2022.04.15 动画的后恶棍时代

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The Post-villain Era of Animation
Today’s Disney movies aren’t like the ones you grew up with. That isn’t a bad thing.

By Kevin Townsend, Spencer Kornhaber, Shirley Li, and Lenika Cruz
Meilin Lee and friends in "Turning Red"
Pixar / Disney / Charlie Le Maignan / The Atlantic
APRIL 15, 2022
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Few characters are as strikingly memorable as a classic Disney villain. Sleeping Beauty’s haughty sorceress, Maleficent; The Little Mermaid’s operatically campy sea witch, Ursula; The Lion King’s melodramatically evil Scar—each one so charismatic they tend to obscure their movie’s protagonist. (Quick: What is the princess’s name in Sleeping Beauty?)

But despite their prominence in classic films, animated villains have slowly disappeared from screens over the past decade. Recent movies such as Turning Red and Encanto certainly have drama, though instead of defeating a cackling evildoer, the main character now typically has an internal battle made external. The conflict in both films involves a broken relationship with a loved one, made cinematically epic by way of magical metaphor. Turning Red, like The Little Mermaid before it, arrives at its climax with the antagonist blown up to kaiju proportions. But while the 1989 Disney movie ends with behemoth Ursula skewered on a ship, the 2022 Pixar film finds its dramatic peak in a quieter moment of mother-daughter understanding.


Animation didn’t do away with villains all at once. Early iterations in the trend, such as Frozen, had classically good-and-evil setups, but subverted them as the films went on. And with Moana and later films, children’s animation shed predictable tropes of hero/villain plotlines while also centering cultures that don’t have much representation in the depths of the Disney vault.

Turning Red is the latest and certainly among the most culturally specific animated works. While films such as Raya and the Last Dragon create fantasy-pastiches of cultural context, Turning Red follows a real 13-year-old Chinese Canadian girl living in Toronto in 2002—who just happens to turn into a giant red panda sometimes.

Spencer Kornhaber, Shirley Li, and Lenika Cruz discuss Turning Red and the state of the animated villain on an episode of The Atlantic’s culture podcast, The Review. Listen to their conversation here:

Subscribe to The Review: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts
The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. It contains spoilers for Turning Red.

Spencer Kornhaber: This week, we’re talking about Turning Red, the latest Disney/Pixar release. It’s been out for a while, debuting on Disney+ about a month ago, but we wanted to talk about it because, well, there’s been some discourse around the movie. It’s had an odd kind of staying power. It’s doing well in the streaming numbers. And also, I think we all kind of love it and want to just fawn over it. It’s really a remarkably specific animated film. It’s about a Chinese Canadian 13-year-old girl living in Toronto in 2002.

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All Meilin Lee wants to do is hang out with her friends, go to a boy-band concert, and, most importantly, make her somewhat overprotective mother proud. Then one day she wakes up and she finds out that she turns into a giant adorable red panda whenever she loses control of her emotions. As director Domee Shi put it: “The panda is a metaphor for magical puberty.” Shirley, what did you think of Turning Red?

Shirley Li: I love this movie. It is absolutely a film about magical puberty, but it’s about many other things, too. The first time I watched it, I was surprised by how wonderfully it pulled off all these different elements. One is the coming-of-age puberty element. Another is the specificity of a Chinese Canadian 13-year-old and what her life is like. And there’s also the element of dealing with parents.

I walked away from this film really impressed by how well it juggled all of it. I went in incredibly stoked for Domee Shi. This film is her debut, and it makes her the first woman to direct a Pixar feature. She’s also the first woman to direct a Pixar short: her Oscar-winning film Bao, which played in theaters before Incredibles 2.

Kornhaber: It’s about an edible dumpling child, right?

Li: It is about a steamed bun that becomes an anthropomorphized child to this mom who’s suffering from empty-nest syndrome. As a director, Shi has really quirky ideas and draws from a lot of different animation styles. I was really excited to see what her first feature film would look like, and when I saw the animation for the lead character, I got really worried because she looked exactly like me. (Laughs.)

Lenika Cruz: (Laughs.)

Li: And she’s obsessed with pop culture, or an element of it. And it really felt like, maybe in all these years of asking to be seen on-screen, maybe things went too far. And here is this embarrassing rendition of who I am. (Laughs.)

Cruz: Really embarrassing for you. (Laughs.)

