Turning Red w. Livia Tsang and Carolyn Kendrick

Hello, you, and welcome to You Are Good, a feelings podcast about movies. Today, we are talking about Turning Red and we are talking about it with the wonderful Livia saying, I am one of your hosts, Alex Steed, and I will soon be joined by today's special guest co-host, Carolyn Kendrick. You Are Good, a feelings podcast about movies is exactly what it sounds like. This is a show where we talk about the feelings that movies evoke. We are not film critics. We're here to watch these movies and say, here's how this makes me think about who and how I am in this world. Turning Red is a 2022 American animated coming-of-age fantasy comedy drama film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. In Toronto, Ontario in 2002, the film follows Mei Lin, Mei Li, a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian student who transforms into a giant red panda when she experiences any strong emotion due to a hereditary curse. Livia saying is a tattooist based in Toronto, is also an artist and a photographer. We've had Livia on the show before talking about Mulan. I will have a link to Livia's work in the show notes. I'm a huge, huge fan and I'm so glad they're with us today. How are you doing? What's going on in your world? How are you feeling? I know what's going on out there. I know it's happening. Not ideal in a lot of ways, but you know what? People are showing up. And it is beautiful to see. I know that things are scary and the ways that things are scary. I know that things are startling and the ways that things are startling. You know what I fucking love is seeing people get out there in any way that they can. I heard from someone recently who I was like, I don't know that they have in my understanding of them like a political bone in their body, but they were like, I've been out here delivering food to people who need it, who can't get out of their houses. That's what I've been doing for the past couple of days. And that is rad. That is the best. You know, and I've said this thing before over and over again where like we save off dread by doing and I fully and firmly believe that. And I think that it's like a good reminder when we're kind of feeling it and it's great to be out in with community in these times in whatever way we're able to do so. But I'm really seeing it, you know, and I love that. It's not a great scenario, but people are out there in the ways that they are able to be and they are challenging themselves to do a bit more. You know, it's like if you don't ever do anything, make those calls to the senators, right, to the Congress, to the Congress people. If you make calls already, make some more calls and then add some other stuff to it. And if you are already sort of fully doing that, now it's time for streets time. Or it's always like the point being, if you're not doing something, do something. If you're doing something, do something more. If you're doing a lot, look at what is most effective and sort of what needs to be adjusted, how you can be taking care of yourself in this time, how you can sort of bring the most impact to the situation. This right now is a matter of checking in on what you were doing and what you can be doing. And from what I've seen, a lot of people are doing and that's the best. Scary times, but when I look out there and see how people are showing up, it warms my heart. However you end up doing it, though, whatever you end up, however you end up showing up, don't forget that you, my friend, are good. You are good at feelings, podcasts about movies, made possible with and by your support. Thanks to everyone who supports us on Patreon and Apple Podcast subscriptions. We could not do it without you. In exchange for that support, you get bonus episodes and you get extended cuts. We have a bonus episode coming out imminently about Stand By Me. Someone has already pointed out, hey, you already did Stand By Me and I forgot. But I'm doing it with River Butcher in this bonus episode and it was one of those things where I was so moved by the grief of the Reiner situation that I just forgot what we have covered on the show. Thanks for listening to another episode about Stand By Me, but this one's with River. So it's a lot of fun. We have a good time with this one. Today's guest host, Carolyn Kendrick, is the founding producer of You Are Good, a feelings podcast about movies. Is a musician, prolific in that arena and also has a new podcast mini series coming out called Don't Call Me, Darling. She's done a bunch of research for this throughout the past year with her friend Tristan Scroggins. There's about a bunch of different paths that cross feminism, indie media, genre, bluegrass of all things. Through this examination of this, essentially the zine, this newsletter that was called Women in Bluegrass and Tristan and Carolyn go out and they sort of re-interview all the people who appeared in that newsletter. Some in their 90s now. To better understand how things have changed and how things have not in specific subcultures of music. So, in this little project, there's a link in the show notes and they are looking to fund the project because making mini series is not easy or easily fundable these days. It's just not a thing that the podcast industry is putting money into anymore for whatever reason. So you can also find out how to support the show at the link in the show notes. Please join me in supporting our friends in Gaza and Palestine at large. Palestine Children's Relief Fund link in the show notes. There are all sorts of ways to support materially. That's a great way to start. Hey, if you are going to be in Los Angeles on February 4th, which is a Wednesday, come see Eve Lindley and me do a movie trivia night at Kibbitz room. It's typically a packed house, although in January, we really kind of forgot to promote it aside from the day of. We had a great time and everyone who showed up listens to the show and it was a real round table. So come on out. It's a super fun night. There are prizes. We have a great time. It's eight to 10 p.m. at the Kibbitz room, February 4th. Come on out. All right, everybody, that's it for me. Let's jump into this episode, shall we? Let's get right into it with Olivia Sang and Carolyn Kendrick. Hello, Carolyn Kendrick. Hello, Alex Steed. Good to see you. How are you doing this fine morning? You know, I am doing really good. You and I just got back from Boston. We had like a whole experience and now I'm just happy to be home. And now it's like we were just talking about how it's really, truly 2026 now, not just like fake 2026. It's so true. We're fully into it now. Yeah, our experience, by the way, is going to a funeral memorial service, which I only want to clarify because we had an experience in an ambiguous way. I feel like it could be filled in with something. Yeah, you're right. Iowasko for a treat. That sounds weird. I'm a computer. Whatever. I don't know. It's the only reason I'm clarifying. It was delightful. Yeah, we are full on in 2026. I don't want to be too cocky, but I have decent feelings about how this all is going to go years wise. I'm just going to say it. Like you think 2026 is going to be a good year? I think there's a real energy in the air. I think there's an energy. I'm not confident enough to say that it's going to be good or bad, but I do think it's going to be a really interesting year. I'm willing goodness. Yeah, manifesting. Well, I wanted to we'll bring in our guests momentarily, but I wanted to have you here in particular, Carolyn Kendrick, because I I'd heard about what this movie was about, but didn't fully understand what it was about. And I needed an Ares daughter, I feel like, to be with us today to co-helm the ship. So I'm so glad that you're here. You know, I thought of I thought of 100 different people, but you were at the top of the list. Oh, yeah, I'm so excited to get into this. As soon as I looked up the movie Turning Red, I was like, oh, yes, of course, I am familiar with the artwork for it. And like, I obviously was aware when it came out, but you and I, Alex, we talk all the time and you're constantly just like saying movie titles to me. And so when you said Turning Red, because it was out of context, I thought it was going to be like a scary action movie from the 80s for some reason, like exact opposite. Yeah, it is in the way that the challenge of figuring out if you're going to embrace your initial desire or or shove it right down into the nothing until it destroys all of your all of your future generations. Well, on that note, Livia, hello. Nihao, Alex, Nihao, Carolyn, how are you? I'm happy to meet you both at a very Chinese time of your life. Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this movie. Also, I feel like this episode will probably come out around the beginning of the Lunar New Year, so it's the year of the Fire Horse. So things are happening. That's kind of like the general vibe of the year that I'm getting is things are certainly happening and they're happening fast. I have been hearing a lot of talk about the year of the horse and I have like fairly limited context for like what that means. Is that basically what it means is that it's going to be a very action oriented year? Yeah, Fire Horse in particular is like action oriented, a lot of like generating new opportunities, things like that. In the Western tradition, it's a lot more they talk a lot about more of like individuality and like individual accomplishments and goals, but in the East, it's more about like collective action and stuff. And so I think that's a great theme for this year's collective action. Yeah, I like that message better than individual action. That's for Dank, sure. For sure. Olivia, what tell us about you first and then tell us about why this was a title you were eager to get in on. Yeah, so I am a visual artist in tattooer from Toronto, Canada, where the movie is set. I am also a Chinese Canadian. My parents immigrated from Hong Kong first to the United States, actually, and then to Canada. And so my brother and I were the first ones in our immediate family born in Canada. I think I have like one other cousin from my generation who was born in Canada. Everyone else is coming in from Hong Kong. And initially, when I saw this movie for the first time, it was kind of when it first came out, it was like a pandemic movie. And we watched it like my partner and his cousin and I, we watched it together. And immediately I was like, oh, this is a movie about me. Like it's a completely movie about me, like overachieving kid of immigrants, very specifically good at one niche and like the complicated relationships between parents, especially mother and daughter. You know, I think I've mentioned the last time it's been like a year since we spoke about the Mulan episode, actually, it's like literally like a year almost to the day. And that episode was mostly about dads. And I feel like this one's going to be very much about moms. And like when I think back on my relationship with my mother, like now as someone who was her age when she was having kids, there's a lot more grace when I think about it now. But back then I was like, you're controlling me and you're trying to get me to do what you want me to do. And I'm not like you, mom. It's not just a phase. And so watching this was really, really fun. And then I remember I showed it to my mom and her thoughts were, oh, it reminded me of you. And I was like, why? Why specifically? And she's like, oh, because it's about a little Chinese girl. I was like, OK. Thank you. It's also I had a gender affirming hysterectomy in August of last year. And so this was my first time watching the movie with that kind of mindset because it's also like very specifically about coming of age and periods. And so I thought that was like a really kind of interesting experience to watch it and remember that time of my life where it was like the gender dysphoria markedly began around that time. