decide whether to go to his adopted daughter's dance recital or to steal the moon. And both of these things need to happen on May 26th, which is very close to May 25th. So I just think it's, I observed, I noticed this fascinating phenomenon where in one movie, there is a moon related event that conflicts with the formative child dance recital right which is also like music and dancing based yeah the same thing happens in turning red where on just one day before there's a moon related event double booked with a dancing singing concert performance yeah coincidence to speak about me

happens and you can't really tell what year it's happening so if it's happening in 2002 may's ritual takes place on like a friday grew literally steals the moon on a saturday next day i was just gonna say could you imagine four town had to bump a Saturday. The next day. I was just going to say, could you imagine Four Town had to bump the concert to the next day? Oh my God. May goes to do this moon ritual. Uh-oh.

It got stolen by fucking Gru. What if that's how they introduced the multiverse? They're like, wait, oh my God. Third action, no moon. No moon no moon took the moon it's true that's oh my god that was literally inches away from happening it was literally inches away and then and then you know if the days were switched or happened the same day all the events of turning red would be moot because there would just be a massive weather event and everyone would die yes i know you can't not have the moon this is like the saint elsewhere universe how like

there's all these shows that exist that like couldn't exist in theory some of the events of saint elsewhere are true thatth and that's when this ritual will be then may's friends miriam priya and abby come over and discover may as a red panda but they are quick to understand and embrace May as a red panda. And they tell her that Four Town is coming to Toronto for a concert on the 18th of May, which is one day after my birthday. Okay, that's kind of a coincidence they didn't really talk about. Right.

Okay. Yeah. So that's good. I mean, kind of jealous as an August baby that you would get to celebrate your birthday before the moon was shrunk. Right under the wire. Yeah. But so May knows she won't be able to go to the concert because she'll get so excited that she will turn into a red panda in front of everyone. But she discovers that being with her friends or even just thinking about being with her friends has a very calming effect on her.

And it neutralizes the panda. It's nice. Although she tells her mom that what neutralizes the panda is like her love for her parents. Devastating. is like her love for her parents devastating and we see this scene where she does some like tests which could possibly kind of like release the panda but she's able to keep it at bay because she's thinking about her friends so she's like all right i can go to this concert but when may asks if she can go her mom says no and then ming's mother may's grandmother calls and says that she's going to be coming from florida to help with the ritual which gives ming an awful lot of anxiety yes meanwhile may's friends parents also do not let them go to the concert but the girls the girls sorry the girls oh my god sorry to keep

bringing up despicable me sorry we're really it's for listeners we are recording this the release day of rise of grew so we just kind of have grew on the brain rika yeah you gotta see the mood i mean it's streaming on peacock okay he has three daughters he calls them the gorls i was absolutely shocked when you said any of these men had children stunned beyond belief yeah yeah grew is a father and make no mistake he's a bad one wait a minute is grew not a minion he's the man he's the man gruce steve carell oh my god i thought grew was a minion this whole time wow no and the minions are kevin stewart and bob oh i knew kevin and stewart i thought the third one was grew okay that's interesting so okay see

now you can maybe see why i was shocked i was sorry. One of the minions have three daughters and has to go to a societal... Honestly, it might be a better movie altogether. Probably. But I'm pretty sure the minions cannot reproduce. But they don't want to get into it franchise-wise. It gets too messy. Yeah, kind of conspicuously absent from the series is how they

reproduce where all the six-year-olds the movie is made for they need to know uh they kind of want to know they simply must yeah um okay so the girl the friends they are hell-bent on going to this four-town concert and then some classmates catch May while she's in red panda form, but they think it's really cool, and they think she's so cute, and offer money to take pictures with her. And so the friends, and May in particular, devise a plan to earn the $800 they need to buy the concert tickets by letting their classmates take pictures with Panda Mae and like they start selling merch and we see this whole montage and after a couple weeks they've almost earned enough money they just need a hundred more dollars but that kid Tyler threatens to tell

Mae's mom that she's been flaunting the panda all over school but he won't tell anyone if she comes to his birthday party because if she comes everyone will come and he's like trying to be popular uh and may demands that he pay her 200 for her appearance and tyler agrees and then you're like where is tyler gonna get 200 and then you see his house you're like oh i guess it's just around it's a really nice house has very rich parents but just as may is heading out to go to tyler's party her grandmother and aunties show up and delay her and her grandmother warns slash reminds may that the more she lets this beast out the harder it will be to contain at the ritual but may goes to the party anyway to let the panda out one last time and at the party miriam is like well what if you don't do the ritual and you just keep the panda because her friends have noticed that may has started to

become more her own person and she's not constantly bending over backwards to impress her mom. Meanwhile, oh no, Ming finds out that May snuck out, and she discovers all the money and the merch that they've been selling. So she storms off. Then back at the party, the girls discover that they got the wrong date for the concert. It is not may 18th the day after my birthday it's on may 25th the day before grew is gonna steal the moon okay it's really i i thought the like throwaway joke as to like why abby messed it up was really funny every time yeah she's like toledo it's pretty good pretty good i think that's funny so the concert

is on may 25th which is the same night as the ritual so may freaks out and ends up getting really aggressive toward tyler which is the exact moment that may's mom shows up at the party so ming berates may's friends for being a bad influence on May. And May doesn't challenge her mom and throws her friends under the bus. But we understand that it's because May is very freaked out by her own aggressive behavior. And she's still, you know, kind of, I need my mom's approval. So we cut to may 25th may's friends go without her to see four town while may reluctantly preps for the ritual but then may's dad jinn who has been a character the whole time i just didn't know how to fit him into the recap i love may's dad so cute yeah he's like known for

his cooking and he's nice. And he's very nice. He finds a camcorder and watches footage of May and her friends having fun. They're singing, they're dancing to Four Town. And he has a heart to heart with May about her red panda. Then it's time for the ritual where her family gathers around in a circle and sings from the heart, which causes Mei to kind of project into this astral realm where she kind of reflects on her experience with her panda and decides to not let go of it and to keep it, which enrages Ming. But Mei's like, I don't care. I'm leaving and I'm going to the concert

and Ming whose panda spirit again lives in this like necklace amulet thing breaks during this kind of altercation with Mei and her panda is unleashed. It's like a Godzilla situation. Yeah. Yes. Meanwhile, Mei gets to the concert. She apologizes to her friends. They forgive her. They start having a great time at the concert.