Read: What the controversy over Turning Red misses

Li: Anyway, that’s where I was coming from with this film. And I could gush all day about Domee Shi. I think she’s such a genius. She is fearless about creating a fearless character with unabashed primal energy in this teenage girl, and pulling from all these different visual styles. It’s pushing what a Pixar film is.

Cruz: I, too, love this movie. It’s super funny. It’s sweet. It gets at the emotional realities of being a 13-year-old girl. When I heard that it was going to be set in 2002, I was like, Oh no, this is going to tap into a time in my life when I was just so earnest and embarrassing. But at the same time, I feel like, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become less embarrassed of myself at that age. This movie made me think a lot of PEN15, which I know some of us are big fans of, not just because of the cringey, embarrassing element, but also because, while it’s funny, it doesn’t make fun of what it’s like to be that age and be so full of excitement and uncertainty and enthusiasm.

It gets at the psychological depth of kids at that age. And so I liked that this was a film that wasn’t at all making fun of teenage girls or the things they love. And, Shirley, I actually hadn’t seen Bao when it first played, but I watched it in between my first and second viewings of Turning Red. And even though I knew I knew what would happen, I was still in tears by the end. And you do notice the similar themes to this movie, where you have this mother character who clearly really loves her child and wants to spend all her time with them, but once the child starts breaking off to go on their own, the protective instinct turns dangerous. There’s an edge to it, where the mother wants to do anything to keep her child close, even if that means maybe hurting them.

Read: Pixar’s Turning Red has the cleverest take on puberty

Kornhaber: This is a movie that is so, so funny and so charming, because it’s about being extra. It’s about going into the red in all these different ways. I was so taken with it from that very first stretch of narration, where the voice actress who plays Meilin, Rosalie Chiang, is basically shouting her lines. (Laughs.)

She monologues in this kind of stentorian “I am a 13-year-old, but I am basically an adult and this is what I like, and this is what I don’t like.” And my reaction was: I know this girl. I recognize that she’s not an adult. She’s a child, because she is able to express herself and is completely authentic in this over-the-top way. Because what is childhood other than an escalating experience of becoming more and more playful and imaginative … and then running into this wall of puberty where other people start to notice you as an autonomous creature in the world and start to make you feel embarrassed about who you are?

And, in this movie, there’s also this other layer of that brought by the parents, who have their own experiences in life that caused them to get across this idea that you need to watch yourself, to quiet down, and to be careful about how you present to the world. But unfortunately, there’s a family curse that turns you into a gigantic red panda if you aren’t able to control your emotions. And there’s also a magic ritual to turn you into less of who you really are.

The other thing I love about this movie is that it’s completely unpredictable to me. I did not feel prepared for every story beat in the way I’m used to with movies where a villain is defeated. And it does feel like we’re in this moment where children’s animation at least is really far away from the movies that we grew up with.

Li: Yeah, Disney+ released a documentary called Embrace the Panda about the making of Turning Red. And in it, Domee Shi talks about how she didn’t necessarily start with the idea to make a movie about a Chinese Canadian 13-year-old, or to make a movie about dealing with an overprotective mother, or anything like that. She started with just thinking that red pandas were cute and wanting to illustrate them.

And as she learned about red pandas, she learned that they’re quite individualistic, that they eat bamboo even though it doesn’t provide nutrients for them. So she imagined them like a lazy teenager eating chips and sleeping all day. And so she applied a story to it, and found red pandas to be a good metaphor for something she wanted to explore more of. And maybe that’s why the film has its own sense of discovery. She didn’t approach it with a story in mind. She didn’t begin with a heroine and a villain. She just started with the fact that red pandas are really cute, and she wanted to draw them! But this film does fit into a recent spate of Pixar films where there isn’t really a tangible villain: Encanto, Raya and the Last Dragon, Frozen II.

Read: The flawed fantasy world of Raya and the Last Dragon

Cruz: Yeah, even a movie like Moana has a plot that’s harder to predict, because there wasn’t an obvious antagonist. Moana wants to save her island. In Encanto, they want to save the house. And then in Turning Red, she wants to go to a concert, but still make her mom happy as this obedient daughter.

