Several scenes from the latest Pixar Red alert challenged those who saw it. The reason ? The animation studio evokes in particular the passage from childhood to adolescence through the question of menstruation and shows periodic protections on the screen. A rare initiative hailed by the public.
“Red alert!” This is what many spectators must have said to themselves in the face of several scenes from the latest animated film from Pixar studios, released on March 11 on the streaming platform of the American giant Disney.
Red alert tells the story of Mei, a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl who, after a nightmare-ridden night, wakes up to find she has transformed into a giant red panda. She eventually realizes that this only happens when she experiences a strong emotion. Before arriving there, Mei, panicked, hides her unexplained metamorphosis from her parents, including her mother, who then wonders if her daughter has not had her first period. Logical when we remember the title of the film (“Red Alert”) and we are made to understand that the young girl must, overnight, learn to manage all the emotions that may cross her (if not, we speaks, at this age, of adolescent crisis).
Either way, it spawned several scenes that got a lot of people reacting on social media.
I think back to Turning red, and tell me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s the first cartoon I’ve seen that talks directly about the rules. pic.twitter.com/C1pLaHrNvH
Don’t think this is a spoiler, but—idk that I *ever* (as a teen) saw anything depict women’s health and care (mental & physical) with the normalcy #TurningRed does.
There’s something revolutionary to that level of transparency about adolescence being HARD. pic.twitter.com/HScLJ6ew0l
The way I sobbed when I saw the pads in #TurningRed. Women are so often reduced to smaller versions of themselves, either sexualized or non-existent. To see a film list out different kinds of hygiene products with such normalcy was moving. pic.twitter.com/XYRcnRBDJK
And yes, the female characters in Pixar animated films are women like the others, so they also have their periods and need, every month, periodic protections. The mere reference to this subject, if only in a decorative element, is, however, something sufficiently rare in animated films, even more so from a studio as well known and recognized as Pixar, to be emphasized.
A detail that counts at a time when we are reminded that representation in the media and culture is an essential issue in the understanding and trivialization of certain subjects, which seems all the more true with the films of Pixar animation aimed primarily at young audiences, including young girls of menstruating age. In any case, this initiative is probably not unrelated to the fact that it is the first Pixar directed by a woman, in this case Domee Shi.
If a few people may have found these scenes and decor elements inappropriate (certainly the same ones, essentially men, who are offended to see advertisements for menstrual protection on television during their meal but whose bloodshed in series police or horror films do not cut the appetite), a large part of the reactions on social networks welcome the initiative.
“We trust our teams and our test screenings to know if our ideas work. And when we showed the film internally, everyone laughed and then put themselves in the character’s shoes. explains Lindsey Collins, producer of the film, to our sisters and brothers from RFI. “And that’s what we’re looking for, this identification of the spectators with the characters. Everyone wanted to keep that scene in the movie.”
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