But then Ming, as her panda, which is enormous and very scary, crashes the concert. So Mei and Ming start fighting and yelling at each other and like physically fighting. And Mae's family shows up to do the ritual again so that they can contain Ming's panda. And then grandma and the aunties all break their pieces of jewelry that contain their panda spirits so they can help and they start doing the ritual but their singing isn't working so may's friends start singing for town and then for town shows back up and they start singing i love that for town is like not really

bothered by what is happening absolutely the power of music is too strong truly they're just like kind of like cyborgs that have been programmed by the music industry to like sing at opportune moments and i love and oh god that feels very real it's yeah right it's maybe it's commentary on boy band culture this is like lou perlman commentary you know it did all feel, I mean, like, yeah, peak Lou Pearlman. God, where's I think there was a Lou Pearlman biopic in production for a while. I don't know if it's going to happen, but I love to watch. But when like the when the boy band all of a sudden had angel wings, I was like, there was something like that was reawakened in me that hadn't that had been sleeping for years you're like oh yeah yes that used to be really that's it beautiful

yeah matching outfits and wings yeah so because the ritual is work is working now may finds herself in this astral realm again where she encounters her mom when she was May's age. And she's crying and talking about the pressure to be perfect and to gain her mom's approval. And May is like, yeah, I get it. I can relate. But it won't always feel this way. And then May also tells her mom that, you know, I'm changing and I'm figuring myself out

and you just have to let me be my own person. I'm 13. I like to gyrate. You're like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you do, bitch. Good for you. We see some other tender moments between Ming and her mother, between Mei and Sun Yi.

And then the other women in the family contain their red panda spirits. But again, Mei decides to keep hers. and that's the big climax of the movie then we cut to the aftermath of all of this where may and her mother still spend time together and may brings out her panda at the temple and it attracts even more crowds but may is also free to be herself and to be with her friends more and then the movie ends with voiceover from may saying that we've all got an inner beast we've all got a messy loud weird part of ourselves hidden away and a lot of us never let it out but i did how about you? The end. I never found a penny. And then you get to hear the whole song.

Oh, and it's good. And it's awesome. Okay, so that's the movie. Let's take a quick break and we will come back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption

that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad free, subscribe to the iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen.

Dragged. I'm NK, um, dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies.

On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you.

And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session.

24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out?

I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams dream sequence is a new horror thriller from blumhouse television iheart radio and realm

listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're we're back where do we want to start here there's like there's there's a lot to talk about mm-hmm I you're right let's go home yeah nope I mean this movie is doing a lot of things a lot of really cool things it's subverting a lot of tropes there's a lot of things, a lot of really cool things. It's subverting a lot of tropes. There's a lot of like meaningful inclusion and representation that historically we have not seen in major Hollywood films. There's a lot of like interesting themes and metaphors being explored. Yeah, I don't know where to start. Should we start with periods?

Yeah. Yeah. is being explored yeah i don't know where to where to start should we start with periods yeah yeah because that's like okay the panda represents a lot of things at different times it represents literally getting your period it represents just general puberty changes it represents her connection and her isolation from her culture like it represents a lot of different things but as far as periods go so I'm not gonna like read you all of the whatever like ridiculous comments that a bunch of people made there was at least one review uh when this movie came out where it was like I don't know I feel like this doesn't really happen very much anymore but it did happen here where it was like a white guy film critic that was like, I couldn't relate with this movie.

And so, um, what the heck? Uh, no stars. There was someone, I don't know if this is the same person that said like, this seems way too specific to the director's experience.

Yes. Which I mean, it is true that this movie is very specific to the director's experience, but like, but that doesn't make it unrelatable to other people it's yeah so fucking boring to be like oh this is too specific to an experience i've never had i'm like i've never had any experience that is in a movie there is the whole point is like you see yourself in other people why the fuck are you watching movies are you stupid i yeah that's my un-nuanced take no i mean it's like it's fucking ridiculous and it's also like if that take were true across the board then no one would watch

like auteur movies at all because that's like what most of them are like you don't hear people saying shit like that about fucking licorice pizza but like paul thomas anderson's been making movies about the three square blocks he's grown up on for like decades you know it's like right and no one has a problem with it and they're usually pretty good movies and it's like yeah i mean you know what the issue is here but yeah like uh all that stuff is really frustrating i mean and we can sort of get back to like how specific the movie is to Domi she's experience as a kid growing up in like literally like she was born in 1989 and grew up in Canada with a Chinese family like this is her story except I don't think she turned into a panda but also she could be burying the lead we don't know don't know we don't think she turned into a panda, but also she could be burying the lead. We don't know. We don't know.

We might never know that. Yeah. It's going to come out 20 years later. It's actually a documentary. Yes. Turning Red is a biopic. Yes. Yes.

