The theme of menstruation, still relatively taboo, finally makes its sensational entry into the family universe of Disney. An unprecedented development, which could well allow generations of teenagers to better experience their first period.
They finally land on your screens after years in the shadows: boxes of tampons and pads now have their moment of glory in the colorful world of Disney and Pixar. We owe it to two excellent releases at the start of the year, directly posted on the Disney+ platform: the film Red alert and the animated series Baymaxtaken from the iconic character of New heroes.
A small red revolution that is making its way into one of the most family-run and sometimes puritanical businesses in today’s audiovisual industry. If Disney is still reluctant to offer a place worthy of the name to the LGBTQIA+ community in particular (despite notable efforts in Buzz Lightning), it may well be that the theme of rules, for its part, can finally be addressed as it should be.
MDisplaying period protection is historic
In Red alert, available on Disney+, it’s very simple, everything is already in the title. Mei Lee has everything of an ordinary young girl: she collects good grades at school, loves to draw and spends her time singing the latest hits from 4 Town, with her trio of friends. Only one, slight, very small detail, suddenly poses a problem for her: when she is overwhelmed by her emotions, she turns into a giant red panda, very soft.
With this story of hormonal upheavals, Pixar deals with adolescent questions that have until now been largely ignored. Even the excellent Vice versawho already addressed the question of the passage to adulthood of a little girl, had not dared to rub shoulders with it. Red alert finally changes the game and totally puts his feet in the dish. Pixar takes it easy and builds the entire film around Mei Lee’s first period. The red panda thus serves as a metaphor, not always very subtle, admittedly.
So it’s hard not to recognize himself in this scene where the teenager tries to hide his appearance as a red panda (hello, rules), while his mother gives him advice on how to manage Niagara Falls through the shower curtain. The simple fact of showing periodic protections on the screen is then historic. And we would have liked so much to have such a reassuring and adorable cartoon in our adolescence, to pass this course with greater serenity.
“Hello, I’m Baymax, your personalized medical assistant”
At the end of June, it was another small bomb that launched a red code on the SVOD platform: Baymax, a cute little animated series in six episodes. If you liked The New Heroesreleased in 2014 and also available on Disney+, then you should love these mini-missions from Baymax, the personalized medical assistant.
One ten-minute episode in particular agitated the entire fachosphere for a few days: the third of the season, centered on Sofia and the unexpected arrival of her first period in the college toilets. An ideal mission for the medical robot with legendary benevolence, which tries to reassure the teenager on the meaning of this hormonal change and the fact that she should not be ashamed of a simple biological element.
But a precise sequence, yet historic, made the haters of “wokism” react. While Baymax is hesitating about which sanitary protection to choose in a supermarket, to help the young girl, he asks other customers in the department for advice. Among them is a transgender man, who hands Baymax a box of towels with wings on the sides, “his favorite.” It was enough to agitate the American puritans, crying scandal and denouncing the supposedly harmful ideology of Disney, which would affect children.
Beyond the ugly transphobic debate, it seems the mere mention of the rules in an entire 10-minute episode bothered many viewers. Proof that the subject remains taboo, but essential to bring to the public square, so that the new generations of teenagers can finally experience their first period with more tranquility, and above all less shame.
