A Conversation With Domee Shi, Director of Turning Red
We had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Oscar winning filmmaker and director of Pixar's Turning Red Domee Shi. Born in Chongqing, China and raised in Toronto, Canada, Domee’s lived experiences imbue her storytelling with authenticity and boundary pushing boldness. Not to mention she’s breaking barriers as the first woman and person of color to solo direct a Pixar feature animated film.
Her recently released film Turning Red explores the tensions of growing up particularly through the lens of a third culture kid. Set in 2002 Toronto Chinatown, Mei Lee is a 13 year-old girl navigating the chaos of dichotomies between youth and puberty as well as honoring her parents and becoming her own person—all with the “inconvenience” of transforming into a giant red panda when she feels strong emotions. Complete with tamagotchis, boy bands, epic mother-daughter fights, intergenerational trauma, and tweenage girl lust—let’s just say we felt simultaneously seen and attacked by all of the exacting details.
We chatted with Domee about tween life, artistic process, Chinatowns, anime, and her favorite fruit.
Image courtesy of Pixar
Daphne
Well, thank you so much Domee! We absolutely LOVE the film, and of course we're such big fans of what you've done with Bao and now with Turning Red. There are so many factors that make this such an important film for people like us and our community.
Maya
So I'll jump off with this question—coming from certain unnamed Cut Fruit team members—who may or may not have drawn or written anime fan fiction as an outlet for teenage lust, and may or may not be ashamed of it now—I need to ask, why did you feel the need to expose this part of Asian American/diaspora girl culture?
Domee
Oh, I think because it's just such it was such a formative part of my life and it was something that I was embarrassed about for a really long time and I tried to hide it. But then I think kind of coming into my career as an artist, I realized, like, wow, like, I the reason why I'm here [in my career] is because of those, you know, horny drawing spirals I got into as a tween and the really strong friendships I made through like, fandoms, and through obsessing over, you know, anime or books or fictional boys and stuff. And it should be celebrated! Not to be ashamed of or hidden away. And I also just think it's really funny. And it's not something that you really see in a lot of movies or media, but that is so common. Like every female artist that I ever talked to, they have had like a secret, or like an old DeviantArt account, or a Live Journal account. For people our age, you know, it's like, so common, but yet, it hasn't really been explored yet. So I really wanted to shine a light on it, and let us all come out of the shadows together.
Maya
Yeah, that's really true! I feel like my friendships from that time period are lifelong.
So I think for me personally as an Asian diaspora artist, I find that there's often a tension of wanting my work to be reflective of my own experiences and be true to myself. But at the same time, I'm aware of stereotypes and tropes and some of which are actually a part of my life. I wanted to know how you reconcile this tension in the movie but also just generally speaking?
Domee
Yeah, that's a really good question. In the movie it was important for us to depict, as truthful of an experience of this Asian Canadian girl and her relationship with her mom as possible. And then that meant depicting a lot of characteristics that could have easily gone one dimensional or stereotypical. You know, her being an overachiever, her mom being very strict or protective. But I think elements like that go into stereotype—a negative stereotype in media when you just depict the surface level characteristics of those characters, and you don't dive deeper into why you see these characteristics coming up in certain cultures. And that was important for us, like anytime we like wrote a scene with Ming—she was doing something kind of crazy or kooky. We always remember that it came from a place of love and wanting to protect Mei. And Sandra Oh was tapped into that when she was performing as Ming. I think that really grounded the character. At least even when we didn't agree with what Ming was doing on screen, we understood why she was doing it. I think it's always important for your audience to know why a character is doing the things that they're doing. They become one dimensional [and stereotypical] when you don't understand why they're doing it or they're just kind of doing things or making choices automatically. That's when they become really shallow. So I think just always making sure it comes from a place of understanding.
Image courtesy of Pixar
Daphne
I guess another point is it also becomes a stereotype when there's judgment of their actions. I feel like Turning Red did a really great job of kind of, not necessarily—I mean, you know, there may be some kind of moments where you're like cringing or you're seeing that as a stereotype. But then it wasn't like there was judgment being doled on screen. And there's always like you said, there's that understanding of why they're acting the way they are.
