WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Turning Red, now streaming on Disney+.
2010’s Despicable Me gave pop culture one of its cutest characters in Agnes — a young girl Gru took in on his sinister quest to become a famous villain. And along with the other orphans, Margo and Edith, Gru planned to transform them from cookie sellers to pawns. The movie spawned two sequels in 2013 and 2017, with fans falling in love with the sentimental notes of family that helped Gru redeem himself, find love and become a hero. Well, Pixar’s newest film, Turning Red, dissected that theme of family and friends as well while also putting a dark twist on Agnes via its over-exuberant youngster, Abby.
Agnes was just five in the first Despicable Me and will always be remembered for her epic line when Gru took them to the state fair. She saw a stuffed unicorn and yelled out, “It’s so fluffy!” as she begged Gru to buy it for her. That wasn’t an option, though, so they ended up having to win it by playing Space Killer. However, when Gru realized the guy running the booth was ripping them off, he blew the stand-up, knocked the ship over and got the toy. Agnes once more yelled how fluffy it was, creating a lovely father-daughter moment as she ran off clutching it tightly.
Loving fluffy toys was her signature move in the franchise because they comforted her after her lonely upbringing. Even in the third film, when she stumbled into a tavern and the bartender regaled her about a unicorn myth, all she could ask was if it was fluffy, representing pure childhood innocence. Turning Red’s Abby, while also kind-hearted, was a more energized, rough-edged version of Agnes. At 13, she just couldn’t temper her love of fluffy things — revealed when she, Miriam and Priya caught Mei at home in her Red Panda form.
After the shock settled in Mei’s room, Abby yelled, “You’re so fluffy!” before grabbing, hugging and rubbing her face in Mei’s creature form. The crazed look in her eyes pretty much confirmed that she was an extreme version of Agnes while remixing the iconic line, only this time, it could have sold out Mei’s secret to her overbearing mom, Ming.
This would continue through the film, with a hyperactive Abby helping produce merchandise and get photo ops for Mei so they could make money to see 4*Town perform in Toronto. So, despite her obsession, Abby still did right by her sister and tried to do everything she could to make her happy, making her more similar to Agnes than she initially led on.
To see a darker version of Despicable Me’s Agnes, Turning Red is now streaming on Disney+.
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