{"id":19753,"date":"2022-06-15T17:16:01","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T21:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ceros.com\/inspire\/?p=19753"},"modified":"2022-06-15T17:16:44","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T21:16:44","slug":"turning-red-encanto-disney-diversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ceros.com\/inspire\/originals\/turning-red-encanto-disney-diversity\/","title":{"rendered":"Could &#8216;Turning Red&#8217; Be a Turning Point? Why Diversity Makes Disney Better"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\">3<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>\n<p>With the release of <em>Turning Red<\/em>, its 60th animated feature, the family-friendly entertainment juggernaut drove its mouse-eared prow straight into the culture wars. For over a decade, Disney had been grounding its animated features in traditions far from its homogenous American origins with sometimes messy results. Though well-intentioned, these steps in a more inclusive direction meant little more than a red-haired princess instead of a blonde one. But as its efforts toward representation grew ever more ambitious, Disney wound up drawing criticism from nearly every corner.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A proposed live-action <em>Snow White<\/em> received a lambasting from actor Peter Dinklage for its pixie-fication of dwarfish bodies.<em> Raya And the Last Dragon,<\/em> a pointedly diverse film, provoked sharp criticism for<em> <\/em>grafting a vast array of Southeast Asian cultures (Indonesian, Malaysian, Cambodian, Singaporean, Vietnamese, Lao, Thai) onto a sort of princess-journey boilerplate.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even supporters of Disney\u2019s commitment to representation felt that, while laudable, the commitment would inevitably exact a cost to its creative product. And that\u2019s odd, because it\u2019s the very diversity of Disney\u2019s most recent films that likely made those films superior. <em>Encanto<\/em> and <em>Turning Red <\/em>both prove the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"position: relative;width: auto;padding: 0 0 67.11%;height: 0;top: 0;left: 0;bottom: 0;right: 0;margin: 0;border: 0 none\" id=\"experience-62a76c868a6c1\" data-aspectratio=\"1.49\"><iframe allowfullscreen=\"\" src=\"\/\/view.ceros.com\/ceros-marketing\/hard-drive-carousel-01-2-1-1-1-1-2-1\" style=\"position: absolute;top: 0;left: 0;bottom: 0;right: 0;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: 0 none;height: 1px;width: 1px;min-height: 100%;min-width: 100%\" frameborder=\"0\" class=\"ceros-experience\" title=\"Turning Red Color Scheme\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"\/\/view.ceros.com\/scroll-proxy.min.js\" data-ceros-origin-domains=\"view.ceros.com\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Based in two richly-specific story worlds\u2014magical-realist Colombia for <em>Encanto<\/em>, and 1990s Toronto for <em>Turning Red<\/em>\u2014each film provided a sumptuous visual feast like <em>Raya<\/em>, but triumphed because of an evolved understanding of the word \u201crepresentation.\u201d These two films represented all the kinks, quirks, and hiccups of a specific people, in a specific culture, at a particular time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong><em>Encanto<\/em>\u2019s Believable Magical Realism<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2016, <em>Encanto<\/em> directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard began with a story of a large family that\u2019s magically empowered except for one ungifted daughter. But it was the Colombian filmmakers Natalie Osma and Juan Rendon that suggested setting the story in Colombia, a kind of Latin American crossroads that provided the story with fertile ground.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The yellow butterflies that carry such emotive weight in the film\u2014images of longing, or fragile hope \u2014 flitted from the pages of Gabriel Garcia Marquez\u2019s masterpiece, <em>A Hundred Years of Solitude. <\/em>The boisterous post-colonial pueblo outside the Madrigal\u2019s mansion draws its inspiration from Barichara and Salento, two real-life Colombian towns. The technicolor river, a site of fateful events in the family\u2019s life, was influenced by an actual river named Ca\u00f1o Cristales, which in different seasons can appear red, blue, green, or yellow. The foundational tragedy that occurs there and claims the patriarch of the Madrigals reflects Colombia\u2019s armed militia conflicts of the past century, which Colombians tend to call \u201cThe Violence.