New York pastor warns parents about ‘demonic’ content in Disney movie ‘Turning Red'
The senior pastor of New York City’s V1 Church, Mike Signorelli, has gone viral for warning parents of the “demonic” content in Disney Pixar’s “Turning Red” in a video that has since been removed from YouTube and Facebook.
“Turning Red” tells the story of a teen who transforms into a giant red panda based on her mood swings in the midst of puberty.
Signorelli’s “Christian review” of the animated film, now streaming on Disney Plus, was initially uploaded to his YouTube channel but has since been taken down. He believes his video was removed from social media because it featured scenes from the film.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
“The video has already been banned on YouTube in all countries, which was kind of to be expected,” he said. “I took a risk. I just felt like I had a responsibility to share a theological perspective on this.”
His review video was titled “Pastor Reacts To ‘Turning Red’ - Is It DEMONIC?” and garnered over 100,000 views. The caption read, “Christian Review: should your kids watch Pixar’s new movie Turning Red?” In the video, Signorelli, who holds an English degree and has taught journalism, uses clips from the Pixar film when describing the film as unbiblical.
“I believe that every parent — not just a pastor, but a parent — has a mandate to actually screen material because every single device you have in your home is a portal, either a window into the things of God or, unfortunately, things that I believe are demonic,” Signorelli said in an interview with CBN News.
The pastor’s video condemned the spiritual practices of ancestral worship and what he said looked like satanic rituals in “Turning Red.” Beyond the spiritual aspect of the animations, Signorelli pegged the themes in the film as “a secular humanistic worldview that says there is no wrong or right anymore.”
“We know in Hebrews 9:27, it’s appointed once to live and then to die, and we face judgment, and it’s strictly forbidden, in the Christian context, to communicate with the dead,” he continued. “And so, even within the first eight minutes, you have chanting, communication with ancestors, and immediately a red flag should start to go off. Do I want my kid to be exposed to this as a gateway and into maybe future adult interactions and beliefs with something that the Christian faith condemns?”
Signorelli insisted that he in no way wanted to become “a viral meme of the Christian who’s trying to cancel Disney.” The father of two noted that he recognized the amount of “hate” that would come his way in his video.
Signorelli slammed a line at the end of the film when the 13-year-old main character says, “My Panda, My Choice,” mimicking the pro-abortion mantra “my body, my choice.”
“There’s definitely a tipping point, and there’s a moment where you’re like, ‘They’ve gone too far,’” Signorelli stated. “Now, if you extract the spiritual aspect of this movie, just on the basis of the content being about menstruation and this coming of age, it’s not appropriate for children.”
“Turning Red” celebrates rebellion against parents, inappropriate dancing where the main character tells her mother she enjoys “gyrating,” and the film encourages children to embrace their “bad stuff” by “making room” and “living with it,” the pastor asserted.
“I think what happens is we’re so desensitized that, over time, things that used to be offensive to Christians, unfortunately, I think that we’ve become accepting of them,” Signorelli maintained. “And we ignore it, and that’s really why I felt a burden to put the word out about this movie.”