And I guess we should set up how the panda is first triggered, because the mom doesn’t expect it and doesn’t prepare her for it. Meilin basically sees a cute boy one day and, after denying to herself that she thinks he’s cute, she finds herself at her desk absentmindedly doodling pictures of him. She gives him biceps and a cute smile, and suddenly she finds herself drawing these sexy drawings of her crush. And then her mom finds the drawings and doesn’t once think that her daughter might actually be enjoying them. She assumes her daughter is being victimized in some way and goes off to embarrass her by confronting the boy. It’s the most embarrassing scene ever.

Kornhaber: Even hearing you describe it hurts.

Li: I’m sweating, just hearing this. (Laughs.)

Cruz: I know! She draws him as a merman. It’s like everyone’s worst nightmare, no matter how old you are. But then, that night, she goes home and tells herself to push all of this down and not disappoint her mother again. She starts berating herself in the mirror. And this is one of the first moments where she’s aware of these desires being stigmatized, something she needs to control and contain and bury. And she wakes up the next morning, and—poof—she is the cutest, biggest, fluffiest red panda. And that’s kind of where the trouble begins.

But what I was surprised by was: In a lot of transformation stories, the fact of the transformation itself is a problem that lasts for most of the film, and I was shocked by how quickly it went from being a secret to being something that she just kind of went with. She’s making money at school taking pictures with people. It goes from being embarrassing to being celebrated so quickly. And I really liked that. If turning into a red panda is a metaphor for puberty and growing up, the movie didn’t treat it as something that the entire world looked at as bad. It was mainly her mother’s idea of how she should be.

Kornhaber: I’m so sick of narratives where, the whole time, you as a viewer are stressed about the protagonist’s secret coming out. There are so many movies like that, and I was concerned this movie would follow that path—but there’s such a relief when her friends join her in the secret and it becomes a totally different kind of movie, where you use your superpowers to have fun.

Cruz: Yeah, it feels so much more realistic to how, if one of your friends were to turn into a giant panda, that’s what you would do. (Laughs.)

Kornhaber: It’s a movie that has conflict, but it’s not gut-wrenching. The real conflict is just: How do I be myself, but also keep my parents happy? She’s a straight-A student. She’s always done what she’s told. That incredible cringe moment you mentioned, Lenika, where the mom marches into the convenience store and confronts the 17-year-old boy Meilin had a crush on— what teenager would not fly off the handle over that? But that’s part of the specificity of this movie. In this family, she really will not say one negative word to her mom. And that’s another way in which it’s telling a story that is less rote than you expect but, I also imagine, true to how a lot of people have lived their lives. It’s certainly true to what appears to be the case for her mom.

Li: Yeah, what’s so special about this film is that all of these supernatural elements work because the rest of it is so specific and rooted in the real. It can borrow from anime visuals and make her eyes go all sparkly when she sees her crush, but at the same time, this is a story that’s not taking place in a fantasy world. It takes place in Toronto in 2002. She has a core group of friends that I think a lot of viewers could see themselves being a part of. And the real conflict, even though there are supernatural elements, is being unable to communicate with a parent.

Something a lot of people have taken away, and something specific about this film, is that the immigrant experience does come with this feeling of needing to live up to your family’s expectations. They’ve sacrificed so much to make it over here. You better do your job and be a perfect child, or else you are disappointing not just your parents, but your entire lineage. But the film is also really just about not being able to communicate with your mom.

Kornhaber: Yeah, it really does feel like a companion piece to Encanto, the other huge Disney streaming hit this year, which is set in Colombia but is also about a family with supernatural powers that are undergoing a crisis that is ultimately resolved by communication and understanding and compromise. It really is a remarkable crop of movies. They’re not slaying a dragon. It’s doing something much more subtle and real. Why do you think Disney is trying to make movies like this right now? Or, rather, why does the culture want these movies? Because they are hits.

Read: The biggest reason “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is a hit

Li: I think there are a couple of different factors at play. The first is that Frozen was such an unexpected hit for Disney—and it was a hit that actually retooled the villain story line that we were talking about. Elsa was supposed to be the scary, wicked queen who runs her ice castle away from Arendelle, but the story got retooled to be about sisterhood, with Elsa not as this big bad, but just someone who can’t get a handle on her powers. And, of course, that’s a story beat we see in later Disney animated films.

Frozen was such an unexpected smash hit—but at its core, it is about family. It didn’t have an explicit villain throughout, and I think Disney started tapping that well because they saw how popular it was. Along with that, I think there’s been a push in recent years for more culturally specific stories. There’s been this recognition of culturally specific stories as universal and resonant and, rather than something to be avoided, something that has an audience.

