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The story is set in Toronto, Canada, during the early 2000s. The chosen time period evokes nostalgia while the setting plays an integral role in establishing culture. This allows the themes of the story to be explored through the context of a young teenage girl navigating her adolescence in a multicultural environment.

Major Characters:

1. Meilin Lee – Mei is a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl. She is excellent in school, obedient to her mother, and loves her friendships and interests deeply. She and her friends share an obsession with the boy band 4*Town. She also inherits the ability to transform into a giant red panda during moments of intense emotion from her mother.

2. Ming Lee – Ming Lee is Meilin’s mother. She is overprotective and at times controlling. She has high expectations for Meilin and is initially oblivious to her internal struggles. Ming has a complicated past, including her own experience with transforming into a red panda (which she sees as a curse).

3. Jin Lee – Jin Lee is Meilin’s quiet and understanding father. He plays a supporting role but ultimately helps Mei find a balance between embracing her unique traits and familial expectations.

4. Mei's Friends:

Miriam – Mei’s laid-back best friend who is always supportive.

Priya – A deadpan, sarcastic girl with a dry sense of humor.

Abby – Abby is energetic, loud and intensely passionate about anything she likes.

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1. Growing Up – Turning Red explores the confusing, awkward, and emotional experiences of puberty. Mei’s transformation into a red panda symbolizes the physical and emotional changes many adolescents go through during this stage of life.

2. Identity and Self-Acceptance – Mei’s whole experience tells a story of embracing yourself, even when it feels out of control or at odds with others’ expectations. The red panda that Mei turns into is big, clumsy and impossible to hide. Which may represent Mei’s own experiences of uncertainty in who she is.

3. Family and Tradition – Another big theme is generational conflicts, especially between Mei and her mother, Ming. Mei's struggle with the family’s expectations reflects the pressures placed on many children to follow in their parents' footsteps or uphold cultural traditions, even when it conflicts with personal desires.

4. Friendship and Loyalty – Mei’s friends play a central role in helping her cope with her transformations, showing the importance of peer support during challenging times. Despite her family's strict rules, her friends provide the emotional outlet and acceptance Mei needs.

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Conflict:
The main conflict of Turning Red is Mei’s choice to adhere to her mother’s strict expectations or embrace her individuality. The main issue being that Mei struggles to find a way to balance the two, feeling she must sacrifice one to attain the other. This is symbolized by her red panda transformation. Ming wants Mei to get rid of her red panda form as it is family tradition to do so., Mei however, finds joy and freedom in being her true, unrestrained self. The red panda becomes a metaphor for both the uncontrollable emotions of adolescence and the internal conflict Mei faces between honoring her family and being true to herself.

Resolution:
In the climax, Mei must choose between sealing away her red panda forever (as her ancestors and mother did) or embracing it. During the ritual meant to banish the red panda from Mei, she decides to keep the panda, asserting her independence. The resolution involves choosing to balance both her family’s values and her own desires. Mei also helps her mother reconcile with her own imperfections and heal her own generational pressure. Mei accepts her identity, family, and heritage, while also enjoying the freedom to pursue her passions and friendships. She finds balance in both honoring her family's traditions and living life as herself.

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Erik Erikson (1902-1994) was a German American psychoanalyst. He is known for his psychosocial theory of development, which emphasizes the role of social relationships and cultural influences throughout life. He first introduced the theory in his book Childhood and Society (1950). Erikson shifted focus from Freud’s psychosexual stages to a broader more social outlook on development. His theory outlines eight stages, each with a central conflict shaping personality, from infancy through old age. This stems from Erickson’s belief that people continue to grow and change as they pass through every stage of their life.

Foundations of the theory:

1. Lifelong development: As opposed to Freud’s psycho-sexual theory of development, which focused mainly on early childhood, Erikson’s theory is based on his belief that personality development continues throughout life.

2. Influence of social and cultural factors: Each stage of Erikson’s theory highlights a social relationship (e.g., family, peers, community) that plays a significant role in a person’s development.

3. Conflicts: At each developmental stage, individuals face a conflict between two opposing outcomes. In a healthy person there exists a balance between the two outcomes shaping the individual’s personality.

4. Conflicts necessary for growth: Erikson saw failing to resolve a crisis as what eventually led to difficulties in later stages.

5. Identity: the final major part of Erikson’s theory is the concept of identity, especially during adolescence. He believed a stable identity was critical for personal well-being.

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1. Trust vs. Mistrust (1-2 years): Infants learn to either trust or mistrust the world around them, particularly caregivers. At this point the relationship given the most emphasis is between the baby and their mother. The baby learns to feel secure and trust others in the future, or, if they experience fear and danger, develop mistrust.

2. Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (2-4 years): Children learn independence and confidence by being allowed to be themselves or experience shame and doubt about their abilities because they weren’t allowed to explore themselves. At this point the relationship with both parents is important

3. Initiative vs. Guilt (4-5 years): Children begin to exercise autonomy and try new experiences. This is done through play and social interactions; being encouraged leads to healthy development whereas a lack of support leads to feelings of guilt. This can be determined by an individual’s relationship with their whole family at this stage.