It's going to get the idiocracy treatment. But like just in general, I just wanted to do kind of like a quick rundown of like, first of all, like this movie does reference periods in a movie that's directed at young audiences. And that never happens. True. But even so, it's really not referenced that much. And the criticism that is like pushed back against it makes it seem like that is what the whole movie is about is basically one scene and like maybe like kind of a winking reference in the title you could maybe argue but like it's that one scene with Ming you know thinking that Mei has gotten her period for the first time and bringing in a bunch of different paths and like showing her holding pads which is a big deal for movies I mean I can't think of one

where that would happen and Domi she's done all these really cool interviews talking about what she watched growing up she references being like a big Lizzie McGuire head which I really appreciate and saying like oh I saw so many like experiences that I had had in middle school on that show but they you know you couldn't reference menstruation at all on a show like that in that era you could reference almost everything but I feel like unless you found your way to Degrassi um where it's in the pilot you wouldn't know and so that that is a big deal especially because the way periods are shown in movies at least like very influentially are usually really negative like the the carry scene is like the first thing that comes to mind where it's like presented as traumatic and horrible

and sends you on the road to setting your classmates on fire um i mean accurate though and then the other scene that i was trying to i was like okay what were like really influential movies with scenes that like directly mentioned periods and the only other movie i think of was super bad where it's like oh yeah which is a scene that like still i went back and rewatched i'm like this scene still doesn't make sense no one would do this right and of course what was they're grossed out by the period a girl leaks oh yeah period onto like jonah hill's pants or something yeah and he's horrified cool um i just watched the florida project for the first time and there's a scene where the mom she like wants to give like a big fuck you gesture to someone so she

pulls her pad out of her underwear and then sticks it to the window yes of the people that she's saying fuck you too that okay that's fun that's representation yeah no notes i actually i remember a scene in nip tuck that um we all loved um that show and it was the daughter was nine years old and her older brother scared her by telling her what a period was so she thought she had to put a tampon in now she went and put it in and left it in toxic shock on toxic got tss i remember this episode convulsing and went to the hospital and i have never ever fucking forgot that because i'm like i'll never leave a tampon in for more than 25 seconds i swear that's fear-mongering from big tampon yes but all this to say that a lot of the what very little representation of

menstruation there is in media has mostly been like oh my god it's horrible yeah it's horrible or there's some like weird like delicate flower kind of like you have blossomed into a woman kind of weird shit as opposed to just like it's a thing that happens when you're still a kid and uh you still react like a kid around it and it doesn't make you like a woman now necessarily it just is a bodily thing that happens it's just a bodily function yes yeah like and i and i really liked that like ming treated it like she's like anxious because she's like oh i wasn't ready but like she doesn't treat it like it's you know like scary she like tries to be calming about it it seems like maybe they've talked about it before this scene like right it just feels like it sets a better precedent

for people who get their period for the first time because yeah I don't I got my period super late as a late bloomer in every single way and I thought I had shit myself because we didn't have sex at my school I love every time you tell this story on the pod which is I think maybe 10 times so many times that's so look if there's and if there's a perfect time for this story this is the episode it was now yeah but that was that was like another criticism that I saw in this like first wave of like you know right-leaning weirdos who were like this is too much where they were like this is too young an audience to be talking about periods too and which also got backlash because it's like you can get your period as young as like eight years

old yeah my friend got it when she was nine and it's like right if you are someone who menstruates there is no rhyme or reason it's hormones like yeah it just happens when it's gonna happen yeah yeah so so all that to say like i think it is like a huge deal that's like a cool thing that there's going to be a generation of kids growing up knowing this of like all genders because i do feel like it's like addressing it even if you're if you don't menstruate it's just a way to be like oh that's what that is right i don't even think the scene fully explains what that is so i don't know what everyone's so fucking mad about if you like went to the bathroom during that scene you wouldn't be like this is a movie about about like it's like just kind of about like

puberty in general exactly because the movie is so much more about and yeah you can map on like going through puberty and getting your period on to the red panda like that's a clear metaphor but there's also again a number of other metaphors or just like themes that are driving this narrative far more than the menstruation thing yeah such as i mean there's this and this is kind of connected to puberty in a way that when you're going through puberty sometimes your emotions are confusing and you don't really have the maturity to start drawing people as mermaids and you don't know why. That scene was really impactful. You know, there's a lot going on in our development and a lot of, and you know, a lot of it is mental and emotional. And so there's

this kind of theme of emotions and like the pressure to suppress emotions versus letting yourself feel the entire range of your emotions so like that's part of what the movie is about there's also a very strong if not the strongest theme of the movie which is the idea of honoring your family versus honoring yourself and finding a healthy balance in that where you can also kind of extend that to a generational thing where kids coming of age in a different cultural landscape than their parents and how that almost always creates generational conflict and then there's also the like aspect of eastern and western philosophies where you know many eastern philosophies prioritize family and community over the individual versus western cultures tending to prioritize individuality

and how may coming from a chinese immigrant family i i think she's second generation if i'm understanding it correctly i think so yeah um yeah. It might not be explicitly stated. Right. I don't think, yeah, I'm more just kind of basing it on who speaks with what accent kind of thing. Sure. But even so, May growing up in Toronto,

where aside from her being at home with family, she's surrounded by Western ideology and how that creates tension between her and her family and also her and her friends because like she's being pulled at both ends in these two different directions and so like that's what the movie's about yes and that has to be relatable to so many groups of people right exactly whether or not you have like a familial obligations thing just the idea of like oh i feel this way around my parents and this way around my friends that's like what being a teenager is exactly and i love that a huge focus of this movie is on