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So what like what is this movie? Because I I similarly I think like it's been maybe several decades since I have immediately checked out a movie that was animated by either Pixar or Disney, unless someone is like there is something in here for you. So my understanding about this movie was somehow it involved periods. That was like the entire my entire read of this movie based on sort of what I had heard from people. And then when I had posted on Blue Sky that I loved watching it, there are very diehard fans, evidently. But like what how would you describe what this is to someone who only heard about it in passing, but but is not quite sure what it is? I would say that it is a coming of age story through a very specific lens of like the Chinese Canadian child of immigrants experience. But it's also a coming of age story about like found family and being very true to yourself. At the same time, I was thinking about it a little bit harder. And I was like, technically, she's also embracing her identity as a furry, which kind of happens towards the end of the movie, which is really interesting. Yeah, totally. But it definitely is like I would just kind of call it like a coming of age story and ways in which you kind of relate to your mother and try to separate yourself from the identity that like your parents kind of have formed for you. And like those kind of familial expectations. Yeah, but through a very, very niche and very specific lens. Would you mind telling us a little bit about like the characters, like what their names are and how they relate to each other? Yeah. So we have the main character, Maylin Lee. She is a 13 year old Chinese Canadian girl from Toronto. Her parents, they run a temple in the movie. It's kind of like in the main China town downtown core, but obviously in real life, that doesn't exist. And then she has like a group of four friends. Their names are Miriam, Priya and Abby. Miriam is Jewish, Priya is Indian and Abby is Korean. And it kind of is very indicative of like the diversity in Toronto with like a very diverse friend group and stuff. And then she also has this guy, Tyler, who is like her bully, who is actually secretly like a four townie or whatever, like the four town boy band group. And then also Sandra Oh plays her mom, her mom's name, I think is Ming. That makes I was I was trying to place her voice and that's great. I love Sandra Oh. Yeah, she's awesome. Yeah, I read this like I read the friend group as queer. Yeah, this is a queer coded group of four, four pals. Yes, especially, especially Miriam. And it was it was interesting watching the dynamic with the friend group too, because I remember being in like late elementary school, like around the age that I was like the characters were and having friends who like my mom didn't particularly like. And they were like white kids who would like talked back to their parents and things like that, you know, like I remember there was one time I got reprimanded in front of a friend and then that friend was like, why didn't you talk back to your mom? And I was like, do you know what what that means in my house? Like, are you nuts? And so that was like very I remembered that very, very strongly. And when when May is like, my mom doesn't even like you that much. And her friend, Miriam's like, your mom doesn't like me. Yeah. I did love that. Yeah, I also I love Abby, the one who is just for no obvious reason, extraordinarily intense all the time. Yeah, she's ferocious. Yeah, she is. Yeah, she's she's had like a bucket of sugar. Does all these like pixie sticks and she's just like high on life. Yeah, she's so excited. She loves Fortown so much. Oh, my God. So we know that May Liz with her parents has given us sort of some background. Oh, by the way, this takes place. Be still my heart. This takes place at the turn of this century, which is 2002. Yes. Spring 2002. Yes. Yeah, that's really, really fantastic. She there's this whole conversation at the beginning of the movie where she's talking to us, the viewers about how committed to her her mother's wishes and the wishes of her parents and the wishes of the generations before her that she is. She works at this temple along with her mother that, you know, sort of is part of that commitment. And she expresses, you know, the sorts of criticism you could get from your friends and peers about being perhaps too committed to what your parents want, because you can ultimately accidentally overlook your own wishes and needs. And she assures us that that is not a thing that she's worried about because she is it just so happens that her needs are exactly the same for mothers. A sheer coincidence. Like the most confident person to start the movie, like when it's the montage of all the things that she's good at, I was literally like, oh, my God. Like I was like a French immersion kid. I was like honors and everything, like very much a Keener in school. And again, like very much like abiding by what my parents wanted for me. Like I was very much like teachers, pet, straight A's and everything. And then it was kind of like when I started to form my own identity through like personal style and things as my parents started to be like, is everything OK with Livia? Because I was like very much like an emo kid. Like I went back to my parents' house recently and I found a bunch of like all of my old like studded belts and bracelets and like all of the very hallmark emo things. And I remember wearing them very sincerely when I was like 10 years old and walking around being like a punk child. And so like, you know, in that way for for me and like my family history, that's kind of where the the split happens. But like for me, obviously, it's like, you know, she's she's becoming a woman and she's having all these sexual feelings for the first time about that one boy at the Daisy Mart Devon, like the convenience store clerk, where she's like drawing like the him as like a mermaid and stuff. I just almost left my body when I saw that scene because they do such a great job of portraying like in a sheer few seconds, like the range of emotions that you go through when you're like, I hate this boy. Wait a second. I'm really thinking about him a lot. Wait a second. What if I think about me with him? Yeah. Wait a second. And then being like, oh, no, oh, shit, I have a crush on this boy. Oh, my God, I have to like and I loved the impulse that she had, which would have been my exact impulse to to like literally hide under the bed. Yeah. Her little shrine to him under the bed. Yeah, so good. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot happening like and also just like with the visual metaphor of like hiding everything under the bed and eventually there's the shrine and like all of the contraband and evidence of her misdeeds go under the bed. Which I love. And the other thing that I really loved about this and will continue to talk about it, considering we're only two minutes into the actual plot itself, is I think like puberty, at least in the US, I don't know about elsewhere, because we're such a freak show about talking about sort of like sex and agency and sort of stuff like that generally is typically just talked about like by way of physiology and sort of like maybe some of the like differing and sort of like new emerging desires that are in there. And they're all talked about within the framework of sex. But what is not often talked about outside of just discussing like coming of age generally is the fact that like this is very likely sort of in conjunction with that change the first time that you will feel strongly about being who you are versus who your parents are. Yeah. You know, when that first starts to emerge, that's going very potentially to lead to all sorts of drama. Yeah, absolutely. So as she's starting to realize that she does have her own interest or in order to be in concert with this thing that she says at the beginning of the movie, where like all of her interests happen to be her mother's like those interests of hers that are not her mother's, she hides. She kind of like creates this dual self. I think we can all relate to some version of that. What do you mean? I'm talking about you specifically. And she, you know, one of these other things that's happening, you both have spoken to it, but her friends have a crush on Devon, this guy who works at the convenience store. And she, you know, is doing that thing where she's rejecting the fact that she could possibly have a crush and reminds them that their whole area of focus is this like very adolescent thing, which is to have a crush on the boy band, which like, I mean, I feel like boy bands are a gateway drug, right? To the feelings that will eventually emerge when you have crushes on Devon's. Yeah, very, very much so. And like, I feel like, well, Carolyn, I don't know what year you were also born in. I was born in 1992. So for me, like the time that this movie is set in, it was like peak, like Backstreet Boys, Incinct, Spice Girls, like, you know, turn of the millennium pop groups and stuff. And so the idea of Fortown was like so like as soon as I saw it, I was like, I'm locked into the movie. Like the first of all, the songs are really, really good. Yeah, they're genuinely like really, really good pop songs. I think they're written by Billie Eilish and Phineas and Phineas. Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, which makes so much sense because like, you know, they're bops. And I think Phineas is one of the boys in the boy band group. Oh, that's great. Love that. Yeah. But you also kind of still see like even now, you know, you have the K-pop groups like BTS and you have like all these emerging groups now where like the boy group and the girl group are becoming popular again. And so I'm like, I'm interested to see kind of like what that means for like the music landscape, but I've always just kind of thought that was interesting. Yeah, totally. I wish I knew a little bit more about like the current boy and girl groups going on. But it's always like it's so interesting that it's just kind of like a perma form that exists within like pop music culture, which I just I just really love that and it changes, but sometimes stays the same. And yes, I was born in 94, so I'm only a couple of years behind you on this. And I also similarly was very locked in. Yeah. So you remember, you remember all the things I do when it comes to also like the boy group and girl group stuff. I think it really is just like a way for kids to just project themselves onto like the archetype that suits them the most. You know, like for me, it was like as a non-binary child, it was sporty spice from the Spice Girls. And I had a big crush on Lance Bass, the gay one from NSYNC. I thought he had kind eyes and that was all the criteria I needed. That's so funny. So I've been working on this show called First Thirst, which our friend Siri doll hosts, and we each week we have a guest on to talk about who they're like first childhood crushes were. And Lance Bass has come up before in the past and whoever said Lance Bass also was like he had kind eyes. So it's like, you are not you are not the only person who has thought that. That's so funny. And it's true. We will have just covered Josie and the Pussycats right before this episode two, and that's another movie that has, you know, it's doing like, I guess, like parody a little bit or like commentary about boy bands. But the boy band in that movie is so pitch perfect. And the same way that I thought about this movie as being the second movie. This is the second movie I've watched, like right after Josie and the Pussycats. And they have a lot of similarities with regard to like how accurate a representation of boy bands and like what they serve. Like they each have their corresponding member that they're really into. And then there's like just as they describe like the other two, like they're just like two other guys who like you can barely name, which I really appreciate. Yeah. The Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick. Exactly. Although I somehow I think somehow by being like absolutely nonoffensive and being the quote other guy, Joey Fatone has had like a really long career as a result of being the Joey Fatone of it all. Yeah. He was in my Big Fat Greek wedding. He was one of the cousins