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Countless other elements in the <em>Encanto<\/em> mosaic\u2014the fast <em>salsa cale\u00f1a <\/em>dancing style, the diversity of skin tones, the sexy, gender-fluid strongwoman Luisa\u2014bring a truly fleshed-out <em>realism <\/em>to this magical-realist vision of Colombia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong><em>Turning Red<\/em><\/strong><strong> Finds the Universal in the Particular<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Like <em>Encanto, Turning Red <\/em>also locates itself at a cultural crossroads. In this case, it&#8217;s one that creator Domee Shi embodied from childhood. A Canadian native, Shi was raised in \u201990s Toronto by two loving, boundaryless Chinese immigrants, who presumably navigated her puberty awkwardly, at best. Starting with the primal drama of a daughter\u2019s first menstruation, Shi spun a kind of Boy Band-era fairytale\u2014a period film, if you will\u2014marshaling all the mighty, dream-making force of Pixar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The central device: at the cusp of adolescence, 13-year-old Mei Lee finds herself turning into a big, fuzzy, unignorable (but adorable) red panda at moments of either stress or hormonal surge. Employing the tactic of anthropomorphized emotions that Pixar minted with <em>Inside Out,<\/em> Shi renders the explosive humiliations of puberty as a spectacle that\u2019s both socially awkward and shame-free. Anchored in the physical specifics of self-regulation, Mei\u2019s efforts to tame her inner panda involve deep breaths and self-soothing hair-brushing\u2014rather than, say, flinging herself onto her bed for a Disney princess sob.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the film\u2019s rendition of its world combines hyper-realism of Pixar\u2019s CGI wizards with physical exaggerations of anime like <em>Sailor Moon<\/em> to render the outsize emotional states of early adolescence. New technology that gives a frame-by-frame assessment of background characters enabled an incredibly faithful panorama of a racially- and socially-diverse Toronto street corner, seen in the pastel hues of recalled \u201990s tweendom. The fully realized sound, music and dance moves of the film\u2019s invented \u201990s boy band 4*Town, both crush objects and common cause for Mei and her friends, physicalizes the fun, trashy, \u201990s outside world that pulls Mei from the loving straitjacket of her conservative Chinese mom.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"position: relative;width: auto;padding: 0 0 167.79%;height: 0;top: 0;left: 0;bottom: 0;right: 0;margin: 0;border: 0 none\" id=\"experience-62a35735b9427\" data-aspectratio=\"0.596\"><iframe allowfullscreen=\"\" src=\"\/\/view.ceros.com\/ceros-marketing\/hard-drive-carousel-01-2-1-1-1-1-2?heightOverride=1250\" style=\"position: absolute;top: 0;left: 0;bottom: 0;right: 0;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: 0 none;height: 1px;width: 1px;min-height: 100%;min-width: 100%\" frameborder=\"0\" class=\"ceros-experience\" title=\"Turning Red Anime Carousel\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"\/\/view.ceros.com\/scroll-proxy.min.js\" data-ceros-origin-domains=\"view.ceros.com\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p>Other contemporary totems\u2014Tamagotchi pets, certain backpack styles\u2014engorge this totally fabricated world with unruly life. Ending credits show the massive Pixar infrastructure that helped realize a Toronto native\u2019s coming-of-age tale. While some might find this cause for resentment, others might cite an observation from James Joyce: &#8220;In the particular is contained the universal.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the successes of <em>Encanto <\/em>and <em>Turning Red<\/em> are any indication, inclusiveness is a friend, not foe, of universal appeal. Greater representation of soul, honesty, and empathy may make for an even more magic kingdom.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"myclass\">While detractors felt like a commitment to inclusivity might exact a creative toll on Disney&#8217;s final products, it&#8217;s that very diversity that likely made two recent films superior.<\/div>\n<p><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":19765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&#039;Turning Red&#039; &amp; &#039;Encanto&#039; Show Diversity Improves Disney - 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