friendship and specifically female friendship and specifically like teenage female friendship because so few movies are about that and i love that this movie examines how your friends especially at an age like 13 which is like maybe the worst age you can be horrific like how the people who understand you the most and who can bring you the most comfort as you come of age and navigate life are your friends like that is such a relatable thing for people especially of that age so i think that's a great point too because something this movie does that i really liked was just like oh i was a big boy band head and that is kind of viewed as like ditzy girl interests you know like not serious fandom or whatever and it's like this movie

doesn't make like any political commentary on it but it's kind of just by virtue of existing honoring the things a young kid might care about yeah without casting any judgment on it exactly and it's like oh she wants to sit in her room and doodle she wants to talk all day out to her with her friends on the phone and that's might be seen in one way by like media but like you see that it is crucial for her like development and her well-being to do all that stuff right they talk about how going to this concert is going to be a major milestone and it's going to basically it's like symbolic of their step toward becoming women yeah like they're like Literally me and my cousins.

Okay, I'm going to tell another story I've told 500 times in the podcast. That was how me and my cousins felt when we went to see the Backstreet Boys the night before 9-11. And then it turns out that that was not the event that was going to make headlines that week. But it's the one I reflect on more frequently yes but i really liked how like this movie because we've talked about stuff like this before where sometimes it's like in movies with like kids and like young teens and i'm like thinking non-judgmentally because they were um important to me but like with Mary-Kate and Ashley movies it's like you have 12 or 13 year old kids and there's like they have romantic interests which does make sense

for a kid of that age but it also like it becomes important to the plot that they like have a boyfriend by the end or whatever yeah happens but this movie I feel like does something cool that I've never that I can't really think of seeing at least many times where it's like they are having like a this weird awakening that a lot of kids had when they saw boy bands and now boy bands are fully back so it's happening again but there's no like romantic plot that's important to the movie it's like they're allowed to like I don't know I feel like it can at least it like matched my experience kind of closely where it's like 13 like being 13 and like not being ready for an actual anything but like projecting

like a mad person onto like every like cute older boy or like boy band or even like May May when she like has a crush on the store clerk who's like, she doesn't think anything is going to happen, but it's just like the idea of it. I don't know. It just reminds me of like summer camp counselors. She has another crush too on some kid named like Carter Michael Murphy. Or I don't know. Chad Michael Murphy.

Chad Michael Murphy. Carter Michael Murphy. It's something. And every time she sees him, she gets all googly-eyed and like yeah yeah that's a very relatable experience because again when you're like going through puberty and your hormones are just like firing on all cylinders and you're like horny as hell and I like love that this movie is about like teenage horniness you don't know how to do anything like and you don't know what it

like is right you're just like what do i do with this but it's just there and it's consuming many of your thoughts which is again like seen as something by society is like oh what teen girls being horny that can't be a what that's horrifying or that can't be a thing but it's like a very real thing that this movie handles very responsibly and I just I love to see it on screen there's this book called larger than life by uh Maria Sherman and it's like an encyclopedia on boy bands through the ages and like what purpose they serve and like why we have come back to them after decades and decades. Like there is always some sort of boy band force. And one of the things the author says that I found really interesting is like

boy bands being elemental and like figuring out your sexuality or at least starting to think about it. And it's like, it's a safe avenue to do that. Cause so like what both of you are saying, it's like, I'm not going to be with jc chazay but i can look at him and feel like he's talking to me in a way i don't feel like the boys in my

school were right and that's my like safe mental avenue to like figure out my shit a little bit i was also a jc girl thank you i have a poster of him jc girls don't speak up enough yes we are hiding we are hiding we are afraid it's because his song it's because his solo song all day long i dream about sex was embarrassing it's embarrassing i used to say okay here's my anecdote i had that album which is called schizophrenic which is disgusting and horrible yeah but i used to listen that song and i would scream the word cupcakes over the word sex because i didn't want my parents to hear that's so cute oh my gosh well i love that my friends and i would do something similar with

um nelly's hot in here we'd be like so put on all your clothes and then my mom would be like awesome great perfect song all day long I dream about cupcakes he should release that might be coming he hasn't released a second album so that might be what he's been working on he's been working on it for two days

now oh gosh but yeah that's fascinating about like culturally boy bands just being a thing to uh help people be horny and figure out their horniness yeah yeah they're just projection boards yeah and i liked i really like that scene where May is like, the animation in that scene is so funny. Like where she's drawing like these weird pictures of mermaid boys. And she's like, what's happening? What am I doing? And she's like ashamed, but also like can't stop.

And you're like, yeah. And there, so I watched, there was like a Disney plus documentary about the making of this movie. I really like went down the Domi she hole. I was like, I want to be her friend. But she had like notebooks like this and they chose it on screen of like anime pictures. She drew of her crush when she was like in middle school and her mom kept

it. And there's like a scene where she's like zooming with her mom and she's like, Hey, do you still have those sketchbooks? And her mom was like, I know exactly what you're talking about. And then like went to the other room and grabbed it and was like 2002. And like there were all these like, you know, very adolescent, weird drawings of like cute boys.

I was like, wow, I don't think my parents kept that stuff. I hope they didn't. But it existed. I remember a crush of mine got a wart on his thumb, and this was kind of national news for me. And that became my fixation to draw. I'd be like, I wonder when this will go down. And I would draw it all the time when I was in first grade.