in that movie. Good for you, Fatone. Um, Carolyn, you were telling me, do you, and sorry to put you on the spot about this, if you have no memories of it, and this will be one of those things. Unfortunately, I have to look up so I'll be able to cite it. But you were telling me about the Spice Girls Theory of Gender. Is that something you have a recollection of? Because it really resonated with me when you told me about it. Yeah. So I came across like a real or a TikTok. And this is I'm going to be going off the dome here. But what I recall of it was pretty compelling because I've been thinking a lot about like how gender relates to my own like femininity and masculinity. And, you know, like, especially as I think like one of the gifts of being around so many trans people and non-binary people in my life is that like it also invites myself, even though I am cis, to like consider gender in like this new and cool way. I do not, not to cut you up, but just so it's up front here, this is by Jordan Rescopolis, who is the creator who made this reel. Oh, nice. Great. So if you're listening, you should probably just go like watch it or listen to it. But maybe it's interesting to maybe as like a thought experiment to see what I actually remember from it and took from it. But it basically was something along the lines of like maybe if you are somebody who associates with femininity as part of your gender, a more useful way to consider the dynamism of that is to pick two of the Spice Girls that you most closely associate with and then have that as your kind of, shall we say, spice blend? And like that's maybe an interesting way to not only look at gender, but also like how do you perform that gender and what does that mean for your style and things like that? It's kind of like with the Fusions in Steven Universe. Oh, I don't know what that is. I'm unfamiliar. Oh, so Steven Universe is an animated cartoon by Rebecca Sugar, who I believe is also non-binary. And the premise is that there is a little boy named Steven Universe and he has like all these guardians that are crystal gems. And so his mother is Rose Quartz. One of his guardians is Garnet and there's also Pearl and Amethyst. And Garnet is the fusion of Ruby and Sapphire. And there are two women who are in love and they can't stand to be apart. So they fuse into one giant woman. Amazing. I love it. Yeah, it's great. Carolyn, friend of the show, Tom Sharpling plays Greg Universe and Steven Universe. Wow. Oh my gosh. Cool. Cross over. Wow. That's great to know. Please, please. This is one of those times where I would love to hear from anyone who's listening. If you have any good pop culture theories of how gender operates, I'm all ears. Yeah, I'm always up for hearing more. Yeah. Honestly, when you when you mentioned that turning red is also kind of a queer story, like I think I registered it, but I didn't fully register it until you said it. Because I was like, oh, it's totally true. Like she's hiding these parts of herself, like not in a closet, but like under a bed. And like, you know, there's parts of her identity that her mom is like not really willing to accept until she's like, no, like this is who I am. You have to accept me or else or else, you know, right? Yeah, totally. I would say that like when we were talking about earlier, I also very much resonated with like the queer girl friend group. It was a situation too. I very much saw my own middle school friend group who I don't think there's a single straight person from that group. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. And nobody was like out. Nobody knew what anything was at the time. We were all like, I don't know, Gerard Way, you know, oh my. OK, first of all, I'm so sorry. You said my number one, my first and only ever love Gerard Way was not only my first love, but my first like real gender idolatry, I guess, like when I saw him in the Helena music video, I was like that. I want that. That's great. I love that. That's so great. Gerard Way of my chemical romance, if you're unfamiliar listener, the one and only. But yeah, so like I very much related to that where it's like, you know, you find your people in middle school before you really know why you find your people. And it's not going to be the Tyler's who are like the popular sports kids or whatever. Though, obviously, like from the minute I saw Tyler being me and I was like, he's going to get looped in somehow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you see it. You're like, you're being a little bit too mean to these girls. I don't know about you. Right. It's like there are those kids that are like intentionally extra mean and you're like, you're being mean in a way that makes me think you want to be part of this. You know, yeah. Yeah, I was going to say because Carolyn so much again, we were just back in Boston and got to see old longtime friends and you were talking about the I'm summarizing what you said and almost certainly putting words in your mouth. But like the feeling the like powerful feeling that comes from your group of, you know, witchy women friends in particular. And I really loved that in this movie, like the source of her power is her friendship. Like the power isn't this like the whole panda element that we're going to get into. Like the thing that like gives her the strength to embrace the things that she loves and not necessarily her mother is like the her little community that she has that holds her up, which is an incredibly beautiful device. Yeah, it's also like the idea of to cheer her up. Her friends just like bursting into song and dance for her is just I love it so much. It's so sweet, like very wholesome, so great. It is. So May. OK, I'm just going to say this is the official sequel to Teen Wolf Teen Wolf two does not count. This is and neither does the six. Do you know the show Teen Wolf had six seasons? The six season run of Teen Wolf does not count. This is the official canonical sequel to Teen Wolf. But maybe it's better. It's better than Teen Wolf. Nice. Anyway, May has a nightmare about red pandas. She's got pandas on the brain and potentially pandas in the blood. And she comes to realize that when she wakes up in the morning that she herself is a panda. It's not a metaphor, by the way. I thought it might be for a little while, but she is an actual panda. Yeah, she's like a six and a half, seven foot giant red panda. And her mom thinks that she got her period because she's like, I'm a big red monster. Yeah. Yeah. And her mom's like, oh, it's time. I thought I had more time. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of that. I thought I had more time. So again, you think you're dealing with. I mean, you are dealing with metaphor. This is a lot of metaphor that's going on. But for a minute, I was like, are we just supposed to think that? Like when she's overwhelmed with the hormones of puberty, she's a panda. And it's like, yeah, I bet we are supposed to take that away. But I couldn't tell if she was a literal panda for a little while. Yeah, until until she starts like destroying property. And then you're like, oh, she's a panda. Right. I think it's like a smart and also fascinating choice that she uses the power of not just friendship, but she uses the power of meditation to get calm enough to be able to like morph back into a human. So she is a panda, but she can like calm herself down to be back in human form, but she can't have any strong emotions or else she like turns back into this panda. Yeah. And her hair does turn red, which is also like a canonical thing for any Asian person is to dye their hair red at least one time. I do like that. Like the eventual lesson that we're going to get to is like, it's fine to be. It's like a very Jungian message where it's like, it's fine to be the panda as long as you establish a relationship with the panda. And like, it's not you're not all panda or not panda. Like you are in concert with those things. And this is like about her essentially coming to terms with that. But like, yeah, to your point, Carolyn, like a lot of people just either like become the panda and then never do another thing or they become the not becoming the panda. But like she right out the gate, thanks to everyone who she's surrounded by, starts to figure out how to establish a relationship with it, which is wonderful. Yeah, like pretty immediately, like I don't it definitely she figured it out a lot faster than I would have. Yeah, also through the power of capitalism, we can we can embrace the panda through the power of exploiting our friends for money. Yeah, good for her. Good for her. A real go getter. Get that bag, sis. What does her mom call what she so her mom thinks she's having her period, her first period, and I guess again, metaphorically, she is. But yeah, what does her mom call it? She refers to her red pedals, which really did. Yeah, or get her something like that. Like the like the yeah, it's like the red flower bloom or something like that. Yeah, her the bloom. Did your peony bloom? Something horrifying. I can only imagine like people who have to like their parents use like metaphor for that. Like my parents were very like they were a little bit more hands off with that stuff. I think that the idea of confronting puberty head on for my parents was a little jarring. So my parents did the thing where they would leave like books around the bathroom because I was like a bathroom reader. They have like questions kids ask and how to answer them. And they would strategically leave it around the house. So they wouldn't have to directly talk to me about it. I think like I don't think it's the best strategy. But if you are not going to talk with your children, at least get them some literature. Yeah, something. Yeah, it's I do think that there. I mean, I empathize. It's tough. It's tough to have difficult conversations. If you yeah, there's no training for this necessarily as parents. And this is probably like the first generation that even like had the expectation to talk about it, I guess, maybe was our parents generation. But yeah, similarly, like my parents sort of talked about it, but sort of not in like my very first experience with having a period was like incredibly embarrassing in the sense that like so like in sixth grade, everybody in California goes to this thing called science camp, which is like a stay away thing for like three or four nights or something like that. And when we all went to science camp, everybody in my cabin, except for me, started their period and somebody who was in my, you know, sweet little queer girl emo friend group started her period and didn't know anything. And she flushed the pad down the toilet and then like, oh, no, no, no, no. It clogged the entire thing. And it was like an emergency. Everybody had to evacuate. It was like, it was like it was really bad. And everybody knew that it was her and it just it was like one of those things. And so that was like a tone setter for everybody who had their period that year, where it's like, oh, this is not something that you want anybody to know about because that really did not go well. And then when I actually started my period, my parents were pretty chill about it, like mostly, but like my dad, this is like very much in his. He's it is a little funny. But when I describe it, it's one of those things that like doesn't come off as funny. I started my period. I didn't tell my mom, which is interesting. And then on our way to school, I told my dad, I was like, I need to go to the grocery store and like get pads. Can you go in and get them for me? And he was like, yeah, for sure. And then he went in and he went to Marina Market and then he came back out. And then he was like, oh, yes, I was having trouble finding them. So I wouldn't ask the lady at the front desk. And she was like, she like announced your name over the speaker and was like, hey, like Carolyn Kendrick just started her period for the first time. Her dad's here to get her. And like, I told this whole story. And I was like, oh, my God, are you and he like, he had me convinced. And I was mortified, just absolutely mortified. And then he was like, he very quickly