Hello friends and readers!
I’ve shared this on Twitter but I thought I’d share this here as well as I know many of you don’t use Twitter. I was invited to be a guest on the Downlow.d Podcast, which is a deep dive audio documentary series that explores the morally complicated, occasionally inspiring and often forgotten oral histories of the internet. Thanks to its host Joe Scott for inviting me to talk about about Turning Red, which in case you missed my review, I absolutely adore!
I really enjoyed our conversation with Joe about how I feel about Turning Red and what its Asian representation mean to me. We also discussed the controversies surrounding it, including the viral review by Cinema Blend’s Sean O’Connell that got pulled offline after critics and fans alike criticized it for being racist and sexist. Even cast members of the Pixar movie commented reacted to it, as you can read on this article. At the end of our chat, we also rank our current top 3 Pixar movies.
It’s such an honor to be a guest alongside Erica Milsom who directed the Making Of documentary of Turning Red. I just saw it this weekend and it’s so wonderful to see the background stories of director Domee Shi and the entire Turning Red team. The female camaraderie and sheer creativity behind the movie is so inspiring and delightful to watch. The documentary is available to stream on DisneyPlus. I highly recommend it and it’s less than an hour long.
Here’s the trailer:
What did YOU think of Turning Red? Also, what’s YOUR top 3 Pixar movies?
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That’s cool that you’re got to be on the podcast, I don’t listen to podcasts but glad you had a great time on it.
As for that ignorant and idiotic review from Cinema Blend, it just proved my points again that some of these white dudes just aren’t happy seeing a movie or show with someone that don’t look like them. Again, I bring back Boba Fett’s casting, had Lucas cast a white actor in that role, many of the Star Wars geek would’ve hyped up the character so much more. But Fett hasn’t been that popular since they found out that the character isn’t white. Lol!
Yeah I guess you’re right Ted, it’s really too bad isn’t it that some people cannot empathize with characters who don’t look like them. For people like us, we won’t be able to enjoy hardly any movie if we can’t empathize w/ people of a different race LOL!
Some people just are too close minded and refuse to see what other cultures have to offer. It’s their loss but those type of people shouldn’t be reviewing films or shows if they don’t feel “represented”, their opinion is worthless to me.
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I’ve actually been listening to the Downlow.d podcast week to week, and then low and behold, there’s a friend of mine popping up on it as a special guest! A very welcome and pleasant surprise 🙂
Oh wow!! That is so cool, CB!! Glad you’ve been listening to Downlow.d podcast. Hope you enjoyed our chat about Turning Red. Have you seen it yet? Are you into Pixar movies?
I was definitely a biiiig Pixar fan growing up — that initial run of movies, from the original “Toy Story” up thru maybe “Toy Story 3”, is pretty unimpeachable. But then, as you guys chatted about in your conversation, the sequels started to come more frequently, and some of the patina wore off. I like “Brave” and “Inside Out”, but you can DEFINITELY feel the pressure to do two “Cars” sequels in order to get those movies bankrolled; I’ve thought some of the recent Pixar sequels were *fine*, don’t get me wrong, but did I need an OK sequel to the basically perfect “Finding Nemo”? Did I need an OK sequel to the basically perfect “Monsters Inc.”? I don’t begrudge Pixar continuing to make entertaining movies that kids enjoy, but IMO somewhere around 2011/2012, Pixar movies stopped feeling “special” every time out, like they went from pushing the envelope every time out to pushing the envelope on maybe 1 in every 3-4 movies. Maybe I just got older and crankier, but having revisited “Finding Nemo” not that long ago…it feels like some of the magic was lost.
Now, I WILL say that I haven’t kept up with Pixar’s movies as much in the last year or two, partially because I don’t have Disney+, partially because I’ve been busy. I’ve heard wonderful things about both “Soul” and “Turning Red”, and if the latter were playing in a theater — and I weren’t in the middle of directing a movie lol — I would ABSOLUTELY give it a watch! As it stands, I’ll probably have to wait until I’m house sitting to check it out. Which bums me out, because I’ve heard it’s really good, and learning that it was directed by the same person who directed “Bao” — which I honestly liked better than “Incredibles 2” — has only made me MORE curious. I hope you and Joe Scott are right, and that Pixar is starting to find its post-Lasseter footing again, because if nothing else, the deeply dumb overreaction on the internet to “Turning Red” in particular makes it seem like the company might be pushing the boundaries again, trying bold new ideas, and allowing new voices to flourish. And in my opinion, that’s what Pixar was doing when they were at their best.
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