And as animators at Disney and Pixar started recognizing that, they turned to writing those stories and green-lighting those stories. And, behind the scenes, there’s been more female leadership. And because of that, there are more stories that I think women storytellers realize haven’t been told as much. When you think about it, teenage girlhood isn’t really often depicted in stories for children, even in stories for adults.

Kornhaber: What did you make of this movie’s portrayal of someone who’s the child of immigrants? Because I just saw Everything Everywhere All at Once, the incredible science-fictional, multiverse-tripping, make-you-cry-and-barf movie that is currently shaping conversation—and it’s also about a Chinese immigrant family.

Read: How Hollywood’s weirdest filmmakers made a movie about everything

Li: I just had this conversation with a friend where we were like, “Are there too many? Is it weird that there are all these Millennial stories about immigrant children?” And this friend of mine was like, “This is the most Asian-immigrant thing we could be saying right now, asking if there’s too much and if we should stop.” (Laughs.)

That said, I do think Asian casts and Asian storytellers have been finding their moment recently. And I don’t mind there being a wave.

Cruz: I’m happy that we have gotten to this point where representation can be a small part of a bigger conversation. For a little while, it felt like every time there was a movie that starred protagonists of color, there was a reaction like: “Ooh, representation! Is this going to fix Hollywood’s diversity problem?”

And it feels like the tenor of the conversation has changed a lot. These movies are super popular despite the complaints that they would only resonate with certain kinds of people. In Turning Red’s case, there was the viral review that said this movie was just made for the director and her immediate family. But the fact that so many people are watching it is proof of the opposite.

Kornhaber: Do movies like this mean that we’ve moved past being able to talk about actual villains in our culture? There are real Scars and Jafars out there. (Laughs.) Is it that, as these stories move into these more real-world stories, it would be politically dicey for Disney to try to identify who are maybe the villains in real-world scenarios? Or at least it would be a bit dark and disturbing?

Cruz: It makes me think a little of the discourse around Zootopia and how people were trying to draw these clear political parallels, but it just wasn’t so easy. And I feel like that was maybe the closest we’ve gotten to people reading into these films. I think Disney and Pixar maybe don’t want to make antagonists that correspond too closely to real life. Especially in these more culturally specific stories.

Li: Yeah. And I don’t want all future animated films to eschew villains. I think there’s a place for an all-out meanie, especially if it brings back those excellent villain songs.

Kornhaber: Yeah, the villains are some of the best things in children’s entertainment of years past.

Li: I do think the idea to complicate certain villains is a good one. Instead of having the mother be all-out terrible, encouraging kids to think about how their parents view them and what their parents were like as children seems positive. But there are also other stories that don’t require developing sympathy. I’m thinking of the live-action Cruella, which we definitely didn’t need.

Kornhaber: Yeah, we love a lot of old Disney villains, but the company has famously had this tendency for creating queer-coded villains. Whether that’s Ursula or Jafar or Scar, the baddie is usually someone who’s kind of campy and of marginal identity. And if these movies were made now, it’s almost impossible to imagine them getting away with not presenting that character’s side of the story a little more, showing whatever traumas cause them to be just so devilish. And honestly, I understand the impulse to move away from opening that can of worms. It’s a lot more about conquering your inner stuff and working things out with the people around you.



动画的后恶棍时代
今天的迪斯尼电影与你长大的那些电影不一样。这并不是一件坏事。

凯文-汤森、斯宾塞-科恩哈伯、雪莉-李和莱尼卡-克鲁兹报道
李美林和朋友们在 "变红 "中
皮克斯/迪士尼/Charlie Le Maignan/The Atlantic
2022年4月15日

很少有角色能像迪士尼的经典反派那样令人印象深刻。睡美人》中傲慢的女巫Maleficent；《小美人鱼》中歌剧般的海女巫Ursula；《狮子王》中戏剧性的邪恶Scar--每一个都是如此有魅力，他们往往会掩盖电影中的主角。(快问：《睡美人》中公主的名字是什么？）

