15+ Nostalgic References from “Red: Growing Up Is a Beast” That Touch Our Inner Child

Red: Growing Up is a Beast is the Disney and Pixar animation that tells the story of Mei, a 13-year-old teenager of Chinese descent who lives in Canada. Mei discovers that she is able to transform into a giant red panda when she feels strong emotions.

The film makes a beautiful metaphor for the changes in teenagers’ bodies during puberty, but not only that. Red is a nostalgic anthem for those who grew up in the 2000s and late 90s. From the virtual pets to the Backstreet Boys, many references were placed to set the story.

and how do we awesome.club we love a nostalgic movie, we made this list with references to the 90s and 2000s in the movie Red: Growing Up is a Beast that put a smile on our faces.

In the very first scene we are introduced to Meilin Lee, Meimei. Or rather, she introduces herself. In her flute bag we can already get a glimpse of her personality from the stickers: she loves math, ecology, reading and the Y2K aesthetic. But what is this? Y2K stands for “the 2000s”, which can either be a reference to the fashion of the time or the relief of the people of the time that they “survived” the millennium bug – since the “AOK” on the sticker means “everything is fine”.

If you too grew up in the 90s and 2000s, you probably had (or were dying to have) a virtual pet, or tamagotchi. The Japanese toy appeared in 1996 and soon conquered children and young people at the time. It was a small device with an animal that demanded his care in order not to die. You had to feed him, play with him and put him to sleep. Oh, and it was the terror of the teachers, who forbade its use in the classroom. The movie Red shows that Meimei was very responsible with hers.

Another Japanese gadget that made the head (or wrist) of girls in the 90/2000s was the Casio Baby G watches. the boys. In the movie, Abby, one of Mei’s friends, sports a watch very similar to this model. Oh, and both Baby G and virtual pets can still be purchased today, even in more modern versions, to feed our nostalgia.

With a little attention to Red’s scenarios, it is possible to remember how media was consumed in the 2000s. At Meimei’s house we can see a cassette player in her room and the discman, the successor to the Walkman that was the object of desire of the young people of the era. In the family room it was also common to find a piece of furniture with a collection of CDs. At Tyler’s party, we can see that her family was able to invest in a more modern CD player.

The discman saw its last days of success in 2002, the year in which Meilin’s story takes place, as MP3 players would soon arrive to replace it. Gone with the MP3 is the custom of recording selections of songs for yourself or for gifts — first on cassettes, then on CDs. Like Miriam did for Meimei, with songs from 4*Town’s Australian tour that she burned onto a blank CD and customized with permanent pens and stickers. Who never?

All of us who lived in the 90s/2000s jumped in the armchair when Meimei’s little friend took out her cell phone to send an SMS(!) to her other friends. Her Jokia is pretty much the same as the Nokias many of us have owned in the past. And if you didn’t have one of these, you probably found a version of yours in the next scene, in which several other students receive and relay the text. It’s the pure juice of nostalgia!

If you are like us at the newsroom of awesome.club, you must pause the scenes in the young people’s rooms in the movies to absorb all the details of the decor. In the case of Meimei’s room, the first thing that catches the eye is the lava lamp, a decorative item that many wanted. In addition to her, we can still see that Meimei collects plushies, including a group that looks like the Teletubbies and other toys that resemble Hello Kitty and Pablo, the penguin from the Backyardigans.

The girls and boys of the 2000s must also have been smirking when they noticed what Red’s characters wore in their hair. Meimei secured them with bobby pins and a clip that many know as a “tic-tac”. The other girl, the same one with the Jokia cell phone, was totally in fashion with her butterfly clips, which gave her hair a unique look – and which have already been revived by celebrities such as Chiara Ferragni and Dua Lipa.

Still in the field of fashion accessories, we see several girls wearing chokers in Red. Miriam, who has a more casual style, wears this one with a green pebble, which seems to be her favorite color. Meimei, on the other hand, when she is away from her controlling mother, takes a risk with a stylish black chocker. Chockers were a hit in the 90s and are also making a comeback. Perhaps this trend is worth reviving to reminisce about the old days!