Humiliating for him I know I used to have like my like kid fantasies I remember like they would be so specific that I would always appear them exactly as I was like I didn't change anything about myself which would have made it easier but I had like a specific memory of like I would have made it easier. But I had like a specific memory of like, I would have the same like fantasy about like talking to Daniel Radcliffe at like basically a Bridgerton party at night. And it was like the same thing. It would just be my little thought that would help me off to sleep. But there was like one time where I had conjunctivitis and my eyes were really

gross and I had to modify the fantasy. So he's like, I don't care that you have conjunctivitis. I still like you. yes wow huge huge and in that moment I felt truly seen yes even though I for I could not see I had my eyes were full of crust that is a beautiful story um uh let's take another quick break and then we will come back for more discussion. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now.

The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl.

Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place

will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do one session 24 hours bpm 110 120 she's terrified should we wake her up absolutely not what was that you didn't figure it out i think i need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything?

You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television,

iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio dream sequence is a new horror thriller from blumhouse television iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts we are back all right and what shall we talk about next should we talk about um may's relationship with her mom and like the generational issues in this movie yeah yeah i mean we sort of started talking talking about it already but i i like that i mean it's rare for a disney pixar movie specifically to center a mother-daughter relationship shocking that a mother and a grandmother are alive yeah truly and i do like the connection that may and her mom have and i also like that it's like established

early on that they like each other and they like spending time together but there's like just certain things they can't talk about that felt like real where like it's established like May's like I really like working at the temple with my mom like they have a whole system of how they clean and how they host and all this stuff um but then there's like certain topics that you can't go there and it's like which i thought was like a cool balance and and you don't see that in like big disney movies very much right it's another thing that's relatable and yeah i liked that the relationships that are focused on at least the familial relationships that are focused on in the movie are mothers and daughters going back generations

and generations where they like honor their ancestor sun yi who like was this powerful figure who like wanted to be a red panda because she wanted to be able to protect herself and her daughters during wartime so she like asked for red panda powers from the gods and then which is like a good idea to specifically request idea i can't say i would have thought to do that but damn no i've been like a weapon would be awesome awesome she's like no I want to turn into the cutest animal imaginable but also be like very fierce because she was able to fend off bandits and protect her village and save her family from ruin so I love that that's like the origin story and then you know this gets passed down and then we again focus in the movie

on Ming and Mei and how again there's yeah there's just like kind of cultural differences that are creating tension between them there are generational differences um that are again relatable for an awful lot of people but are all they're like there are a lot of like culturally specific things that get touched on in the movie but still there's a relationship that is very universally relatable which i thought was really cool and not many movies pull it off very well but i thought this one did adding to that too like as someone who's grown up with 2 000 aunties and uncles i've never seen aunties in a children's movie of any kind in america uh so it's really cool to see that because your aunties in a children's movie of any kind in America.

So it was really cool to see that because your aunties are not necessarily related to you. They might just be your family's friends. And like that bond forms from like being the only people of your race and that speak your language around. And so they all just become people like, these are the people that are always at my house. They're all my auntie or whatever. So it was really cool to see that too,

as a, as an important relationship or something that mattered, like you needed all of them there to kind of do that thing at the end. So I liked that. Yeah. Coming together as family. Yeah. I thought that was beautiful.

I did see, and I think we hinted at this, but I saw a lot of criticism about how people, a lot of people felt that this movie leaned into the tiger mom stereotype. Yeah. I read one review in particular by a 14 year old film critic who, it was from Teen Vogue. The critic's name is Tabitha Yoon.

Her review is entitled turning red, made me feel understood as a Chinese American teen. And Tabitha, you know, discusses a lot of ways in which this movie, you know, she feels very seen by it and specific scenes that she really connected with. But she does call out the use of the tiger mom stereotype, which i certainly see yeah but also because domi she is very much pulling from her own experience and her own family dynamics i don't think it's necessarily fair to criticize someone for playing into tropes when that filmmaker is just retelling their own experience i watched this with my chinese american friend and her parents are immigrants. My parents are immigrants. And it was funny because we were like, she's so much nicer than my mom.

Like, because, like, I do think there is something, like, the Tiger Moms experience is definitely, like, a watered-down, very, like, myopic view of how an Asian person parents, for sure. But there are just certain things. I was was like that was relatable to me in some moments so it's hard because it's like this is some people's experience but it's not other people's experience like I my parents are not strict but they are like I cannot talk about a huge

swath of topics with my mom because she will become upset and so it's like that part was so relatable to me so it's like I totally get what this young film critic is saying where you don't want to like lean on that stuff but it's so tough because also there's like no representation of that in the Pixar universe to begin with so it's like if there were a bunch of movies with Asian families and they were all doing that it's like okay, okay, it's like, there's only one. Oh, no. And again, I do feel like her mom, like kind of learned to listen to her daughter and learn from her daughter. And like, that is sort of not part of that trope so much. Yeah, that's just what I thought yeah yeah I think it's more nuanced than just like the flat trope right and I also feel like that I mean I because the the criticism like I mean again first of all I'm like I don't really get to have an opinion I'm from I'm from a fucking Irish Italian family like they're um

but I did feel like the the more I learned about how like particular this story is to Domici it it it like I understand the criticism and it is a valid criticism and I feel like it just speaks to the more I learned about how like particular this story is to Domi. She, it, it, it like, I understand the criticism and it is a valid criticism. And I feel like it just speaks to a bigger problem than what this movie is because what you're saying, Rico, like a lack of representation in general,

where it's like, well, Domi, she is like telling people her story. So you can't tell her she's wrong to do it. Right. And that puts a lot of pressure on her as like one chinese canadian filmmaker to represent every you know first

