Seeing Red: Must See

Rather bummed that Disney didn’t have the confidence to release this semi-original idea in theaters exclusively as they do with the MCU stuff. It was stronger than Luca (the Little Italian Mermaid) and about on par with Inside/Out or Soul, the last two near-perfect movies Pixar has produced. As for the overblown controversies alongside the hate because it focused on a minority, I say, hey, it’s about time Canadians got their due! We keep using Toronto or Vancouver in the background as NYC, LA and Star City so greedy, corporate Hollywood keeps getting that sweet, sweet Canadian Welfare!

Sarcasm aside, all the people getting their underpants in a twist over the main character being a tweener girl and/or being of Chinese ancestry. Why can’t you schmucks just enjoy a fun, universal coming-of-age story set around 20 years ago? It’s not terribly original because I saw this in high school around 1986 and then it was called Teen Wolf. It also did star a Canadian. To be fair, Red is cribbing The Hulk and what I feel are the universal themes found in Sixteen Candles and Inside/Out as the super-tight bond between mother and daughter is getting severed as the daughter becomes her own person or in layperson terms, puberty. The only element making this unique is the trope of ethnic Chinese people being overachievers, especially when they live in the West.

Pixar excelled in the details through physical humor, mixing other animation techniques to convey emotions and obviously they did their homework to make the Chinese cultural stuff as accurate as possible. The main character transforming into a red panda will sell a ka-jillion toys should this take off. It could be their marketing bonanza of Cars for girls.

It’s a bummer Seeing Red won’t excel and join the ranks of Pixar’s other great movies due to the lack of it being a theater-only choice; the first, true gauge of success. However, I think Disney is too busy pushing the hell out of Encanto with it’s mediocre, insincere, ear-worm-driven songs.