4. Industry vs. Inferiority ( 5-12 years): Children develop a sense of competence in skills and tasks or feel inferior and incompetent. This is determined by the amount of appreciation or criticism we receive. This part of the theory gives a lot of value to neighbors and schools in shaping an individual.

5. Identity vs. Role Confusion (13-19 years): Adolescents work to develop a stable identity and direction in life, or they struggle with role confusion. The factors that influence this are our peers, role models and whether our parents allow us to discover our own beliefs or instead push their beliefs onto us.

6. Intimacy vs. Isolation (20-40 years): Adults form intimate, meaningful relationships or feel socially isolated.

7. Generativity vs. Stagnation (40-65 years): Adults contribute to society and nurture others, or they experience stagnation and self-absorption.

8. Integrity vs. Despair (65+ years): In reflecting on life, adults either feel fulfilled or experience regret and despair.

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Trust Vs Mistrust

Mei’s trust in her mother, Ming, is incredibly strong. Ming is highly involved in Mei’s life, providing constant care but also a sense of surveillance and authority. Using Erikson's theory it could potentially be argued that Mei's relationship with her mother, as early as infancy, is what resulted in a solid base of trust, but also a relationship of authority and control (to some extent).

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The first line in the entire movie is about rules and honoring your parents. In the opening scene Mei introduces this before she introduces herself. While this doesn't reveal too many specifics about Mei's life between the ages of two and four it could still be loosely linked to Erikson's theory. The main conflict in this stage of development is Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt. This according to Erikson is the stage where children learn independence and confidence or feel uncertain and ashamed of themselves. Mei could have faced challenges in developing independence, self-assuredness and autonomy in this stage because of the focus she gives to pleasing her parents. I think it could be argued that because Mei is taught to prioritize honoring her family above at times even herself, she is unable to form a sense of confidence that isn't attached to the approval of her parents. This may lead her to minimize and therefore under-develop key aspects of herself if they do not align with her main priority, her parents. And it is possible that this leads to a sense of doubt and shame.

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Meilin Lee Childhood photo's collection.

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Mei excels academically and is recognized for it by her mother. by others she is called an "overachiever" and "weirdo" by her peers and "an enterprising, mildly annoying young lady" by her head teacher. This to me is where Erikson's theory falters a little. At this stage Erikson argues that acknowledgment and approval from school and peers encourages children to be "industrious". Mei however, isn't given that much validation from school and her peers. While her grades reflect that she is doing well in school they do not reflect approval of her or her character. Despite this however, Mei continues to strive to do well in school and be "industrious" because of the validation it gets her from her mother and more broadly the pride it brings her family/ancestors.

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Turning Red movie clip "Are you hungry!" clip | Pixar | Disney

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Mei is 13, freshly entering this stage of development. She very clearly faces the conflicts outlined by Erikson in this stage.

Mei's mother, knowingly or unknowingly, has taught Mei to view her personal identity as secondary to making her family proud. This form of suppression very clearly leads Mei to experience role conflict.

1. her role as an individual vs her role as a daughter

Mei's hates her Red Panda transformations at first, she wants to get rid of them as soon as possible but eventually she realizes that they are a part of who she is. By the time she comes to this conclusion however, her mother still believes that her Mei's Red panda needs to be abolished. we learn that Ming feels this way because she had a red panda of her own that she was taught she had to get rid of. If the generational red panda is a metaphor for awkward uncomfortable parts of our identity that we must learn to embrace, then that means the choice that Mei faces is between obeying her mother's wishes and being her full self.

And because of the way that Mei was raised and the pressure her mother places on her to be obedient this creates a conflict between Mei's role as an individual and Mei's role as a daughter.

2. her role as a daughter vs her role as a friend

Additionally, Mei's upbringing creates conflict between Mei and her friends. Over and over again throughout the movie Mei chooses her mother's approval over her friends. Her friends believe she is "brainwashed" but out of their love for her choose to be supportive, at least at first. The biggest conflict occurs when Ming accuses Mei's friends of being the reason why she suddenly begins acting out and Mei chooses to stay silent instead of defending her friends. what this illustrates is not only a division but a lack of balance in Mei's roles due to her upbringing.

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An evaluation of Erikson's theory as an analytical tool for understanding Meilin Lee. 

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An evaluation of Erikson's theory as an analytical tool for understanding Meilin Lee. 

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Erikson’s theory does a good job of explaining Mei’s development to a large extent. With the exception of stage four, which I don’t think completely explains Mei’s excellence in school, Erikson’s theory almost completely captures her experiences and how they have shaped her identity. When applied, the theory did a surprisingly good job of categorizing Mei’s experiences, which in this context makes it a good tool for analysis. It overlapped well with Mei’s story and I think it was a good “fit”. What I think made it effective in particular is the emphasis that Erikson places on social relations to explain development. Given Mei’s background, social influences such as culture and family play a huge role in who she is and becomes.