And the friendship bracelets, do you remember? They could be made at home, with beads or by braiding thread and string, or purchased from metal, rubber, or plastic. Most importantly, best friends had to wear matching bracelets and never take them off their arms: it should fall off by itself, over time. Mei’s friends used and still had this special greeting, with four little fingers swinging. Ah, some people in North America know it as a Brazilian bracelet, you know?

The fashion that dressed most teenagers in the 90s was based on streetwear; a trend that emerged in major US cities, mixing New York hip hop with California surfers.

In Miriam’s case, the hat, flannel shirt, baggy pants and plaid sneakers deliver the skater look, reminiscent of Avril Lavigne, one of the 90’s pop icons. shell necklace, represented surfers. Was any of these his style?

In Brazil, the emo wave only started to catch on after 2003, but in North America the movement was already strong since the 90s. Of course, Red would not fail to represent these young people with their very characteristic styles: dark clothes with a predominance of in black and purple, striped or plaid prints, pencils and eye shadows, and colored and “licked” hair. They steal the show every time they appear.

At the very beginning of the film, when Meimei arrives at school and introduces her friends, we can already see Priya holding a book titled Nightfall, or “Evening”, by Roberta Moyer. It’s a pretty obvious reference to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga books. The first book was released in 2005, after the year in which Red takes place, but it marked the decade, so it deserves the tribute.

In the same scene, when Mei goes to greet Priya, they do this stylish greeting. Is it all in our heads or is it the same one Will Smith wore in the series A Nutshell? It is likely that it is a reference, since the series was from the 90s and was very successful. The greeting was created by Will and his real-life hip hop partner Jazz and was eventually carried into the series.

Teenagers of the 90s and 2000s also loved these magazines, filled with pictures of their crushes (at the time, what did they say, flirt?), posters and styling tips, makeup, and more. In this article, we have already shown some of these magazines that were successful in Brazil. In Red, the magazine’s name, Tween Beat, references a real magazine, Tiger Beat, which was launched in 1965 and still exists today! On the cover of Tween Beat is the group 4*Town, which we’ll talk about next.

And we come to 4*Town, the musical group idolized by Mei and her friends, and probably most of the teenagers in the movie. The group is a reference to several real boy bands. The white clothes are reminiscent of the Backstreet Boys. The little star in the name resembles that of *Nsync. Even the name is reminiscent of another group, O Town.

Boy bands were very popular in the 90s and 2000s, not least because many of them were carefully thought out and managed to be successful. From the image of the members, the chorus of the songs that stuck in the mind, to the stereotypes lived by each member to seek identification with the fans. All of this was brilliantly portrayed by the creators of Red and their fictional boy band, 4*Town (which had five members, despite the name, no one knows why).

Finally, despite not being done in the Far Eastern style of animation, several parts of Red make reference to anime. The clearest references are in the aesthetics of some parts, with colors, hatches and emotional and bright eyes. Elsewhere, like in the pose of the friends and the scene where they look at the Toronto tower, the references are specific to the Sailor Moon anime, a hit from the 90s.

The creator and director Domee Shi herself, who has Chinese ancestry like Mei, revealed that she looked for inspiration in Sailor Moon and other anime: “Sailor Moon was definitely a big inspiration for us, not only for the colors, but also for being a young girl in school age, with friends, etc. in animes that talk about magical transformations, like Ranma ½ and Fruits Basket”.

Our bonus for this article is not a reference, but a curiosity that was a gift from Red’s production to younger fans, who didn’t live in the 90s/2000s. Pixar and Disney invited Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell to compose the songs for the boy band 4*Town. In addition to Billie being better known to young people today, they will also recognize current groups represented in 4*Town, such as One Direction and BTS.

Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell composed the three songs sung by 4*Town in the film: Nobody like u, 1 true love and U know what’s up. Billie is a fan of Justin Bieber, and Finneas is of *Nsync, so they had fun writing the songs. To record them, the studios had to bring together five real actors and singers: Jordan Fisher, Josh Levi, Grayson Villanueva, Topher Ngo and Finneas himself.

After that dive into the 90s and 2000s that Red: Growing Up is a Beast gave us, we want to know: what do you miss most about your teenage years?