was like, I'm just joking. And I was like, OK, dad, that was about to be my 13th reason. Like you can't joke about these things. I'm very sensitive. So I do. And this is I'm so glad that you brought that up because I can't believe that I left out the plot point about why she turns into the panda, which is so illustrative of like where she's at with her mom. Yeah, yeah. Is that she as part of and this is resonant. I was a big drew things that I feel like where I was exploring stuff. Me too. She. Yeah. She drew some pictures of her and Devon in, you know, embracing. And then she her mother walks in and again, an extremely resonant scene. She's like, please don't look at the notebook. Don't look at the notebook. Don't look at the notebook. And she gives it away by looking at the notebook. Yeah. Her mother checks it out and sees what is in there. And her mom's assumption is that she has been because her baby girl would never have desires of her own has been coerced into the sort of dirtbag desires of Devon and in, you know, pointing this finger at him and saying that she's never going to shop at that store again. She announces to both the store and everyone in it. What has happened by showing May's drawings to everybody? Fully humiliating her even compounding the humiliation. Just absolutely devastating. I turned into a panda too. Yeah. Well, like the idea of like presenting this this other teenage boy with like a centerfold drawing of him as a merman is like. I know the thought of it is amazing. But like, you know, I I've heard criticism about that scene. People being like, oh, you know, like not all Chinese moms are like this crazy or this intense. But like when I watched it now, I realized that May's mom didn't realize that he was also a child. She thought that he might be like an older man, like praying on her daughter. Yeah. I mean, it's very clear to us, the audience that he's just like 17 and she's like 13 or whatever. Yeah. He has a pukashell necklace. Yeah. Yeah. The pukashell necklace. Yeah. He doesn't even know who she is. Yeah. Not at all. But like, oh my gosh, I remember I had a I had a moment like that with with my parents and my brother where they were like looking through my old things. And they were like, you were drawing some very strange stuff when you were a kid. And I was like, I was writing it too. Like I was writing fan fiction since I was like nine, ten years old and getting very, very popular with like this, these anonymous profiles and stuff. But like, yeah, like when I was when I got my period for the first time, I was 11 and my brother's birthday party. So I was like, oh, no, great. I was like, oh, now I can't I can't play anymore. I have to go do meetings and be a grown person. I've had my period. I have meetings now. I got to pay my taxes. Yeah, totally. I mean, that's when your tax year begins. Yeah. Oh, God. And then it never ends. Right after you start drawing a rottic fan fiction. Yeah. Yeah. I find that critique of her reaction interesting in the sense that like my my mom would totally do that. Like everything, everything that happened in that, I like I could totally see happening with my mom. And so I guess I I don't know. I obviously don't like have experience with the Chinese immigrant experience. So like, I can't speak to that. But like, I can't even tell you how many times stuff that I would really prefer to keep private just got like immediately found by my family. Then just spread far and wide for anybody who wanted to see it, you know? And so like, it's interesting that May also is it is her mom calls her May May, right? But it's like her. Yeah, May May. May May. Yeah, that's like her. That's like a baby name. Like in Cantonese, usually it's like one word of your Chinese name is repeated twice and that's kind of like your baby name. Like the name of your family calls you. Yeah, got you. So like, it's interesting that she goes through this huge right of passage, all of which is devastating and embarrassing within like a very short like 12 hour period, you know, she experiences desire for the first time, which, you know, this movie is obviously a metaphor for like having your period and like becoming a woman and like, but I have been thinking a lot about like my own early desires lately, partially because of working on first thirst and then also because of, you know, just like conversations that are happening in the ether and also like the repression that comes from not knowing how to handle those desires, not knowing what to do with them, knowing that they're shameful because your family like automatically shames you for them. And she not only like experiences desire, experience is intense shame, gets publicly humiliated about that desire immediately. And it's so bad that she's like, I'm going to move away. I'm going to move away and become anonymous and get a new name and just like start a new life like and that's like so much to go through in such a short amount of time, but it also is not surprising that these are all portrayed as one thing like there it's not just becoming an adult body. It's not just having adult desires. It's not just forming your own identity. It's like it's not independent. They're all related, you know. Yeah, it's also not easy to be like the first person in your family to teach your family boundaries. Yeah, like it can be really, really challenging to be like even something as simple as like, hey, knock on the door before you come into my bedroom. Yeah, because you don't know what's going on in here or like, hey, I want to go hang out with my friends and I don't want you to come with me because this is like that we're doing like, you know, I'm 13, mom, I'm a grown adult. Right. If you don't have any and yeah, her angling of being like, I am an adult like according to the bus transit system, I'm an adult. So therefore I'm which is also, you know, very much was my experience growing up. I was an eldest daughter. I don't know if you're an eldest kid, but like, yeah, like that experience of being like, I don't have anybody else around me to tell me like what is normal and what's not or even to validate that the privacy that I would want is like valid or something to even it felt like any privacy that I ever wanted was taken as like a threat or it was like not taken seriously. Yeah. I mean, I'm the younger something out of me and my brother. He's three years older than me. And then on my dad's side, I'm like the youngest of all of the cousins. There's also, you know, layers to my family situation because my parents came to the States first. And so they already had a level of assimilation living in America. And then when they came to Canada, my brother and I were like even further assimilated, like we have like English first names, whereas like some of my cousins have Chinese first names. And that was like an intentional choice by my parents to like let us, they were like, oh, we want you to be able to like move freely through Canada, I guess. But in general, I think because I was the younger sibling and I was able to kind of test boundaries a little bit more and because my parents are both artists who really did kind of value our personal freedom. I was definitely someone who was like always kind of just poking the bear a little bit, but at the same time being like, I'm going to poke the bear, but you can't poke me back. That's my boundary. Yeah. And my parents would be like, what? What are you talking about? Right. Yeah, totally. That makes sense. Yeah. So May goes back to school. Her hair is red to your point, Olivia, about rights of passage. And she she's wearing a toke, which is an important reminder to our American friends and listeners that a toke is a hat. Yeah. So she so her friends, like what of it do her friends know up front? I can't quite remember. Like, is it just that she's like her personality is changing or like what is their experience of this? Well, in the beginning, her friends are kind of like having a hard time with May because they want to go and do things like karaoke and hang out, but she has to go home and like clean and be with her mom. And then I think she like misses a day of school or she's like late for school or something like that. And then her friends go to check up on her and they see her through the window and she is like the big red panda. And then they tell her that they love her no matter what. And it's that's when her love like their love for her allows her to turn back into like a girl again from like the panda form. And Livy, would you mind explaining like what is the panda situation? Like what is the generational panda situation? Like how does it function? Why is she encountering this? Yeah. So the panda seems to be something that exists on her mom's side. All of the women in her family have the ability to turn into a red panda. The family lore is that they have an ancestor, Sun Yi, who when all the men were off to whatever nameless war from back in the day, she wanted to turn herself into a red panda so she could protect like the other women and the children in the village. And so from that point on, all of the women in the family have the ability to turn into the panda, which served them well back before they had like electricity. But now that there's like things like phones, you can't just be a panda walking around the street. And so now all of the women on the family do like a ceremony when there's a red moon to lock the panda in like an amulet or some kind of like jewelry piece or something. And so now it's literally just like it's May's turn and no one told her. They were just like, oh, she'll just we'll figure it out. It's going to be totally fine. But of course, she's traumatized further by her family's trauma, which is that's the generational trauma part of it. Yeah. And I do love this element that isn't just exclusive to the Chinese immigrant experience, but it's exclusive. I feel like to all immigrant experiences in some way where it's like this thing served us in another context. And now we are in a place where it's not necessarily serving us. And so either we have to hide it and get rid of it or we have to renegotiate our relationship with it. Yeah. And it's also, you know, the red panda comes out whenever there's like strong emotions. And there is, of course, like a very known history of stoicism amongst, you know, immigrant families and stuff like that. And her May's grandmother, because, you know, not to jump ahead too much, but her grandmother does pop in around like the midway and half of the movie. And her grandmother is very much someone who is reminds me a lot of my paternal grandmother, very stoic, very much like the matric of the family. Everyone's afraid of her and someone who is like kind of hard to get to know and hard to like receive love from. But like they show love in like a very kind of like distant sort of way. Yeah. But kind of being like, I'm going to, I'm going to come and help you, but I'm also going to tell you that you did a bad job while I'm helping you. Yeah. It's also very much the relationship of my maternal grandmother that was like very, yeah, they even have like the same face shape, which is funny. Yeah. Just frowning square face. So, you know, long story short, there's a lunar eclipse coming. It's important to do a ritual at the lunar eclipse in order to shed the the panda. I don't mean to interject, but I don't know if a lunar eclipse is the same thing as a red moon. Yeah, it's not it's not an eclipse. It's just the red. It looks like an eclipse in the movie because it's like the red color kind of goes over the moon. So it's kind of confusing. But I think it's supposed to be just like a full moon that is turning. Ha, turning red. Oh, I see that because they refer specifically to a lunar eclipse, like at the radio part at the like when they're talking about when the band is playing and she's like, oh, no, that's when my thing is supposed to happen. Like that's when the that's when she realizes that she's double booked. Oh, yes. She's double booked. Yeah, because because Abby reads Toronto as Toledo. I know. So funny. Right. It's so funny. It was really relatable. Yeah, I love how I also I just love how much