但是，尽管他们在经典电影中很突出，在过去的十年中，动画反派已经慢慢从屏幕上消失了。最近的电影，如《变红》和《安康》，当然也有戏剧性，不过现在的主角不再是打败一个咯咯笑的恶人，而是将内部斗争变成外部斗争。这两部电影中的冲突涉及到与所爱之人的关系破裂，通过魔法隐喻的方式使其成为电影史诗。像之前的《小美人鱼》一样，《变红》在到达高潮时，对手被炸成了凯诸的规模。但是，1989年的迪斯尼电影以巨兽厄休拉在船上被串起来而结束，而2022年的皮克斯电影则在母女理解的安静时刻找到了其戏剧性的高峰。


动画片并不是一下子就取消了反派角色。这一趋势的早期迭代，如《冰雪奇缘》，有经典的善恶设置，但随着电影的发展，颠覆了它们。而随着《莫阿娜》和后来的电影，儿童动画摆脱了英雄/反派情节的可预测的套路，同时也以那些在迪士尼金库深处没有多少代表性的文化为中心。

变红》是最新的，当然也是最有文化特色的动画作品之一。虽然像《拉雅》和《最后的龙》这样的电影创造了幻想的文化背景，但《变红》讲述的是2002年生活在多伦多的一个真实的13岁加拿大华人女孩--她有时恰好变成一只大红熊猫。

Spencer Kornhaber、Shirley Li和Lenika Cruz在《大西洋》的文化播客《评论》节目中讨论了《变红》和动画小人的现状。在这里听他们的对话。

订阅《评论》。苹果播客 - Spotify - Stitcher - Pocket Casts
下面的文字记录已经过编辑，以保证长度和清晰度。它包含了《变红》的剧透。

Spencer Kornhaber。本周，我们将讨论《变红》，这是迪士尼/皮克斯的最新作品。它已经发行了一段时间，大约一个月前在Disney+上首次亮相，但我们想谈谈它，因为，嗯，围绕这部电影有一些讨论。它有一种奇怪的持久力。它在流媒体数字上表现良好。而且，我认为我们都喜欢它，想为它献殷勤。这确实是一部非常特别的动画片。它讲述了2002年生活在多伦多的一个13岁的加拿大华人女孩。

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李美琳只想和她的朋友们一起玩，去听男孩乐队的音乐会，最重要的是，让她有点过度保护的母亲感到骄傲。然后有一天她醒来，她发现每当她失去对自己情绪的控制时，她就会变成一只巨大的可爱的红熊猫。正如导演Domee Shi所说的那样 "熊猫是对神奇的青春期的一种隐喻"。雪莉，你觉得《变红》怎么样？

李雪莲：我喜欢这部电影。这绝对是一部关于神奇的青春期的电影，但它也是关于许多其他事情的。我第一次看的时候，我对它把所有这些不同的元素拉得如此美妙感到惊讶。一个是青春期到来的元素。另一个是一个13岁的加拿大华人的特殊性，以及她的生活是什么样子。还有就是与父母打交道的元素。

这部电影给我留下了深刻印象，因为它很好地处理了所有这些问题。我对多米-史密斯感到非常兴奋。这部电影是她的处女作，它使她成为第一位执导皮克斯电影的女性。她也是第一位执导皮克斯短片的女性：她的奥斯卡获奖影片《Bao》，在《超人总动员2》之前就在影院播放。

科恩哈伯。这是关于一个可以吃的饺子的孩子，对吗？

李：它是关于一个馒头变成了一个拟人化的孩子给这个患有空巢综合症的妈妈。作为一个导演，史玉柱有非常古怪的想法，并从很多不同的动画风格中汲取灵感。我真的很想看看她的第一部电影会是什么样子，当我看到主角的动画时，我真的很担心，因为她看起来和我一模一样。(笑)。

莱尼卡-克鲁兹：（笑）。

李：她痴迷于流行文化，或其中的一个元素。我真的觉得，也许在这些年要求在屏幕上出现的过程中，也许事情走得太远。这就是我这个人的尴尬的演绎。(笑)。

克鲁兹。对你来说真的很尴尬。(笑)。

请看。关于《变红》的争议所遗漏的内容

李：无论如何，这就是我对这部电影的看法。我可以一整天都在夸赞多米-史。我认为她是个天才。她无所畏惧地创造了一个无所畏惧的角色，在这个十几岁的女孩身上有着不加掩饰的原始能量，并从所有这些不同的视觉风格中提取。这推动了皮克斯电影的发展。

