Every Pixar Hero Ranked From Worst To Best
12. Mei Lee (Turning Red)
If it might take viewers a few minutes to get on the wavelength of Turning Red's hyperactive 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian protagonist Mei Lee (Rosalie Chiang), she's ultimately one of the more endearing Pixar leads of recent years.
While Mei's transformation into a giant red panda is a sledgehammer-subtle allegory for menstruation, her experiences throughout the film are more universal than they might at first seem.
The awkwardness of being a 13-year-old - uncomfortable in your skin, hormonal as hell, and thoroughly embarrassed by your parents - is something most everyone has experienced, and we all know how difficult it can be to keep a lid on one's wildly fluctuation emotions at that age.
On one hand Mei feels like a real step forward for representation in big-budget animation, yet much of Turning Red's joy comes through how relatively ordinary she is: a teenager wracked with the anxieties and desires that all of us have.
It just so happens that she also turns into a large animal whenever she feels intense emotion.