Domee
Yeah,it just comes from the character. It always comes from characters, and understanding why characters are making the choices that they're making. And then it also helped that we had multiple Asian women in leadership on the team. I worked with Julia Cho, who is Korean American. She's the screenwriter of the movie. Then Rona Liu was the production designer who's basically in charge of the whole look of sets, the character designs. I could trust that between the three of us, we could make sure that we are authentic and sensitive to the stuff we were putting on the screen. Then also working with cultural consultants, too, because even though we're three Asian women, we also have blind spots. None of us grew up in Chinatown. None of us are Cantonese. So it always helped us to rope in and get experts and people actually from the community and just to chat with them. Plus [we consulted] other people around the studio to just act as a gut check and that helped a lot too.
Daphne
Right. I guess speaking of while we're on that topic, what made you want to set the story in Toronto Chinatown?
Domee
Yeah, well, it wanted to set it in Toronto, because it's my hometown. We always feel like Toronto is pretending to be other cities in movies, but it's never celebrated just as itself. It's such a diverse and unique and awesome city that welcomed me and my parents when we first immigrated to Canada that I really wanted to have the chance to depict it on screen. Back then in the early 90s there just wasn't a lot of Chinese stuff in general in the West. So for my parents and me, even though we're not from the Cantonese, Taishanese area, where a lot of the Chinatown residents are from, it was the only kind of slice of home that we could find in the city. So we would go grocery shopping there, we eat dim sum there, and that's how we got more into Cantonese culture and food. It's such a nostalgic and awesome place that you see in a lot of big cities too. It was just an awesome opportunity to be able to depict that and celebrate that on the big screen. I did a little bit of it with Bao, and I wanted to do more with this movie.
Maya
So kind of related to when we were talking about the sort of ideal minority representation—I noticed some minority groups and older generations, especially—I think my own parents are like this. They don't necessarily want more realistic and human representations that are potentially more unflattering. They just want something that feels very ideal, and I think in their minds when it comes to media representation, like the historical representation of minority groups has been so offensive and racist that they feel like they want the pendulum to really swing in the other direction. There's this scarcity mindset of there's like only a few slots available. So the slots that we do have should be ideal and should make us look really good. I think I personally appreciate that you explore the more messy and complicated sides of Asian diaspora identity, but I wanted to know your thoughts on what ideal representation looks like to you and whether you feel there's an order of being "ideal first, and then we can be human," you know?
Domee
That's a good question. Yeah, I think the biggest solution to that is just to tell more Asian stories—different kinds of Asian stories. So then eventually, we have as much variety in our movies and TV shows as like Caucasian characters. So we can have like, you know, idealistic Asian characters, but then also we can have like really shitty crazy characters. I'd love like a There Will Be Blood with an Asian Daniel Day Lewis, that would be amazing! Yeah, I think that's the best way to do it is just to try to create more media out there with all kinds of Asian characters so that our parents are happy and we're happy too!
Every artist, Asian or otherwise—they're just one perspective and experience and they have their own tastes and preferences. It's a lot of pressure to represent an entire group of people with your work. At the end of the day, I think the best thing to do is just to tell more stories so that we can have a variety of characters to look up to, judge, or relate to.
Maya
Yeah, and that way, there's less pressure too.
Daphne
Right. Any advice for budding young API creative storytellers looking to get into the entertainment industry?
Domee
Oooh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you feel that pressure, right? I think chatting with a lot of young, AAPI artists who are entering the industry and who want to tell stories—they're wrestling with that themselves. I say, focus on what you want to see, and what you want to tell. And then I think that other stuff will just naturally fall into place. I think what helped me the most was finding a support system—a group of like minded, you know like in the movie, nerdy girls who liked all the things that I liked. We could all kind of commiserate together, help each other out, but also give each other a bit of the tough feedback that we need. Then we kind of help each other through our careers by being there for each other, because it gets really lonely, especially when you're like, a person of color, a woman in this industry. So I think just making sure that you're not alone, or that you never feel alone. I think that's huge.
Daphne
For sure, having that network to help support you. It's really important.
Maya
What were important, cultural elements that you wanted to make sure made it into this story? Was there anything that you hoped to include that actually ended up needing to be cut? And what culturally specific details about the film, whether it's Asian, Canadian 2000s, tween life, etc. are you most proud of?
Domee
Ah, man there's so much good stuff that we're able to cram into this movie. One of my favorite scenes is in the beginning of the movie where Mei's at home with her mom and they're making dumplings and watching TVB, this Cantonese soap opera on TV that's actually this Hong Kong production company that makes a ton of hilarious and dramatic Cantonese soap operas. Then her dad's cooking in the background.