the moon is involved in the situation, which is also great to not symbolic whatsoever with regard to what the red could be. The. Yeah, right. So her mom, Ming is like, you can we're going to go through this thing. You can it's seemingly control the beast a little bit. Let's let you get back to normal life until we're able to resolve this thing. And a couple of things happen. One, we find out four town is coming to town and they are so excited about doing it. Two, they go and ask their parents about whether or not that they can go to the four town show. Does May I can't remember May doesn't like she's like, I'm probably not going to try that. No, she does ask through a PowerPoint presentation. Yes, thank you. I love that. I love that so much. I also love that they don't even like show her giving it. They just show her like giving like the pompom. The pose and the pose, which is so relatable. I used to I used to do that like with my friend, you know, like you'd be like, OK, I have to convince my parents to let Ali stay over this weekend. I have to convince them to let me to go to the park or something like that. And like, I remember making a PowerPoint presentation for my mom on fake statistics that I made up about why it's important culturally for children to have cable TV. Oh my God. That's so good. I like legitimately I just made up facts, made up statistics. And I like gave her all these things where it's like, I can't believe that I just like straight up lied. But I was like, yeah, it's like there's this new study that I found where it seems that like kids have better social lives and they do better in school if they have cable TV and can watch Disney Channel. And I deliver that news via PowerPoint. Of course, you do. Amazing. It's incredible how much PowerPoint has just carried us through all of our lives. For real. I know. And it's not. It doesn't seem to be going away, despite it all. It's just around. It's just still happening. Yeah. They ask if they can go. Everyone gets some form of denial, including the girls. Moms doesn't like it because it's stripper music. And she says, anyway, what's wrong with that? Which is. Yeah, it's so great. I loved that. Yeah. So sweet. It's like also like when May, when they're all trying to convince me in the beginning to go to the concert, she she literally says, go become a woman without me. And like the idea of that is just. Yeah, I love it. It's so funny. It's really perfect. And they realize that they have to because one of them can go because if they're able to come up with the money, but the other can't go. So they're going to lie a classic seemingly a rite of passage. I say, I'm going to stay at your house. You're going to stay at mine. We're going to do the thing we're not supposed to do. Operation Fortown, Shake Down. Yes. It's like Ocean's Eleven, but Children. Totally. And they have to raise eight hundred dollars. I mean, God, I was kind of surprised by the pricing for two thousand two that we were dealing with two hundred dollar tickets then. But I don't think that's true. We're straight into ticket hell even more than ever before these days. So it's hard, hard to remember what it was like. Yeah. Yeah. I was looking at because I do have some old concert stubs from like back around the two thousands. I definitely used to go to shows for like fifty bucks. Yeah. Which is unheard of now. I remember it being controversial among friends that we spent forty dollars for Red Hut chili peppers tickets around this time. And that was crazy. It's quaint in retrospect. Yeah. How adorable. How adorable. How adorable that these children were going to mid career Red Hut chili peppers and spending no money at all. Anyway, they're generating their own money to go to the thing. And they need a hundred extra dollars in order to get sort of all the money that they need. And the panda is popular. Like people have seen the panda. They love the panda. Furry fever in your in your take is sort of spread across the school. And they are capitalizing on the panda, including in order to come up with the last bit of money, agreeing to go to. What is the popular kids name or the sports kid or who you mentioned earlier, the one who turns out to be a four town. Tyler. Yes, including going to Tyler's. How is it Tyler's birthday party that? Yeah, something like that, like a birthday party where he wants to have like a meet and greet with the panda. Yeah. He's hosting a meet and greet. The panda at his house. And so that's how they that's how they generate the money. All while maize mother and grandmother in like sort of immediate family slash community are being impressed by the tales of how good she has gotten at not succumbing to the power of the panda. She is out there exploiting the panda for dollars. Yeah. And also just like the visual language of the scene where it's like May and all of the women in her family, all of the women who have suppressed the panda are all wearing green and maize the only one wearing red. Yeah, good point. Yeah, that's really fantastic. Let's see. Where are we? Oh, they're at the party and then May attacks Tyler at the party. And then that's kind of like the the low point of the film, as they say. Why does she attack him again? She asked for it. He asked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so that's when they find out that they got the date wrong, that it's they're in Toledo on the 18th, not the 25th. That's the same night as the ritual to try to get rid of the panda. So she can't go. So she's already inflamed. And then Tyler is being kind of a jerk about trying to get her to work more. And so then she attacks him. Right. Because you can't be sad on the clock. Yeah, Tyler's a bad boss. And yeah, she attacks. She attacks Tyler all kind of like throughout the movie, her mom stalking her, which I feel like is kind of important, like making sure how did that feel, Carolyn? Didn't love that. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, triggering, triggering. Yeah, yeah, trigger warning parents stalking you. Yeah, like I my my parents, I really have been like coming around on a lot of these feelings lately, but like they really were doing the best that they possibly could have with what they knew. And they were responding to like the dangers, the very real dangers and that existed in the environment that I grew up in. But yeah, my parents were like, I was very watched. I was very monitored as a kid. And so and like there was and my mom also like worked sometimes at my school. So there were like a lot of times where I would be trying to do with my thing with my friends. And then I would literally see my mom from like across the schoolyard just like staring at me and I'd be like, oh, God. So like literally like that in the movie, like from behind a tree, watching you kind of. Kind of. Yeah, kind of exactly like that. Yeah, which like I also probably would do if I had a kid and I was like, I was like, I'm already at school. I mean, I'll just go see what they're doing. But yeah, I don't know. Like I get it. But also at the same time, it's like, you got to, you know, you got to give them. Yes, you got to let go like just a little bit. Yeah. And her mother, by the way, has found the shrine under the bed. So like kind of knows what the deal is. That's why the mom comes to the party, right? Right. Yeah. That's the setup for that. Which she she finding the shrine under the bed goes to the party to deal with it, I guess, which probably just like a freaking out going to or confront the situation may has beaten up Tyler. Her mom goes and is going to take her away. Her mom blames all of the friends who she sure is responsible for all of this bad behavior. And may, you know, in a really heartbreaking moment, does not clarify to her mother that this was sort of all her and her idea. She like she buckles and goes with her mother and allows her mom to think this was not in fact her idea, but this was her friend's idea. So on and so forth. There's a split in the friend group. Bummer. Yeah. I feel like I've been in situations like that before when I was younger, where I've had friends who are like, why didn't you like stand up to your mom? Or like, why didn't you say this thing to like clarify whatever? But like when you grow up in a family where any kind of like back talk to your parents is really frowned upon or any kind of like talking back to them results and like yelling or like, you know, if you're like a your neurodivergent kid who's like sensitive to loud sounds and stuff, you kind of just like learned how to just again, like suppress everything, which is kind of like how it is in the movie. You know, like you're suppressing all the feelings and the emotions. And also you get to a point where like you want to say things, but you feel like you can't say them because like your voice is kind of caught in your throat. So I thought that that scene was like really relatable just because it was such a such a heartbreaking thing. But then also like a very kind of like the aftermath of it when May was like, you're her pride and joy. So you have to act like it. I was like, oh, no. Yeah, that was really hard talking to herself in the mirror. Yeah, you should be able to like, you know, you are her pride and joy. But at the same time, like it's just a party. It's just like music and hanging out with friends. Like there has to be like some leeway there. But I definitely felt very much what May was feeling in that moment because I've been there before. Yeah. Well, and you're you're literally at this point in your life where you're figuring out who you will be, you know, based on interpreting who you are at the moment and realizing like actually you have not been much beyond a projection of or an honoring of like who your parents are. So like this moment is like not just resonant on the level of like having been there, but it's like resonant on the level of it being something that in theory, we've all faced on sort of a longer term level. Definitely. And like at the very beginning, like within the first like, I don't know, three minute, you know, little intro segment May is talking about like her experience of like honoring your parents versus honoring yourself. And I think she says something along the lines of like the least you could do is every single thing they ask. I did. I thought I thought of you when they said that. Yeah. So she is home. She is sad. Dad shows her a terrifying piece of contraband, which is a video of her as the panda, you know, which is like her, her full self in a real sort of nice way. And she has been caught, you know, and she's like, destroy it. And dad's like, you should not destroy it. You should embrace it before we even go further in this, this representation of dad who does this, how do we all feel about this? Well, honestly, I wanted to bring this up too, because I think that this representation of Chinese dad in particular is like very specific, but not completely different than the way that my dad was with me. Like my brother and I, I think had very different experiences of both of our parents and, you know, me growing up as like a little girl, you know, I was like, my dad's a little girl kind of thing. So he, I was in a household where my dad never yelled at me. Like he never raised his voice at me. He did that thing instead where he would just quietly be like, I'm very disappointed in you, which is like way worse. Way more heartbreaking. What do you want me to die? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Once again, my 13th reason, like this is another one. That is the list. There is a post credit sequence. I don't know if anyone saw it where it's just her dad in the basement dancing alone to Fortown's music. Yes. So good. Yeah. I thought that that was so, I just the idea of like, you know, mom and daughter kind of warring about like personality and personal expression and quiet dad just being in the basement for a little while. So good. And he's got like all the fan gear on and everything. It's very, very sweet. Yeah. He's dancing in front of a couple of strings of drying sausage, I think. Like it's a really kind of incredible, really incredible scene. