Engaging with a controversial movie

There has been something of a furore over Pixar’s latest animated movie offering, Turning Red.

The film has provoked strong reactions, with audiences either loving or hating it. Its fans love the quirky animation style and accurate portrayal of teenage girls whilst its detractors have been horrified by references to puberty, labelling its Chinese-Canadian heroine Mei ‘unrelatable’.

The latter criticism seems somewhat bizarre, as puberty is something which happens to everyone and the film helpfully rejects unnecessary feelings of shame or embarrassment. Similarly, there should be nothing controversial about having a non-white lead character.

No obvious antagonist

More interestingly, some critics have picked up on the film’s lack of an obvious antagonist, a feature it shares with other recent Disney/Pixar releases such as Luca, Soul and Encanto. In all of these stories, despite various family altercations, the main character’s biggest struggle is with herself.

It would be easy to write this off as classic Western individualism – a version of Polonius’ advice, ‘to thine own self be true’ – and it is true that our young people are deeply invested in the desire to be their ‘authentic’ selves.

However, I think that making the protagonist the antagonist raises some interesting questions for us as Christians. One of my favourite books as a young adult was Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. In the book, her hero, Ged, tempted by pride and envy, releases a nameless evil into the world. This shadow terrifies and stalks him; the only way to vanquish it, he is told, is to discover its true name. Ged eventually gathers his courage and faces it. Its name, he realises, is his own.

Despite being an atheist, Le Guin hits upon a profound truth in her story – evil lies within us just as much as outside of us. Church liturgy often references sin, the world and the devil and, as Jesus reminds us, it is what is inside a person that makes them unclean (Matt. 15:17-20).

Engaging with reality

So perhaps we can engage with this new stream of Disney/Pixar movies in a way that moves beyond the simply affirmative ‘to thine own self be true’. As Christians, we are painfully aware of our own sin. We are all messy individuals with conflicting desires who frequently hurt those close to us. The answer is not to hide all of that away and to present a ‘perfect’, respectable exterior, something that Mei and her mother learn in Turning Red, as do Mirabel and her family in Encanto. But neither is the answer to give up and give in, to ‘let it go’ as Elsa from Frozen would suggest.

The characters in these films are not so different from the children and teenagers we may know – they make mistakes, disobey their parents, and struggle to process their emotions, just as adults do. But Christians have something much better to offer than merely an ‘accept yourself as you are’ philosophy. 1 John 1:8-9 tells us this: ‘If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.’

Who we were intended to be

We feel frustrated and unhappy when we get things wrong, because deep down we know that we are acting wrongly. Acknowledging our sin and seeking forgiveness is life-changing and brings lasting hope and peace. Knowing Jesus, and the power of His Holy Spirit to fight sin, is the only way to truly become who we were always intended to be. This recent trend of protagonist/antagonist movies is great at highlighting the struggles we all face, but in a world seeking authenticity and purpose, the gospel message is the only real happily ever after.