克鲁兹。我也喜欢这部电影。它超级有趣。它很温馨。它反映了作为一个13岁女孩的情感现实。当我听说这部电影的背景是2002年时，我想，哦，不，这将是我生命中的一个时期，我只是如此认真和尴尬。但与此同时，我觉得随着我年龄的增长，我对自己在那个年龄段的尴尬也变得少了。这部电影让我想到了《PEN15》，我知道我们中的一些人是它的忠实粉丝，不仅仅是因为它有令人讨厌的、令人尴尬的元素，而且还因为，虽然它很有趣，但它并没有取笑那个年龄段的人是什么样的，是如此充满兴奋、不确定和热情的。

它抓住了这个年龄段的孩子的心理深度。所以我喜欢这部电影，它完全没有取笑少女或她们喜欢的东西。而且，雪莉，实际上我在第一次播放时还没有看过《宝》，但我在第一次和第二次观看《变红》之间看了它。尽管我知道我知道会发生什么，但到最后我还是流泪了。你确实注意到与这部电影类似的主题，你有一个母亲角色，她显然真的爱她的孩子，想花所有的时间与他们在一起，但一旦孩子开始脱离自己的生活，保护的本能就会变成危险。这部电影有一个优势，即母亲想做任何事情来保持她的孩子，即使这意味着可能伤害他们。

阅读。皮克斯的《变红》对青春期有最巧妙的诠释

科恩哈伯。这是一部如此，如此有趣，如此迷人的电影，因为它是关于额外的。它是关于以所有这些不同的方式进入红色的。从第一段旁白开始，我就非常喜欢这部电影，扮演梅林的配音演员蒋雯丽基本上是在喊她的台词。(笑)。

她的独白是这样的："我是一个13岁的孩子，但我基本上是一个成年人，这是我喜欢的东西，这是我不喜欢的东西。" 而我的反应是。我了解这个女孩。我认识到，她不是一个成年人。她是一个孩子，因为她能够表达自己，并且以这种夸张的方式完全真实。因为除了变得越来越好玩和富有想象力的不断升级的经历之外，什么才是童年呢......然后遇到青春期这堵墙，其他人开始注意到你是世界上一个自主的生物，并开始让你对自己的身份感到尴尬？

而且，在这部电影中，还有父母带来的另一层意思，他们有自己的生活经历，导致他们传达了这样的想法：你需要注意自己，安静下来，并注意你如何向世界展示。但不幸的是，有一个家族诅咒，如果你不能够控制自己的情绪，就会变成一只巨大的红色熊猫。还有一个神奇的仪式，把你变成不那么真实的人。

我喜欢这部电影的另一点是，它对我来说是完全不可预测的。我并不觉得自己对每一个故事节拍都有准备，就像我习惯于在电影中打败一个反派那样。而且它确实感觉到我们正处于这样一个时刻，至少儿童动画离我们长大的电影真的很远。

李：是的，Disney+发布了一部名为《拥抱熊猫》的纪录片，讲述了《变红》的制作过程。在这里面，Domee Shi谈到她不一定一开始就想拍一部关于一个13岁的加拿大华人的电影，或者拍一部关于处理一个过度保护的母亲的电影，或者类似的东西。她一开始只是觉得小熊猫很可爱，想为它们作插图。

随着她对小熊猫的了解，她知道它们很有个性，它们吃竹子，尽管竹子并不能为它们提供营养。所以她把它们想象成一个懒惰的青少年，整天吃薯片和睡觉。于是她把故事运用到其中，发现小熊猫是一个很好的隐喻，她想探索更多的东西。也许这就是为什么这部电影有它自己的发现感。她并没有带着一个故事接近它。她没有从一个女主角和一个反派开始。她只是从小熊猫真的很可爱这一事实开始，她想画它们！"。但这部电影确实符合皮克斯最近的一系列电影，其中并没有一个真正的反派。恩坎托》、《拉雅和最后的龙》、《冰雪奇缘II》。

阅读。拉雅和最后的龙》的有缺陷的幻想世界

克鲁兹。是的，即使像《莫阿娜》这样的电影，其情节也更难预测，因为没有一个明显的对立面。莫阿娜想拯救她的岛屿。在《恩坎托》中，他们想拯救房子。然后在《变红》中，她想去听音乐会，但作为这个听话的女儿，仍然让她妈妈高兴。