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I really thought that the dad's energy was very sweet in this movie. And I think especially just like, you know, like him inviting her to, you know, choose and, you know, be yourself and, you know, all of that. I think there's like an intentional gender role switching going on. Maybe even then the fact that like he does the cooking, he's a little bit more gentle. And then her mom is the one that has like maybe more traditionally masculine coded like expectations of her daughter. And obviously, like that's just like in the like the most traditional ideas of ascribing like what things are gendered in that way. But like, I think there's like a common thing that happens with parents where if like one is more strict than one tends to kind of like be in like this softer role. But I do think that on the whole outside of the context of this movie, there are a lot of movies that have this trope where not even trope, that's maybe not the right word, but like pattern. And I think this happens in real life, too, where the dad gets to kind of deliver the good news while the mom has to like really hold the line in these ways. And like there are tons of questions around like, well, does she have to hold the line? Does she have to be as strict? Like, where is that coming from? Is that reasonable? Is it not reasonable? What are the cultural expectations around being a strong mother figure? But I do think that this is in conversation with other bigger questions around like what are the expectations of being a mother? And traditionally, a lot of times that means that like the mom doesn't get to do the fun stuff and the mom has to be kind of stricter. Or at least that was also kind of my experience growing up was that I had a lot of trouble with my mom because, you know, I could never get in trouble with my dad ever. Yeah, totally. And she had to she had to she had to be the one to like actually create like rules and stuff and maybe like over did it. But, you know, like rules and structure. Like I think that's, you know, there's like the the stereotype of like the Chinese tiger mom, which I think is very much represented in this movie. But it is kind of true where like, you know, I think in kind of parenting roles a lot of the time because the moms are kind of burdened with raising and rearing the children, they have to kind of be like the bad cop or the dad gets to be the good cop. Like you said, and then you're kind of like in the position where the moms are doing all of the heavy lifting and all the discipline. And then the dad gets to swoop into the last minute and be like, just be yourself. And you're like, right, thanks, dad. High five. And then meanwhile, you're like having to unpack this whole relationship with your mother and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, her hopes and dreams and how that kind of got put aside so that she could be a mom and raise the family and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And that's not to discount. Like I want that dad to be who that dad is. I want that dad to be himself. And I also like, I think it's also in concert with, you know, all the other stuff that's going on too. Yeah. So they're about to do the ritual. They're going through the ritual. They're close to the ritual sort of being completed. Again, this is the same night as the four town concert. And her friends have gone to see four town without her in a very sad exchange. When the ticket taker asks for how many tickets they ultimately want, they want three. And they very sadly are acknowledging that there's only three of them now. They also like they're going to pay with the pennies that they've been saying. They have like they have like a fishing box full of cash. It's going to take like a gazillion years to count through. Yeah, those girls have just been carrying six hundred dollars with them and quarters just in pennies. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. Yeah. So so so may they're very close to completing the ritual. And she decides no, she does not want to act. And it's it's it's important to acknowledge that like throughout the movie, her friends have been like, have you considered just being the panda? Her dad when confronted with the video piece, you know, is like, you should be the panda. You should be the panda in part because like your mom, I saw it once before by way of your mother and it came out because your grandmother disagreed with me as a as a partner for your mother. And so she's gotten a lot of this encouragement to actually be the panda. And she decides to do so. And in deciding to do so and to escape, her mother then becomes not just the panda, but becomes like a massive version. Like she's a monster. She's like a skyscraper sized panda. She's bigger than like the sky dome. She's huge. Right. Yeah. What do we make of like the daughter that chooses not to go through the ritual and chooses to embrace the panda and the mother is like, yeah, like I'm suddenly I'm suddenly a monstrous version of this thing that I have been repressing for years. Yeah, it was funny because like in the in the ritual scene, like basically, you know, May goes into the spirit world and then she sees like the reflection of herself. And I was like, wow, this is just like in Mulan. And also James Hong is he's the guy with like the sword doing the ritual. I love that we got some James. He's everywhere. He's everyone's grandfather. Really? Every time he comes in and there's his voice, I'm like, I'm at home for a while until exactly. Yeah. You and him. It's James Hong and PowerPoint. And like as soon as they go with the world is over. Oh, no. But I think like the reason one of the main reasons why the mom turns into like the giant panda is because when May decides to be the panda, she like kind of like throws her mom off of her. And so her mom kind of like gets like thrown to the ground and her amulet breaks. So it's kind of like, you know, she for the first time is recognizing that her daughter is a different person than she assumed that she was. Like even the assumption that the way that she's keeping the red panda under control is that she's thinking of the love of her parents when in reality she's thinking of the love of her friends, you know? So I feel like that whole piece is just her mom wrestling with the idea that her daughter is growing up and apart from her, but just not in like the healthiest way because, you know, when she's like going to like get her at the concert, she's like, where are all your parents to like all the other kids? Like she's become everyone's mom at that moment, you know? And she's like destroying public property and all this stuff. Mm hmm. Yeah, she and she sees in the the ritual, right? Like she meets her young mother, right? Or like she meets who is she meeting there? Yes, when she meets her younger mother, that's at a point, I think, when they're trying to do the ritual a second time, I think. Yeah. It's like when they're trying to do the ritual on the mom. Got it. Got it. Got it. When they're trying to like get her back to be a person again. Yeah, I think so. And it's important. This I feel like this is so interesting because I've talked so much about it on the show and Carolyn and I have talked about it and I talk about it with a lot of people is like, I think such a important part of healing and being able to understand where your parents are coming from is like have some imaginary or meditative conversation with their younger selves. Yeah. And the fact that like this is part of the ritual where she's able to like actually see her mother not as her mother, but as who and how she was at a similar moment in her life is, you know, it's kind of important. I would highly recommend trying to picture your parents before you came along because at the very least it will make it not seem so personal. Yeah, honestly, like I've been having a lot of conversations with my mom recently about, you know, life before her and my dad got married, life before they had kids. And the way she described it to me, she's like, you know, because they lived in Columbus, Ohio at the time when they were like in their early to mid 20s. And my mom was like, you know, we would like wake up, we go see a matinee, we go to work, we come home from work, we see another movie, we go for a walk, we see another movie. And I was like, how many movies were you guys watching when you were child free? That's crazy. You had so much free time. It was so different back then. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I also, you know, so I just got done reading The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson. Are you are either have you read that, Olivia? I don't know that one, but The Argonauts are the name of the Toronto football team. Oh, interesting. Oh, wow. Perfect. No one watches them. Yeah. Sorry, people listen to the show who happen to be members of the Argonauts team. Yeah, sorry to CFL diehards out there, my bad. Yeah, I would highly recommend it to anybody who's interested in it, but it's all about like the author is like in a genderqueer relationship and is like navigating, becoming a step parent, and then eventually having kids with with her partner. And it's about like her relationship with her body and also about, you know, obviously gender, but like gender as you become a parent. And then also how your body ages throughout time and how, you know, your sense of self is often like, you know, the the Argo where it's like, you know, you're constantly, you're like rebuilding the ship. And eventually you are a new body, but you're still the same self, you know? And it's it really was just like a really gorgeous read. And it's also about like birth and death and and how intrinsically tied those things are, especially with the relationship with like motherhood and having children. And when I saw this scene between Maymay and her mother, you know, she's like visiting her younger self. Like, first of all, it made me really jealous because I would do anything to be able to meet my younger parents. Like actually, like as a kid, like my favorite thing, instead of, you know, my parents telling me like just any old story, I would ask my dad to like tell me a story about when he was a kid. And I had a very active relationship with like wishing that I could meet my younger parents, first of all, because I my interpretation was that they lived much freer lives than I was able to. But the reality is that like they had such intense strict, like they're both from Texas and both from very southern families. And so they had like very strict ideas of like expressing oneself and like being vulnerable and like vulnerability was like very much not necessarily on the table for them as kids in a way that it really was for me. Like I've always that's always been invited. And so seeing that scene between them like really hit home for me because, you know, her mother is just carrying so much pressure. And, you know, Maymay is under like a lot of pressure as well, obviously, but like a very a generationally different type of pressure where like you can see that her mother had the same struggles that her daughter did in the sense that she's like she's feeling attracted to somebody that her mother does not approve of. How do you deal with that? She is like also dealing with all of the high expectations need to perform constantly and like not just perform, but like execute, you know, on on the vision all the time and like honor, honor the family line and all of these things. It's like it's just like a lot of pressure. And for Maymay, she has her friends to kind of like be that release and has generationally had a little bit more opportunity for, you know, releasing that kind of pent up energy, but her mom has not had that opportunity, which is why I think it results in like a much bigger panda. And, you know, I think that like the panda, obviously, it's like a metaphor for, you know, your period. It's a metaphor for experiencing desire. It's a metaphor for having like a sexual self and for womanhood and adulthood generally, but it's also like a metaphor for your shadow self, I think, you know, in any