I just love being able to squeeze all of those little slice of life details in the movie, in the background and the setting. That just really makes it feel very specific. This fun detail, when Jin goes into the basement, like when her dad's in the basement in the background, you can't really see it, but he's hung up Chinese sausages and there's newspaper on the ground. It's just a nod to my dad who always loved to cure meats in our basement and in the laundry room for some reason. We don't have a big basement, so I'd always have to weave my way through these dangling pieces of salted meat and get hit by one while I try to do my laundry.
Yeah, there's all kinds of stuff. There's toilet paper on the coffee table. I think their kitchen range is wrapped in tin foil. Yeah, it's all these awesome little slice of life, Asian immigrant home details that I was really proud that we could put in there.
Then stuff that we cut, it was mostly just for time. Then story details that were different—there was an earlier version where the temple played a bigger role in the plot. And at some point Mei or Ming thinks it's a great idea to use Mei's panda to draw more customers into the temple! Because I was drawing off of how a lot of Asian women in my life are like hustlers, and they are all about business. So Ming was more of like a little entrepreneur. But that character detail, we cut it because it just kind of complicated the whole story about a girl going through puberty and kind of being a metaphor for puberty. And then we're like, does that mean her mom's a pimp? Yeah, so we cut that! But there were fun scenes where Mei is doing a traditional fan dance as a panda, and her mom's just watching her from the sidelines like a proud pageant mom. Directly reminiscent of when I was in grade six. I was in this Chinese folk dance club and my face was all dolled up. I had to do these awkward fan dances and my mom would be like, "You're doing great!" Haha.
Image courtesy of Pixar
Daphne
Nice! Okay, so Turning Red utilizes some visual language borrowed from anime, and I know that's a huge influence for you. What was the decision behind using those elements and having that as your inspiration especially since Pixar is known for having a very specific kind of style and look?
Domee
Yeah, I feel like when we first started the movie, I really just wanted it to feel different. Like I wanted it to look different and feel different as a movie because our protagonist feels so different. All of the stylistic choices we made were to support Mei's character and her kind of story of how she sees the world. She's this spunky, energetic 13 year old girl. We just wanted to design the world through her eyes like really utilize romantic, feminine fresh colors for the city scape but also utilize just how exaggerated and cartoony and fun anime can be to really push Mei's expressions and emotions just to make the audience feel what Mei's feeling because she feels so much in this movie. Yeah, and it just felt like anime would be the perfect style to tell this story.
Also, just in general, that's kind of my aesthetic. My taste is just kind of somewhere in between eastern and western animation. I grew up watching Disney, Pixar, but also a ton of anime, a ton Miyazaki movies and Sailor Moon. So that's naturally what I lean towards as well. Also with every movie, you're working on it for four or five years so it feels like you should be pushing the envelope in some way with your movie. This felt like a really good opportunity to try to test what 3D anime could look like.
Daphne
Yeah, what was that process like? How was it adapting 2D type of references to 3D?
Domee
Oh, it took the entire crew holding hands and really diving deep into anime research. We just had amazing leads on this show who just studied anime sequences. We analyzed the camera. How do they move the camera in anime? And like expression changes—how they really just like snap to different expressions for comedy. We realized that if we wanted to stylize the movie, we had to do it across the board with each and every department. It was a lot of like tests and hit or miss. Like we could push it this far into 2D and then I'd be like, "Oh, that's too far. Let's reel it back a little bit." Then we found that sweet spot in the middle.
Daphne
Nice! Alright, last question. What's your favorite fruit? And do you have any favorite cut fruit memories?
Domee
Yeah, my favorite fruit? My favorite fruit in general is blueberries because they're really versatile, I can add them to everything. My favorite cut fruit memory—I have a pomelo memory where my mom and I and my dad, we'd buy a pomelo and slice it and peel it. But then my mom would just turn [the peel] into a pomelo hat and put it on her head! And then just like wear it for the day or she'll have me wear it for the day. She would say, "Oh, we used to do this when I was little because it smelled really nice and then it just makes you smell so fresh and citrusy all day!" So I just have these memories of me and her wearing our pomelo hats and kind of like putzing around the house doing stuff. Yeah, and I still do it to this day. It's very fun!
Daphne
I love it! Awesome! Well, thank you so much.
Maya
We really appreciate you talking to us. We both really love the film!
Daphne
Congratulations, Domee! We are so proud of you! And very excited to share this with our community.
Domee
Thank you so much!