Turning Red’s version of teen lust is refreshingly weird

There’s a scene in Pixar’s Turning RedI wanted to crawl under the floor and enter the afterlife. Mei, a Chinese-Canadian teenager, began drawing fantasies of Devon (17-years-old Daisy Mart clerk Devon) as her protagonist. Mei’s mom finds the fan art and takes Devon to task for causing her problems. Mei’s mom has no idea these doodles were all the product of imagination, rather than reality — of a crush running free across the pages of a notebook.

Media have imposed a set of criteria on what it means to be attractive since the invention of TV and movies. Screen media has largely excluded the wider, more complex spectrum of desires. This is true for onscreen girls and women, who for decades mostly conformed to a set look — white, thin, and able-bodied — and were attracted to boys and men who conformed to a similar set of norms. However, this homogeneous concept of attractiveness did not take into consideration how one-sided, fictitious and sometimes quite bizarre young pining can be, as it is when first crushes form. Girlhood lust has only recently made it onto the screen, confusing the media landscape with many wild and imaginative scenes, often cringy, that allow for more human storytelling.

Image: Disney

When many people first begin to consider what it means for them to attract other people, puberty is the time. The first time you are horny can seem overwhelming and confusing. It’s time to turn red’s frankness and exaggerated lust captures this moment of life with hilarious finesse. Mei Lee begins to draw the charming boy at the corner market. The doodling gets more intense. Soon, she begins to draw him as a Merman. She blends fantasy with reality. The urge to draw is unabated. She doodles more often because she is unable to stop herself from imagining her fantasies. The merman’s existence weaves neatly into other doodles, like ones with her and Devon embracing.

At 13, she already feels these kinds of crushes are inappropriate for her — whether due to her parents’ reactions, the societal norming around how she’s supposed to act, or just how overwhelming these emotions are. She also hides her interest in boy band 4*Town from her parents, claiming one of her friends is the real fan, which is an absolute lie. The film’s scene of the friends absolutely bawling over a 4*Town concert — and discovering school bully Tyler is also a fan — is the incredible culmination of this messy fangirling. It’s time to turn red never makes fun of these moments, or goes for cheap laughs at the girls’ expense. Instead, it invites viewers to empathize — and maybe remember their own fervent adolescent obsessions.

Image: Disney

This isn’t far from the way tweens and young teen girls in other recent media have their own offbeat desires depicted and validated. There’s Pen15’s Maya, whose “porn” stash includes a headshot of her crush, along with a photo of smooth-looking sand dunes. The stash remains hidden from prying eyes, evident. Tina Belcher would complete any collection of teenage-girl protagonists. Bob’s BurgersHe writes both erotic fanfic and fantasy series fan fiction. Refer friendsfic about her crushes — most of which involve lots of boys’ butts. (And zombies. These all stay in collected diary volumes, though her family knows about her writing — as well as her love of Boyz 4 Now, the fictitious boy band that her younger sister, Louise, pretends to be disinterested in.

It’s all a great reminder that a lot of us went through a deeply cringy phase that involved a grab bag of references and a lot of imagination. My first crushes included a mix of fictional characters and teen stars, as well as some classmates. My first crushes were a mix of fictional characters, teen celebrities and some classmates. I spent a lot of time thinking about them. Twilight’s Edward or Jacob, titans of Y2K teen-girl lust. This internal debate was less about whether Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner were hot — though Lautner’s Numerous shirtless appearances helped — but about whether I would truly prefer to date a vampire or a werewolf. It was a choice between coldness and immortality, or warmblooded communities. The fact that they were both dangerous was a firmly “pro” column item. My curiosity soon grew: Is my sixth-grade math buddy more vampire-like or werewolf-like? How did that affect my feelings about them?

Then again, I didn’t like Edward or Jacob as much as I fantasized about Danny Fenton from Danny PhantomYou can be a villain or you like them. Kim Possible’s Shego. My imagination was constantly racing to imagine how cool (or hot) I would feel if I met a celeb (specifically any member of Paramore). I also have a strong memory of a Cosmopolitan magazine feature centerfold with images of curved bananas — you can imagine what the story was about. My version of Maya’s Pen15 porn stash (if I wasn’t too scared to have one) probably would have included a color printed image of a banana.

I’m elated to see that these kinds of wild girlhood expressions of being hornt have Final wordsIt made it to our media. I excitedly cringed through Mei’s mermen fantasies, and her crying — with forceful snot — over every member of 4*Town (but especially Robaire). At that time, we were all just little freaks. We were all little freaks at that age. Diverse — Mei’s fantasies are pretty buttoned–up, even though her mom reacts so aggressively to them. Maya is a 7th-grader who spends her time looking for someone to love and working out her inner shame regarding masturbation. Tina’s fantasies are outlandish and completely disconnected from how her crush Jimmy Jr. actually treats her.

We’re finally in an era of media where girls’ fumbling early desires aren’t the subject of derision, but rather a source of comedy, thanks to the embarrassed solidarity many of us feel, looking back at that time. It’s a normal part of being a woman to have weird crushes. We should laugh about what we did back then.