generation kit so it's like yeah yeah i feel like it just like speaks to what a what a significant pressure there is on her specifically which isn't fair. Right. Totally. And Domi, she has spoken a lot about her intentions with this movie and the way she characterized the mother-daughter relationship. She was speaking on immigrant children and specifically Asian children. Quote, they have to figure out what world they belong to,

how to honor their parents and their family's expectations, but how to figure out what world they belong to, how to honor their parents and their family's expectations, but how to carve out this independent identity for themselves in this new world that their family is not from. I think especially for immigrant kids, Asian kids, and for May in the movie, I think she has to come to realize that there is no perfect relationship with your parents. And that is always going to be messy we really wanted to explore the nuances of asian parent-child relationships and dealing with change and of intergenerational conflict and how it can shape who we become unquote so like that was her intention that's very clearly what comes through in the movie yes yeah and i and like i agree with what you were saying earlier, Rekha, where it's like you get more context for Ming's behavior

than you ever would with a truly distilled version of that trope. Because you get a look at her relationship with her mom and how this is clearly a generational trauma issue that doesn't exist in a void. And it's almost a little like, oh, you're allowed to change traditions to suit you you're allowed it's like a permission kind of thing because like i i just know someone that was like oh it's almost saying it was okay for her to be mean to her daughter because

there was a long line of that i'm like listen first of all i feel like there's a difference between being mean to your daughter and being a strict parent. I don't know. Whatever. But yeah, I thought that was like nice. Yeah, like nice context, nice backstory, nice like humanity given. Totally. Here's another quote from Domi Shi that I wanted to share about this. She was speaking about just kind of the conception of the movie and how the idea for the movie came from, quote, wanting to make a movie for that 13 year old Dami who was struggling with her body and her emotions and fighting with her mom every day and wanting to understand what was going on at that time, but in a fun and unique and magical way, unquote. So it's like, one, she executes this well in the movie. Two, again,

relatable, because I was fighting with my mom every day, too, when I was 13. Simply what you do. It's just simply what happens. Yeah, I just I'm a tireless domishi defender after watching that documentary i like her so much and and i liked how like the whatever at the climax of the movie like so much of stuff is like focused on like how may is like struggling to balance her chinese culture with like her canadian culture and how there's like not really one person that she can talk to about everything and like that and then it like then you get the ritual music syncopate with four town you're like yeah synergy it's good and you're like this is hot as shit this is what i walked down the aisle to

it's like it works and it's yeah i like that it's culturally specific and still super relatable because that's like what good kids movies right should be right there are a lot of specific references to chinese culture that hollywood movies have historically shied away from and i'm not speaking just of like chinese culture but like any culture that's not like white American Hollywood tends to shy away from any stories or references of that nature because you know Mr. Hollywood is afraid that it will alienate moviegoing audiences who Mr. Hollywood perceives to be 90% white men based on the movies that Hollywood has historically churned out so sorry you mean Mr. Hollywood Mr. Hollywood is Sonny actually is Sonny the dog so he's rubbing his paws together it makes me sick to look at Sonny is actually running Paramount plus right now my god but yeah it was just like very refreshing to

have this story with these specific cultural references that a lot of people were able to see themselves in but that the story overall is just very universally relatable and it does feel like more movies are like like for kids are headed in this direction where it's like recently you also have like Coco and, um, and Kanto, which like every child in the world is, it's a trigger word for them.

They will. My, my mom sent me a video. My mom's a second grade teacher and she sent me a video of her just like saying the word in Kanto at school. And all the kids were like, like it was like, they had just done a line of coke like

we will cover incanto on the show at some point yes we will but i like that there's more space being made for like culturally specific kids stories and also that they're like doing really fucking well too like i do wish that this i mean i think it i don't know if this i don't really know like production wise whether this movie was always intended to go straight to streaming or if that was a covet thing i do wish that this movie got a general release because i do i feel like totally i feel maybe with the exception of incanto a lot of like disney kids movies at least that like feature like non-white protagonists go straight to streaming and don't get big theatrical releases right right so uh perhaps a bit of side eye there i don't really know um what the covid situation is

there so i could be wrong but i was like yeah why didn't this movie get a huge release yeah it would have done well not sure what else do i have tyler is the devil i don't think he should have gotten a redemption arc he should have gone to detention uh i like that we see and this one i think also maybe the reason that a lot of people had kind of perceived ming as a tiger mom i think that might have been sort of enhanced by the fact that may's dad jen was very like understanding i'm cool and i'm nice and i'm like also sort of barely in the movie but when i am here i'm super nice but then the flip side of that is like when was the last time you saw like a father talk to his daughter about puberty and like accepting yourself like that is never i'm edgelording but i'm like i think it's good i think dad being nice about panda good actually i like i really liked that scene like after he finds the video cam yeah like the video

camera footage it's really cute it makes me cry i like that you see him make dinner for the family like how often do you see the dad making dinner rather than the mom. Yeah, and that's another fun thing about the story that's like the food is really culturally specific. Oh my god. Pixar food. Hungry. Oh my god. Absolutely.

