Turning Red vs. Encanto: Who Did It Better?
Turning Red and Encanto are both the latest animated films on Disney+. While Encanto made its way in late 2021, Turning Red made it to Disney+ a week back. Years back when they made an animated movie with a restrictive parent, it would usually be the dad.
It was just a thing, portraying stern dads. Be it, King Triton, from Little Mermaid, or even DreamWorks projects and Sony Animation too. While we agree with the fact that some dads are a bit strict, that is not always the case. We all know out mad our moms can get if we don’t listen to them especially if you are an Asian.
Movies like Turning Red, Encanto, Brave, Coco did change these things with strong maternal authority. Now with Encanto and Turning Red, fans are divided as to which movie is better.
The plot:
The films focus on teen girls. Mirabel lives in a magical house while Mei lives a pretty normal teen life until she turns into a huge red panda. Both of them love their families but have quite demanding ones.
Mirabel’s family has her Abuela as the head. Abuela had survived a tragedy that turned out to be a gift in disguise as they were bestowed with some magical gifts. Almost every family member had these gifts using which, they helped their community. But after a point, Abuela’s sense of duty has one way or the other taken a toll on everyone but no one has the guts to speak up about it. Like we saw Isabella making flowers everywhere but deep down there, she thinks about cactuses. Luisa can’t stop thinking about what would happen if she carries overweight. Everyone is dealing with pressure one way or another.
In Turning Red, Mei is doing everything she can to match her mom’s standards until she awakens her inner panda. Her mom finds out about her notebook of fantasies and embarrasses her which introduced Mei to her Red Panda. She really wanted to go to a boy-band concert and her mom labels it as inappropriate and she thinks despite they (her friends and her) have been so good yet parents don’t trust them. So what does she do? Like every other teenager, she lies and sneaks out of the house.
The climax of the films:
Mei’s mom wants her to put away her Panda, but during the ceremony, Mei decides she wants to keep it and even go to the boy band concert. She tells her mom that she is 13 and growing up and her mom should deal with it. Now not all 13-year-olds are responsible for making their own decisions and even if they make a healthy one, it is not necessary that it could have a correct impact in the future. While the movie does have a sort of message that you should let your teen kids free and trust them at times, we highly doubt few parents would agree with that.
Mirabel on the other hand tries to free herself from the restrictions Abuela has imposed on the family. When the house begins to break, Abuela takes not much longer to blame it on Mirabel. And Mirabel out of anger says it’s happening due to Abuela. And we know Mirabel was not wrong.
When it comes to fun, Turning Red is definitely fun and maybe because many parents and kids can relate to it. While Encanto is of course pure pure fantasy about a magical house that does literally everything. But it does have a message of a house becomes home when it is filled with family.
Which one did you like better?
