I just finished watching Disney's Turning Red, an animated comedy I vaguely registered to be on the "woke" spectrum. Wikipedia calls it "the first Pixar film solely directed by a woman" and a negative review was cancelled as racist and sexist. I, for one, liked the movie for normalising periods and female teenage sexuality - we need more movies like that. But there is one more thing the movie normalises: false accusations.

Summary:

  1. Thirteen your old girl has a crash on an older boy with whom she never interacted IRL.
  2. She draws sexualised pictures of him (which is an absolutely normal thing, unless it was done by a boy).
  3. Her abusive mother sees those drawings and drags the daughter to confront the boy in a public setting.
  4. Mother physically attacks the boy, he is showed to a chair.
  5. Mother accuses the boy: "What have you done to my Mei-Mei?".
  6. Daughter is unable to contradict her angered mother, she is complicit with the false accusation.
  7. Mother threatens the boy with calling a police.
  8. Mother: "How old are you? Thirty?" Boy: "I’m seventeen."
  9. Mother ramps up accusations: "Oh, see, see? This is what happens when you don’t wear sunblock and do drugs all day! She’s just a sweet, innocent child. How dare you take advantage of her!"
  10. Mother calls the boy a degenerate.
  11. Mother questions the daughter, she does not refute the false accusation. Mother: "Now, is there anything else I should know about, Mei-Mei?" Daughter: "Nope. All good."

You can watch the scene on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTaPUgG8MLs

The daughter was this close from giving in to the abusive adult's pressure and accusing the boy of serious crimes just to save her own neck. We have seen this many times in the real life. Yet the whole scene is done for a comedic effect. It is not further mentioned throughout the story and neither the mother, nor the daughter admits a mistake or set things straight. Apparently attacking, threatening, degrading and falsely accusing a 17 year old boy of a life-ruining (for him) crime is funny and fit for a woke, PG 10-12s cartoon. Mind you, we are living in a society where even a copious amount of exonerating evidence does not protect a men from consequences of false accusation.

Gotta condition those kids early, right?