of the shadow work that you have or have not actually, you know, speaking of young, like the shadow work that you have or have not necessarily like done work on and her mother just channeled all of that shadow work or ignored all of that shadow work and then kind of like transferred it to her daughter, which I think happens automatically if you don't know that that's something that you need to kind of address ahead of time. Yeah, totally. Yeah, well said. And we leave with Ming accepting that May is going to be herself. Yeah, which is like the greatest fantasy of all. My parents are like, you're cool. Her little tail and her little ears. So cute. Yeah. To your point, her entry into freedom has fully taken hold. Yeah. And then also her her her mom instead of parenting May really relentlessly. She gets a little Tamagotchi, so she can kind of like take it out on the Tamagotchi instead. So that's like her new amulet for her panda, which is really awesome. And then it also made me laugh because the grandma, her new pendant is like a four town chain, but specifically the number four in Chinese is a really unlucky number because it sounds like the word for death. And so if you notice in any buildings where like any apartment buildings where there's a lot of Chinese people, no fourth floor, no 14th floor. Wow. Amazing. I love that. Let's see. Yeah, it's funny. It's funny that they're tasked with repairing the skydome. I know, I know. It's so much money. It's like an insurmountable amount of money. It's the kind of money debt that would just put a whole family into bankruptcy. Yeah, it's like if the Avengers came to town, it's like that much money. Like, you know, and like the skydome is enormous. Like it's a baseball stadium. Like there's so many things to repair. It's crazy. Yeah. Surely they have insurance. Yeah, Panda insurance. Although most insurance plans have an exemption for this sort of thing, which would be called an act of God. So she unfortunately they have to pay cash. Yeah, I think like there's probably an act of kaiju exemption. Yeah. And then so, yeah, she's now maize now chilling with her friends and with Tyler. And now she has to live the rest of her life as part of the other thing that I really loved and thought was so sweet is that like, so they're at the concert, you know, all four of them before like the major Panda debacle happens, but they're all there. And then they see Tyler there at the concert and they realize that he's a fan. Right. And they're like at first shocked. And you would think that like that's reason for them to like make fun of him, you know, but they just like immediately are just like so excited to have another friend. And I so I just thought that was so. So sweet. And also like very, yeah, very in line with I think how most girls like act in that way or most kids who are like in a fandom, they just like want other friends who like the same stuff, you know. Yeah, it's totally true. Like if you see it's so funny because, you know, when BTS became very, very popular around like, I think probably like 2017, 2018 is when I really remember it being like peak BTS fandom. Everyone was speaking Korean. All these people were just speaking very broken Korean. And I was like, what happened? Yeah. Yeah, it's it's so cool. How stuff can just like be a great the great connector in that way. You know, exactly. Yeah. My God. Yeah, I love I've really loved this movie. It was really I think like often I'm like that was good, you know, with regard to sort of anything, not anything, but a lot of things animated for a larger audience in the century. I'm like, that was good. But like I was really moved by what this movie seemed to be setting out to do and accomplishing pretty well. Yeah, me as well. Yeah. And it's also like so blatantly Canadian. Like it's so Canadian that you almost want to throw up. Like it's a Canadian flag, blue money, like toogs, maple syrup, Daisy Mart. Like everything is so like the streetcar. Everything is so specific to Toronto. And like I've always lived kind of around the Chinatown area whenever, like ever since I've moved to like the downtown core. And like it very much is like Toronto through the lens of like Sailor Moon, magical girl aesthetic. Yeah. So cute. I just yeah, I wasn't expecting it to be so Canadian. And then I don't know. It it made me remember in there are many films that make me remember this, but this is definitely one of them. Maybe I remember just like how American centric my own media view is the fact that I like automatically expect everything to be American, especially if it's, you know, Pixar or something like that. Like, I don't know. It made me realize that it's like, oh, yeah, like we really need all different cultures to have like just as much access to making like giant massive movies like this. And like, yeah, it's kind of weird that like all of these like really, really, really, really high budget ones are just, you know, all American. Yeah. Because our relationship like America's relationship with Canada on screen is places that are Canadian, but are pretending to be American cities. Right. Yes. There's so many movies where I'm like, and that's Toronto and that's Toronto and that's Vancouver and Montreal. Also, you know, like with right now, the current pop culture is like ice heated rivalry is becoming very popular in America, which is like a Canadian show. It's a Crave original, which is like our media conglomerate, one of them here. And every Canadian person is like, it's not an HBO show. It's a Crave original show. Our tax dollars pay for this stuff. And it's like, you know, a show about two gay hockey players who are closeted and it's just like a beautiful romance story. But again, very, very, very Canadian. I've said this, I've said this on the OC again that I hosted Nico Stratus that I already knew this, but I've recently I've recently dived hard into the YouTube channel, Pop Arena, which is like about Nickelodeon's history in a big way. And like a lot of people don't realize that like most Nickelodeon programming until they started animating on their own was Canadian public programming that was rebranded as Nickelodeon. I didn't know that either. So for a long time, it always had like a weird fantasy or like kind of like a liminal element that I didn't quite understand. And I always thought that that was just my relationship with it. And I realized that it was Canada. Like that it was like. It's like America, but not. It was just Canadian. Yeah. Like they were talking toks, you know, and I had to understand what they were talking about. It was great. Yeah. Very good. I was like, this is like 95 percent like the reality I know, but some things different. Yeah. What's your pitch? What's your pitch to get someone to to watch this movie? Do you like having fun? Great. Do you like joy? Do you like fun pop music? Do you enjoy coming of age stories? Have you ever had a period? Have you ever had a crush on someone you weren't supposed to have a crush on? Have you ever like dabbled in any kind of like fan fiction, friend fiction, drawing things you weren't supposed to have? Have you ever been a child? Yeah. Has your mom ever embarrassed you inadvertently? Yeah. Publicly for your whole life, you know. I love my parents publicly so they know that I'm not trashing them. I love my parents. Oh, my gosh. I think, yeah, this is this is beautiful. I'm really glad that we had the opportunity to cover this. Yeah, I think it's like a beautiful movie with a beautiful message. And it's also like, you know, at the end of the day, you know, your mom is also just a girl and she's figuring it out. My mom says to me, my mom says to me all the time when I call her about stuff, she's like, Livia, this is the first time I've been a parent to a 30 something year old cut me some slack and I'm like, yeah, OK, OK, OK, fine. That's a big thing. That's so sweet. I love that. I absolutely love that. Yeah, I hope I hope no one's attitude towards this movie is I can't relate to it because it's Chinese only in that like not once did this ever feel unrelatable because of this character's relationship with their own heritage. Yeah, I think I think if anything, like the kind of specificity in which highlights and like honors the Chinese Canadian experience, like only invites you to kind of like I think if it was less specific, it would maybe feel harder to relate to. But because it's so specific, it's like, well, that wasn't my experience, but like I do know like the specificity there leads to universality in the sense that it's like, but I my family has our own relationship with ancestors. My family has our own relationship with like structure and meaning and rules and expectations. My like, you know, those things, those things are so universal. And yeah, I agree, Alex. Yeah. And also one one last thing is just I just really appreciate that the movie is like a love letter to the city of Toronto. Yeah. I've spoken about this with like other people in my circle, but like I love living in Toronto. I love the diversity here. There's so much amazing food. There's so many different kind of cultures. Like when you walk down the street, there's like all kinds of restaurants and cafes and like small owned businesses that are just run by people of different cultures that are all really celebrated. And it's like one of the one of the big things they say about Canada is that like, you know, we're a very diverse country in Toronto specifically is like because it's also like the capital of Ontario. It's one of the major business hubs of Canada. It's just like one of the most diverse cities. And, you know, there are things happening in like local government and politics that are making it a little harder to live here. But I think like for the people who like live in Toronto, you know that it's like an amazing city and we're all having to work really hard to like try to make sure that that doesn't get taken away from us through evil politicians. Yeah. As they say. Yeah, totally. I'm just like so, so, so glad that you brought this movie in. Like I don't think that I would have necessarily watched this just if I was like scrolling through like a streaming service or something like that. Just mostly because like I just don't don't tend to like lean towards animated movies these days. But it really like I mean, I truly like sobbed multiple times. I'm so glad that I watched it really like thank you for bringing it to us. Oh, yes, no problem. And, you know, it also is just like I've been thinking a lot this year, you know, this last calendar year about these phases of life that not just women, but like people who experience, you know, periods like, you know, that we go through where the language around getting your first period is kind of. It's like so scary and change oriented. Like, OK, I'm I'm I'm I'm spitballing right now. I'm spitballing a theory. So, so hang with me if I maybe if I'm like chopping through some stuff. But I've been interviewing elder women in my immediate music community about their experiences with like becoming mothers and like still working and things like that. And a lot of the language that has been coming up around both menopause, having children for the first time and getting your period for the first time is all very similar because it's all related to a death of past self. And so the language around it, if you haven't experienced it, feels so scary. But then once you go through it, it's like, OK, now I am this new self and like I'm not different than who I was before, which is kind of like the Argo thing that I was talking about before. Right. But because it's so terrifying to go through something that is still somewhat taboo, whether it be getting your period for the first time, whether it be having a kid, whether it be going through menopause, whether it be any of these different phases of life. The fact that we're like just barely starting to like scrape the surface of having relationships with how to navigate that change and also having like intergenerational relationships where we can talk about those things feels really important and cool. And also even just the fact that people are starting to have