而且我想我们应该设定熊猫是如何第一次被触发的，因为妈妈没有想到，也没有给她准备。梅琳基本上有一天看到了一个可爱的男孩，在向自己否认她认为他很可爱之后，她发现自己在办公桌前心不在焉地涂抹着他的照片。她给了他二头肌和一个可爱的微笑，突然她发现自己在为她的暗恋对象画这些性感的画。然后她的妈妈发现了这些画，却没有想到她的女儿可能真的在享受这些画。她认为她的女儿在某种程度上受到了伤害，于是就去找那个男孩对质，让她难堪。这是最令人尴尬的一幕。

科恩哈伯。即使听到你的描述也会感到痛苦。

李：我在流汗，只是听到这个。(笑)。

克鲁兹。我知道! 她把他画成了人鱼。这就像每个人最糟糕的噩梦，不管你多大年纪。但是，那天晚上，她回到家，告诉自己要把这一切都压下去，不要再让她母亲失望。她开始对着镜子训斥自己。这是她意识到这些欲望被污名化的最初时刻之一，是她需要控制、遏制和埋葬的东西。第二天早上她醒来，噗，她是一只最可爱、最大、最蓬松的红熊猫。这就是麻烦的开始。

但我感到惊讶的是。在很多变身故事中，变身的事实本身是一个问题，持续了影片的大部分时间，而我感到震惊的是，它从一个秘密很快就变成了她只是一种随心所欲的东西。她在学校与人合影赚钱。它从令人尴尬到被赞美如此之快。我真的很喜欢这一点。如果变成一只红熊猫是对青春期和成长的隐喻，电影并没有把它当作整个世界看成是坏事。这主要是她母亲对她应该如何的想法。

科恩哈伯。我很讨厌这样的叙事，在整个过程中，作为观众的你都在为主人公的秘密曝光而感到紧张。有很多这样的电影，我担心这部电影会走这条路--但当她的朋友们加入她的秘密时，我感到很欣慰，这成为一部完全不同的电影，你可以用你的超能力来获得乐趣。

克鲁兹。是的，如果你的一个朋友变成了一只大熊猫，你也会这么做，这感觉更真实了。(笑)。

科恩哈伯。这是一部有冲突的电影，但它并不令人心痛。真正的冲突只是。我如何做我自己，同时也让我的父母高兴？她是个全优学生。她总是听命行事。莱尼卡，你提到的那个令人难以置信的紧张时刻，妈妈走进便利店，面对梅林暗恋的17岁男孩--哪个青少年会不为之疯狂？但这是这部电影的特殊性的一部分。在这个家庭中，她真的不会对她的妈妈说一句负面的话。这是它讲述一个故事的另一种方式，它不像你所期望的那样生搬硬套，但我也想象，它真实地反映了很多人的生活方式。对她妈妈来说，这当然是真实的情况。

李：是的，这部电影的特别之处在于，所有这些超自然的元素都是有效的，因为它的其他部分是如此具体和扎根于现实。它可以借用动漫的视觉效果，让她看到暗恋对象时眼睛闪闪发光，但同时，这是一个不是发生在幻想世界的故事。它发生在2002年的多伦多。她有一个核心的朋友群体，我想很多观众都能看到自己成为其中的一员。而真正的冲突，尽管有超自然的元素，是无法与父母沟通。

很多人都从这部影片中得到了一些启示，也是这部影片的特殊之处，那就是移民的经历确实伴随着这种需要不辜负家人期望的感觉。他们牺牲了这么多才到了这里。你最好做好你的工作，做一个完美的孩子，否则你不仅会让你的父母失望，还会让你的整个家族失望。但这部电影也确实只是关于无法与妈妈沟通。

科恩哈伯。是的，它确实感觉像是《安康多》的配套作品，后者是迪士尼今年另一部巨大的流媒体作品，它的背景是哥伦比亚，但也是关于一个拥有超自然力量的家庭，正在经历一场危机，最终通过沟通、理解和妥协解决。这确实是一茬了不起的电影。他们不是在屠龙。它正在做一些更微妙和真实的事情。你认为迪斯尼现在为什么要尝试制作这样的电影？或者说，为什么文化界想要这些电影？因为他们是热门。