Listen, Pixar should, I mean Ratatouille 2, let's go. Do another food movie. Come on. Ratatouille. Ratatouille 2 let's go do another food movie come on Ratatouille Ratatouille there we go where Linguini has to help the rat do something he has to step on the rat Remy dies immediately

end of movie I also do want to see the movie Ratacoonie which is a reference to Everything Everywhere All at Once where's that spinoff? It's in the works. Let's talk about friendship

really quick. We've kind of covered this already, but I really liked Mae's relationship with her friends. Again, I guess this is really, really closely pulled from Domishi's life and Miriam is basically an analog for her best friend in toronto growing up and they were very close and i guess they're still friends which

is really sweet and i i liked that it's like they are so close and like when i don't know when you're 13 those are like the people that besides random boys you don't actually know the only people you think about like I just I liked their closeness I wish that you got a little more of Priya and Abby because it did sort of become like the Miriam show in terms of like friend stuff I wish that they had more moments yes I agree especially because I think specifically being around I love that she had like a core group that had a bunch of Asian friends in it I think that rules that was what my friend group felt like too and it was funny too because I think Abby is Jewish and it was like all of my white friends were Jewish and then all of my

other friends were Asian oh wait I thought Abby oh no Abby is Korean who Who is Miriam? Miriam. Excuse me. Yes. She's the plaid friend. Yes. I should have said plaid. Sorry. But I just love I love that dynamic. But I felt like one of my best friends growing up was Chinese American. And we could just talk for just forever about like my parents doing this. That's really similar to something like it made me feel normal.

I don't know what I would have done without that experience and i feel like that is the benefit of having that that story was not even just from the director's life like that core group is just like do you experience like how can we talk to each other and make each other feel more safe and normal so i'm with you there it would have been cooler to see like more conversations like that though because i feel like they don't really they happen a little bit of like my mom doesn't get me but it's mostly it's mostly four town and panda yeah it'd be cool if they were talking about their own parents I think there would have been room to to even if it was briefly just to like check in with each of May's friends families and like just to kind of see yeah what their families are like and what their home life is

like but um yeah i we we've talked before about because we've covered a number of coming of age stories on the show but it's a genre that is so white historically and really like upper class too oh yeah it's like which this movie does do is like a fancy house party for 13 year olds. And you're like, yeah, sure. Right. Sure. It happened. But yeah, to have a coming of age story that focuses on a character of color, most of her friends are of color and the movie doesn't center whiteness at all is really, I mean, shouldn't be remarkable. That should just be a thing that already exists. But as we've said, there is a severe lack.

I mean, this is the first Pixar feature film directed by an Asian woman. And the only Pixar movie directed by one woman at all. Oh, wow. I think that there's been like a woman who co-directed, but never like. Right. Because the director of Brave.

She got like fucked over. Yeah. She got fucked over. Yeah. But I don't remember if she ended up with sole director credit or not. Or maybe it was. She didn't. Okay.

Yeah. No, Domi. She is the first in many categories categories and also there's like a majority most of the people working in high positions on this show or on this movie are also women she co-wrote with julia cho who is a famous playwright um so they co-wrote together it was produced by a woman there was like the if you're interested in learning more it's all covered in that 45 minute documentary that happens if you watch all of the credits of turning red it just starts um but it it covers like all of these like women in high positions making this movie during covid Some of them are like trying to raise young children.

They're talking about like how it's been, this is like a really unique project in animation to have so many women at the top of a project. And I know everything Disney makes is essentially propaganda, but this felt like propaganda that I liked. Good propaganda. Yeah. It was making me smile.

And so it was, yeah, it's like it's it's a rarity on so many fronts because pics i feel like pixar there have been like public scandals that have to do with like how few women or people of color are at pixar and it's like caused huge issues in the past so totally seems like domi she is like the new wave. And I thought it was cool that her she says in the documentary that her mentor is my favorite Pixar director, Pete Docter, who did Monsters Incorporated. So he's been her mentor for a long time. And she like pitched him the idea and she tells this anecdote that's really cool where she was like i don't know should it be less culturally specific or like are they less likely to choose this idea to be turned into a feature if it's culturally specific and he i guess he was like nope double down and oh cool she did and the movie got made

so that's awesome love Woohoo. Love it. Does anyone else have anything they want to talk about? No, I just can't believe that Gru stole the moon literally the day after. And it's not addressed. That's the shit that they didn't want to put in the documentary. They're like, it's too dangerous. The whole Gru situation. Yeah. The whole weird how that was kind of left out uh okay

because i heard that steve carell was having public tantrums about the whole situation could not let it go yeah kevin wouldn't leave his trailer kevin's uh was being a complete diva about it he was like just push the date by a week and they said no oh my god Kevin Kevin culture wild um so yeah I think I mean I know that's about all I have to oh the last thing that was just very 2002 specific oh also this made me laugh where there are so many things about this movie that are a first for Disney Pixar. But there were a few random Internet articles that were like the first Disney movie to take place in Canada. You're like, all right, like that's cool.

That is cool. I mean, it feels like when people are like Trailblazer Jill Biden is the first Italian American first lady. And you're kind of like, great. I get like, that's awesome I actually do think it's cool because like I mean all of Hollywood and like Disney media is is like very America centric so yeah I'm like what about our friendly neighbors to the north yeah the denizens of Toronto were thrilled and I guess that they really like nailed it in terms of like I guess even the name of the stadium they perform at used to have a different name and they did it

correctly and it was all nice in conclusion the best thing that happens in this movie is May making a powerpoint presentation to get what she wants um I have done that I did that because I wanted to do something abroad and my dad said no the answer to the powerpoint i've it's never been yes you always i don't know what what happens in your brain that's like this will show them i'm a professional it's like actually you just proved to your parents you're a fucking weenie so that's all that happens you just did homework for free yeah and for what just like you do at school like a chump and then like we should walk out today yeah well um as far as the

Bechdel test goes this movie passes very very handily yeah no question about it between a number of different combinations of characters yeah kind of an easy one we don't need to break it down it happens between almost men don't play a big role in this movie really except for the i i do think for some reason fortan passes the bechdel test for me personally i think because they're talking about us like they're talking about like them like girls and you know where they're they're they're passing it for us and i think that's nice absolutely i agree yeah so let's do the nipple scale nipple scale zero to five nipples based on how the movie fares when examining it

through an intersectional feminist lens enjoyed watching rika's face when we said the nipple scale. I was like, Oh, I'm sorry. Do you have questions? No, pretty self-explanatory. I think I first thought it might be like a pie chart of like one nipple and like how much of the nipple you fill it. I mean, you can interpret it that way.