more knowledge about how to navigate having a period and the fact that people have, you know, the fact that you can get like a gender reforming hysterectomy now, which I don't totally know if that was always possible. And like just I don't know, it feels like there's like a lot of progress being made in like us having like not only individual conversations about what these big changes in life mean, but also community support for them. And also like now we're starting to get like more language about what it feels like. And so therefore it's less isolating. And I think this movie is a big part of this where, you know, this movie would never have been made in the 90s, you know, like, especially if it was like it's so overtly about these like becoming an adult and like you don't typically get those themes when it comes to bodies, when it's like a kid's movie. But I'm really glad that it's happening because or I'm glad that it happened in this movie because I think that's the perfect place to have these types of de-stigmatizing conversations. So yeah. And also, you know, like I grew up in like Catholic school and the Catholic school system. And I got my period. I was the first one in my class. I was like 11 years old. And so like immediately you're just met with like nothing but shame, like the talk around anything about like sexuality, periods, all of it. And the Catholic school system is like all shame based. And so I think it's it's really beautiful to have a movie like this where you're kind of like taking that away and kind of exposing the other parts of it that are like, you know, at the end of the day, like we're all everyone grows up in some people have periods and some people have to deal with the aftermath of all of those things. And it shouldn't be like a taboo thing. Like, you know, it's it's it's it's human function. It's biology at the end of the day. So yeah. Yeah, totally. Well, we know that May's father is a quiet basement dancer. Who, in your view, is the daddy of turning red? Carolyn, why don't you kick us off? It's so funny. You know, I have been involved with the show from the very beginning. And I still always freaking forget to think about this question. We have some repeat guests where every time I ask the question, they are surprised by it. So, you know, it's you're not alone. I started this show. I was there. You know, kind of a cop out. But I'm going to say I'm going to say that our protagonist, May May is is the daddy in that she is very brave for accepting herself and pushing back against somebody who I certainly would probably have struggled to defend my right to individuality against and that being like a mother archetype. And I think that she did just such a great job with like, even though it was difficult, you know, figuring out what she wants, like saying it clearly and then and then moving towards that and then living it authentically. And I think I think that's I think that's pretty awesome using daddy and the non sexualized sense in this in this regard. Olivia, what do you say? I think that May's grandmother is the daddy. Mostly because it's kind of similar to the Mulan episode where I said, like the great ancestor is the daddy. You always have someone in like a family who was like the matriarch or the patriarch that you kind of are all everyone's like a little afraid of. But I appreciated with the grandmother character. I mean, she comes in and she's immediately like telling her own daughter. She's like, ah, what you're doing is not good enough. And you're like, OK, I don't love that. But then, you know, towards the end of the movie, when when Ming is like the big panda and the grandmother is like, I'm not going to let this happen to my daughter again. So, you know, she's the one who immediately like takes off the thing and smashes her own amulet to become like a panda. And then all of the other aunties do the same thing. And so she's kind of like the one to be like, if I am like the leader of this family, then I have to be the one to show that it's OK to embrace this thing that we've all kind of suppressed for years and years and years. Yeah, I think that's a great take. Beautiful, which doesn't usually happen, by the way, with grandparents. They usually just they usually just stay stoic and they're stoic forever. Yeah, this is very true. I'm going to choose the city of Toronto. What are my favorite cities? I'm not even I'm not even pandering because we have a Toronto here with us. It is my it is one of my favorite cities. I love it. Every time I get to go to it, I'm like, why can't our cities be like this? Yeah, truly. And I and you know, you always see like 18 artists standing in a circle smoking real cigarettes. It's great. Yeah. Oh, right now, right now it's smoking weed because every shop is a dispensary because weed is legal in Toronto or in Canada, I should say. It happened. It happened. I yeah, I I'm a huge fan and thanks for being like that. Olivia, what do you want people to check out of yours? In the world? Yeah, so you can find me on my website, liviasaing.com, L-I-V-I-A-T-S-A-N-G, the T is silent, and I'm Livia saying on Instagram. I'm not really on other social media. I'm more of a lurker than anything. But yeah, and I'm also taking on new tattoo appointments and stuff like that. So if you want to get a tattoo, something fun, you can find me on Instagram or my website. This is real. I know this is so real. There are there are a couple tattooists in the North America who I am devoted to getting a tattoo by and you are one of them. And I can't wait for that to happen. Yeah. Oh, and also I had a client shout out to my client, Leah. She found me through the Mulan episode, actually. Oh, cool. Yeah. So I've had I've had like a couple people reach out to me about tattoos who have found me from the show. So I'm talking to them is always like so sweet. Everyone's so nice. Oh, that's great. Keep up the good work by getting Olivia to tattoo your body, dear listener. Yeah, do it. Carolyn, are you fundraising for anything right now? Well, funny you ask. It's almost like you know each other. Wow. Yes, we are currently fundraising for my project, which is called Don't Call Me, Darling. It's going to be an eight part mini series that is about the history of women in blue grass. And it's about women in blue grass, but you don't have to care about blue grass to care about this show. It's more about intergenerational relationships, about learning from your ancestors, if you will. And it's about like how to navigate living in a difficult country during a difficult time, which we are all going through. So yeah, we're so we're fundraising for that and donations are tax deductible. And you've done a lot of the research already. It's not like you're kicking this thing off like you're in the you're in it. Yeah, no, no, we're yeah, you can listen to the trailer now. Yeah, we're just trying to we've been paying to make it. So we're trying to break even on this thing. Maybe we'll play the trailer right now. So people can understand it. Oh, yeah, maybe now's the time. Nice. Do you remember life before the Internet? I barely remember. On Wednesday, the White House announced its plan to make America the world leader in artificial intelligence. It's part of the manosphere. Social media stars. American teens now average nearly five hours per day on social media use and high rates of anxiety and depression in teenagers. 21st century life is so digitally saturated that it's very easy to yearn for a more unplugged time, which is probably why I went deep down this rabbit hole when my friend Tristan Scroggins showed me something amazingly unplugged. A stack of physical underground feminist music newsletters from the 1990s. These newsletters were made without computers, without AI, without social media, and they were made for women, by women. Women who played... Bluegrass. Bluegrass. Bluegrass. Bluegrass. Bluegrass. Bluegrass. Bluegrass. Bluegrass for sure. Bluegrass bands. For women in bluegrass. Hi, I'm Caroline Kendrick, and this is my co-producer Tristan Scroggins. Hi. Wait, I never know the cadence to say hi. Hi. Like an alien blowing its own cover. Welcome to Don't Call Me Darling. In 1994, a Virginia banjo player named Murphy Hicks Henry was fed up. My name is Murphy Hicks Henry, writer first, and then maybe banjo player second, feminist, baby boomer from the South. Now you might be surprised to hear feminism and bluegrass in the same breath, considering the genre's reputation as a more rural, conservative folk music from the American South. When most folks here are underground feminists, they tend to think of movements like Riot Girl, or mid-century housewives passing around copies of the feminine mystique. Women are apparently liberated in many ways, but in fact, and in practice, they're not. They're still discriminated against in many professionals. But there might be more of a connection between these worlds than meets the eye. I don't know what they thought, but I mean, I've been called the Jane Fonda of bluegrass. Up until recently, it was almost impossible to get a job in an existing bluegrass band as a woman, unless you were married to or related to a band member, or just started an all-girl band. So Murphy created this physical newsletter to change that, and called it Women in Bluegrass. Every time that I was pregnant with one of my kids, people would come up to me and say, oh, I guess you're going to quit playing. Like, no, I'm not quitting playing. What are you talking about? These newsletters were distributed for almost a decade into thousands of readers, and the interviews and articles reflected the very real struggles of playing in a male-dominated music. I just think of how many times somebody would come up to me at a festival and be like, hey, I got a new band. I need a man to play. Do you know anybody? I'd be like, hey, me. Oh, our wives would never put up with that. Women in bluegrass discussed privately what was still considered taboo in public. What you have to realize and what's kind of impossible to realize if you weren't there is what it was like in 1994 to have AIDS. When Tristan and I started reading through this catalog, we couldn't help but wonder, what did these women think now? Do they still agree with their younger selves? And what do younger generations of women playing this music now think of its influence? So we decided to go ask. I feel like the young women in bluegrass do not really get it how hard it was for us. They can't. They haven't had that experience. For as hard as it is to remember life before the Internet, it's even harder to understand experiences of earlier generations. The more distanced we are from our elders' experiences, the easier it is to unfairly romanticize the past without learning its lessons. So join us for our eight-part road trip as we explore the paradoxical world of bluegrass, an American art form with American problems, strengths, and growing pains. And no matter if you live and breathe bluegrass or can't stand the sight of a banjo, this story has something for you. Thanks for being here. Please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Episode one will be here before you know it. See you soon. And I said, I want to play like her. Excellent. All right. Thank you both so much. This is really a delight. And thank you, Olivia, for bringing this movie into my world because I wouldn't have watched it otherwise. Oh, yeah. No problem. Thank you guys for having me. It's so nice to be back again. I'll see you maybe next year this time. Yeah. Absolutely. That sounds great. Thank you, guys. All right, everybody, that's it for this week's episode of You Are Good, a feelings podcast about movies. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks to Miranda Zickler for producing and editing this episode. Thanks to Olivia Sang for showing up for being here with us. Thanks to Carolyn Kendrick for co-hosting today's episode. Thanks to y'all for supporting us on Patreon and Apple Podcast subscriptions. You get those bonus episodes. You get those extended cuts bonus episode, of course, about stand by me out very soon. If not now, please don't forget that you, my friend, are good.