请看。我们不谈布鲁诺》成为热门的最大原因

李：我认为有几个不同的因素在起作用。首先，《冰雪奇缘》对迪斯尼来说是一个出乎意料的成功--它的成功实际上重新调整了我们正在谈论的反派故事线。艾尔莎本应是一个可怕的、邪恶的女王，将她的冰雪城堡从阿伦黛尔赶走，但故事被重新调整为关于姐妹情谊，艾尔莎不是这个大坏蛋，而只是一个无法掌握自己力量的人。当然，这也是我们在后来的迪士尼动画电影中看到的故事节奏。

冰雪奇缘》是一个出乎意料的大热门，但其核心是关于家庭。它自始至终没有一个明确的反派，我认为迪士尼开始很好地挖掘这一点，因为他们看到了它的受欢迎程度。与此同时，我认为近年来一直在推动更多的文化特定故事。人们认识到特定文化的故事具有普遍性和共鸣性，而不是要回避的东西，而是有观众的东西。

随着迪斯尼和皮克斯的动画师开始认识到这一点，他们转向编写这些故事并为这些故事开绿灯。而且，在幕后，有更多的女性领导。正因为如此，我认为女性讲故事的人意识到有更多的故事没有被讲述。你想想看，在儿童故事中，甚至在成人故事中，少女时代并不经常被描述。

科恩哈伯。你怎么看这部电影对一个移民子女的描写？因为我刚刚看了《万物互联》，这是一部令人难以置信的科幻电影，是一部让人哭笑不得的电影，目前正在影响着人们的谈话，它也是关于一个中国移民家庭。

阅读：好莱坞最古怪的电影制作人如何制作一部关于一切的电影

李：我刚刚和一个朋友进行了这样的对话，我们当时想，"是不是太多了？有所有这些关于移民儿童的千禧年故事，这很奇怪吗？" 我的这位朋友就说："这是我们现在可以说的最有亚洲移民特色的事情，问是不是太多了，我们是不是应该停止。" (笑)。

话虽如此，我确实认为亚洲演员和亚洲讲故事的人最近一直在寻找他们的时机。我并不介意有这样的浪潮。

克鲁兹。我很高兴我们已经走到了这一步，代表权可以成为更大的对话中的一小部分。有一段时间，感觉每当有一部以有色人种为主角的电影出现时，人们的反应就像。"哦，代表性！"。这将解决好莱坞的多样性问题吗？"

感觉对话的主旨已经发生了很大的变化。尽管有人抱怨说这些电影只会引起某些人的共鸣，但这些电影还是非常受欢迎。在《变红》的案例中，有一个病毒式的评论说这部电影只是为导演和她的直系亲属制作的。但这么多人在看，证明情况恰恰相反。

科恩哈伯。像这样的电影是否意味着我们已经不再能够谈论我们文化中真正的恶棍？那里有真正的斯卡尔和贾法尔。(笑)是不是随着这些故事进入这些更真实的世界，迪斯尼试图确定谁是真实世界场景中的反派，在政治上会很棘手？或者至少会有点黑暗和不安？

克鲁兹。这让我想到了围绕《动物世界》的讨论，以及人们如何试图得出这些明确的政治相似点，但这并不容易。我觉得这也许是我们最接近于人们对这些电影的解读。我认为迪斯尼和皮克斯也许不想让反面人物与现实生活过于接近。特别是在这些更有文化特色的故事中。

李：是的。我也不希望所有未来的动画电影都摒弃反派角色。我认为有一个地方可以容纳一个全面的恶棍，特别是如果它带来了那些优秀的反派歌曲。

科恩哈伯。是的，反派是过去几年儿童娱乐中最好的一些东西。

李：我确实认为使某些反派人物复杂化的想法是个好主意。与其让母亲变得全面可怕，不如鼓励孩子们思考他们的父母是如何看待他们的，以及他们的父母在小时候是什么样的，这似乎是积极的。但也有其他不需要培养同情心的故事。我想到了真人版的克鲁拉，我们绝对不需要。

科恩哈伯。是的，我们喜欢很多迪斯尼的老反派，但该公司有一个著名的倾向，那就是创造同性恋编码的反派。无论是乌苏拉、贾法尔还是刀疤，这些坏蛋通常都是那种很粗俗的人，具有边缘化的身份。如果这些电影是现在制作的，几乎不可能想象他们不多介绍一下这个角色的一面，展示导致他们如此邪恶的任何创伤。说实话，我理解他们不愿意打开这扇门的冲动。它更多地是关于征服你内心的东西，并与你周围的人一起解决事情。