"A thirteen-year-old girl is torn between staying her mother's dutiful daughter and the changes of adolescence. And as if the challenges were not enough, whenever she gets overly excited she transforms into a giant red panda."

e x a m p l e s

Photos!: 50 avatars

PROCLAMATION FROM THE PRINCESS
While not my favorite Pixar film, was still so important and well received in my home. Both my boys really enjoyed this movie and asked to watch it 4 more times in the days following our first movie night viewing and I was pretty impressed with the lessons they both took from the film and shared with me later (because this movie is SUCH a conversation starter in all the best ways and honestly I could ramble on and on and on and ON about this movie).

Shintaro (5 at the time of viewing): it is important to listen to each other (because the mother and Mei were not REALLY listening to one another and trying to push their own agendas)
Ryoma (9 at the time of viewing): puberty is inevitable for everyone and will hit people differently, so it is important to be empathetic. Puberty is not weird.

The message on generational trauma and healing is also very poignant and I still get chills and weepy when all these generations come together is when they are pulling mama red panda back into the circle and the aunties/grandma are still doing the ancient Chinese chant while the girls and 4*Town begin to sing (it is such a BOP and has no right to sound so good as it does. Not to mention Jordan Fischer hitting that note? Chills for me every single time). As a parent, this film particularly hit hard because I want my sons to be 'the best' and do the best they can. To accomplish a lot of things in life and grow up strong. In trying to put them on the right path, I CAN become overbearing and controlling. What my sons took away from the film (and what we talked about afterwards) was that parents will try their best to do right by their kids, but in doing so they can loose sight of their children's' emotions and needs. Likewise, that children can be so gunho in their wants and desires and not listen to their parents. Respect being a two way street and someone shouldn't just blindly follow their elders just because they are our elders. There are ways to disagree with your elders in a respectful way and Mei struggles with finding that balance throughout the film just like her mother struggles to communicate with her daughter. It's a struggle all parents and their children go through. I don't see the 'spitting in the face of family values' point that some people claimed to be present in the film and why it was so ~problematic~, because Mei does not do that. She learns how to find her place with in her family legacy and all the women communicate and understand one another, healing generation upon generation of family trauma. For me personally, this made me think a lot about my relationship with my dad. My father grew up in poverty and it was education that saved him - as he phrases it. So good grades and a good education were vital to his life and pulling himself out of poverty and welfare. He, unknowingly, put a LOT of pressure on me to do well in school and I was a straight A student all through my junior year of high school where I began struggling in my AP classes. I struggled so much that passing was becoming herculean...and because I was so afraid of failing the class and disappointing him...I cheated. And I was really bad at it and got caught because I was really really REALLY not good at it, lulz. I naturally got a 0 on a test, one that was a huge chunk of my grade, and (really streamlining this story and simplifying it) we all had to go to family therapy afterwards because I was cracking under this pressure to get good grades and respect my father while putting my own mental health aside because I thought that in getting poor grades I was betraying my dad.

I really could on and on and ON about the messages and how relatable the film is...but I'll end on a silly note and say that as a teeny bopper in the 90's with a huuuuuuuuuuuge Backstreet Boys fan, this movie captured that feeling of perfectly and I REMEMBER going to a concert where they flew over the audience and I screamed myself hoarse