If you went to the nipple scale is quite fluid i mean you can interpret it that way if you went the nipple scale is quite fluid oh yeah for me i would give turning red i would give it four and a half or maybe even maybe i just need to talk through this i think all my gripes with the movie are just kind of like little tiny plotty things that I had questions about but as far as like what we analyze on the show I don't really have any complaints okay I like the how that's how I have to frame it too because they're I love complaining then give it a five already i think it's a five nipples yeah five nipples no reason not to i'll give one to may one to ming who's voiced by sandra oh i don't think we mentioned that so oh yeah shout out beautiful chinese canadian legend yes and then i'll split the other three

i'll give one to each of Mae's friends I'm going to do five too like with the like asterisk of like I understand the criticism around the tiger mom trope but because it's like this is Domi story and she's been pretty explicit about it and so like with that in mind

it's like I think that the takeaway from that is like you just need more movies about Chinese American, Chineseadian etc families like that is the thing totally yeah i i love this movie so much um i am now a domi shi stan and i'm gonna give it five nipples kind of that's just the beginning middle and end i will say it would have been cool like in this movie too it was like I don't know I don't want to say that like boy bands are a hetero construction they are not but it would have been cool to like see you know like pre-teen queerness like I think that that would have been yeah yeah there was room for it maybe there's the quietest suggestion because Tyler's also at the concert's the quietest suggestion because tyler's also at the concert

yes the quietest suggestion because we don't that doesn't mean anything whatever but yeah i also wondered if there's a moment in at the party where miriam and there's like a kind of goth emo girl they have a kind of i thought it was priya and the goth girl oh sorry what did I say you said Miriam oh I think it's Priya and the goth girl were dancing and then the other three girls were like woohoo oh yeah like oh I didn't even okay that didn't I didn't notice that I was talking about I think there's a moment where they're doing like charades and then one of them is like oh I'm thinking of a different moment at the party there's a charades moment and that actually might be Priya too now I don't totally remember but it's one of the friends and then like

the goth girl who like have a little like moment yeah i noticed that too so maybe that's a suggestion but it could be certainly more overt that's such a disney move of like josh gad touches another man's hand and homophobia is solved you're like give it a rest but anyways that said like that's like a very very small gripe for a movie that is so fucking great so i'm gonna give it five nipples give one to may uh three to the friends and i'm gonna give the last one to dad's cooking yay yeah rika how about you i will give just as someone who hasn't given nipples before i'll say four and a half because i think everything you said was true like really ticks a lot of boxes without even having to think about it you're not scrounging

your memory to remember what how it satisfies like two people from a marginalized gender talking to each other. It happens the entire fucking movie. And I think that's really exciting and cool. And if I have to give my nipples out, if I don't get to keep hoard them. I mean, that's also on the table.

No, I should be generous. I'm going to give okay, I'll give two to Mae because I think she earned it I think she did a lot of work um I'm gonna give one to Ming because she's done a lot of work too um I'm gonna give uh one to the friends and one and a half to the aunties and the grandma hell yeah hell yeah oh yeah we We did sleep on. Look, the elder generations need nipples as well. That's what I always say.

It's true. It's true. Well, thank you so much for coming on this show, Rick. And thank you for bringing us this movie today. We had so much fun. Thank you.

Thank you guys for having me. What a blast. Oh my gosh. Where can people check out your stuff? Follow you online, plug away. twitter i'm at reika l shunker so r-e-k-h-a l-s-h-a-n-k-a-r and on instagram i'm at reika underscore s r-e-k-h-a underscore s and you know hire me watch grand crew on hulu yes watch animaniacs next year i was like when to say i was okay and yes what a treat animation rocks it's great we love animation and you can follow

us on twitter and instagram at bechtel cast you can subscribe to our matreon at patreon.com slash bechtel cast where you get two bonus episodes every month plus access to the entire back catalog of bonuses, which is now over 100. So if you're running out of main feed episodes, scoot on over to the matron and there's a lot more. And if you're compelled by the whole groove situation, it's minions March on the Matreon this July. That it is. And so we did cover Despicable Me where this revelation originally came to pass, amongst other things. Yes. So head over there. You don't want to miss it. If you don't, it's good for you.

Hell yeah. You can also get our merch at tpublic.com slash the Bechtel cast. All right. Shall we? How do we close this episode? Go to the. I have to. Go to the Four Town Reunion concert the four town reunion concert in Vegas.

And oh, my God. Wait, one of the members of four town is in QAnon now. That was my Backstreet Boys experience. Who? But Brian. Brian. Oh, no. He was my favorite.

Brian was Brian and Nick were my boys. And then Nick's a creep. And then Brian's a Q. He was on Parler. We should have gone with AJ. See, we should have known. AJ's been through some stuff and came out the other end. He is strong-willed.

Kevin has always been a father to the whole group. That was my problem with him originally. He's a father to the whole group, I know. But also, it's fun to reflect on because I'm like, I really thought Kevin was a senior citizen because he was 26 years old. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Four-time reunion concert.

Okay. Well, yeah, let's go to the concert. Bye. Bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks.

She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years.

I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? A show about the ways that mental illness is shaped by not just biology, swaps of different meds, but by culture and society. By looking

closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care. Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.