How Encanto and Moana explain America
January 23, 2022 6:30 PM   Subscribe

SL Atlantic: "The casita is threatened. The heart must be restored. But all is not lost, the future is not set. That’s the message. America has bounced back from worse, much worse—but it’s not just Miranda who is worried. More and more of the world sees the flame of America’s miracle flickering too."
posted by contrapositive (38 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
I enjoyed Encanto, but I was certain the story’s resolution was going to involve the house’s magic being redistributed equally among all the residents of the town—the lesson being that no one family should be in charge of all of that power. Was somewhat let down by the actual ending.
posted by Atom Eyes at 6:58 PM on January 23, 2022 [23 favorites]


I haven't seen either film, but I enjoyed the article.

These movies take AGES to make, several years each. So they were started well before the release dates the author puts such importance on. But I can't argue that films tend to reflect the times they are made in, and further reflect the times they are viewed in.
posted by hippybear at 7:02 PM on January 23, 2022 [4 favorites]


My daughter watched it at school on Friday. I have been informed many times over the weekend with great seriousness that there is a sister who is going to die, which is sad, and there is a candle.

This is all I have to contribute to this discussion.
posted by clawsoon at 7:21 PM on January 23, 2022 [4 favorites]


I thoroughly enjoyed Moana - it was big and ridiculous and funny with a touching, positive message and well-written and enjoyable songs. Hearing The Rock sing pretty darn well was just a bonus.

Encanto … not so much. The recipe was followed but the taste was off. It lacked a certain comic ridiculousness and the music was over-complicated and uninteresting.

The easy cultural comparison is Coco, which blew the doors off in every possible way. I was crying by the end of Coco (happy catharsis) and have rewatched it a couple of times. In fact, I’m going to do so again.

As for comparisons to America? Eh, feels like a stretch. I mean, if I squint, I can sorta see the author’s point, but … (hand-wavey motion).
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 8:29 PM on January 23, 2022 [10 favorites]


It was interesting to read this from a UK writer, talking about division in the US and Europe and juuuust not saying anything about the state of the UK right now.

Anyway, I can tell you a lot of Twitter people of Mexican/central American) similar heritage are relating hard to the family drama of expectations and suppressed trauma. It resonates.

Also, We Don't Talk About Bruno is a serious hit, and it sticks in your head forever.
posted by emjaybee at 9:50 PM on January 23, 2022 [9 favorites]


♬We don't talk about Bruno, no, no, no...♬ is both fun and completely an earworm, but, to my taste, Surface Pressure is better still.
posted by bcd at 10:26 PM on January 23, 2022 [16 favorites]


I though this article from a Colombian writer was much more impressive in peeling back Disney’s approach to setting a story in Columbia:
In Encanto, unlike all other American depictions of Colombia, there’s no room for The Violence or its perpetrators. The focus is on the survivors. It’s about the miracle of thriving when you seem almost cosmically predisposed to suffer ad infinitum. Because that’s what Colombia is: a country of people trying their best to thrive in spite of themselves.
As an English person I have a very limited set of intellectual responses to the cultures used as background in Encanto, Moana, and Coco, but I would certainly not watch Mary Poppins Returns and say it was a socio-political reflection of the pressures of Brexit upon the creative classes.
posted by The River Ivel at 12:22 AM on January 24, 2022 [10 favorites]


I loved Encanto but it's about the landed gentry of the region and how bad it would be if the Madrigals lost their money sorry I mean land sorry again I meant magic and what if they were poor dammit I did it again I meant non-magical like Mirabel and everyone else in the village.

It's a neofeudal movie about the renewed foundation of a great house.
posted by kandinski at 12:35 AM on January 24, 2022 [24 favorites]


♬We don't talk about Bruno, no, no, no...♬ is both fun and completely an earworm, but, to my taste, Surface Pressure is better still.

Surface Pressure not only slaps, but on my first watch of the movie, I had to stop it for a few minutes and sit quietly with some feelings I had not expected. It's the most perfect representation of an anxiety disorder that I've ever seen or heard in any sort of mass media. It is startlingly, shockingly, almost uncannily on-point. I could take or leave the rest of the movie, but the folks who wrote and performed that song have earned a lifetime pass from me.

Was it Lin-Manuel? I bet it was Lin-Manuel.
posted by Mayor West at 6:40 AM on January 24, 2022 [21 favorites]


I really enjoyed it and Surface Pressure is the best, but the whole thing is great.

I don't know that all movies have to be placed in their societal context (except the industrialist nightmare that is Thomas the Tank Engine, that MUST be deconstructed at all times), but I love doing it so here are my thoughts.

For me, the way the family has become archetypal really spoke to intergenerational trauma and different kind of responses - the strong one, the truth teller, the one who controls the weather by emotions, the perfect daughter. I thought those elements came through really well and hit the notes I think of as Tale or Mythological - the parts of stories that make them more universal.

I heard/read that the team consulted with and engaged Columbian creators and I think that shines through in a lot of the representational elements - the asthetic, the milieu, etc. - and I think that's really valuable. But I also read it was consultation and not direction. I have to leave that conversation to people with more knowledge. Here's one piece. Here's a list of 11 reviews from Latina critics.

But ultimately I think this does come from the North American children's entertainment machine and so if it reflects on American culture, which I think it must, it's going to be coming at it from that perspective. So yeah, there is a sense here of economic (magical) might. It may be very true to Columbia experience for sure, but it did stand out for me.

One of the things I have been struggling with as a returning-to-fiction writer is that as a colonizer, my perspective on things is always necessarily going to be starting from that place. I can use my imagination, my empathy, research, conversation, etc., to get around that as much as possible. But I also have to acknowledge that reality and let things happen from that place. So like, that's my perspective coming in. So I looked in this piece and I found the word "frontier" but never "colonial."

Not should we maintain our family's power/land base, but how. And I guess if that's true, it is kind of where things are at.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:25 AM on January 24, 2022 [6 favorites]


I personally thought "We Don't Talk About Bruno" in the scope of the movie Encanto was a straight-up bad song in a lousy movie. That it's become a hit is bewildering to me.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:29 AM on January 24, 2022


Moana on the other hand and Coco mentioned above are both way better.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:30 AM on January 24, 2022 [1 favorite]


kandinski: It's a neofeudal movie about the renewed foundation of a great house.

So, it's like Dune? Great!
posted by wenestvedt at 7:35 AM on January 24, 2022 [5 favorites]


I loved Encanto but it's about the landed gentry of the region and how bad it would be if the Madrigals lost their money sorry I mean land sorry again I meant magic and what if they were poor dammit I did it again I meant non-magical like Mirabel and everyone else in the village.

Thank you for this. I was bordering perilously close to enjoying this movie, but you've rescued me from that fate.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:46 AM on January 24, 2022 [5 favorites]


My takeaway from Encanto was that it was about intergenerational trauma. Every person I know who is from a family of immigrants took the same thing away. I don't know whether or not to be surprised that it's not the primary read from people whose families haven't survived some kind of traumatic event.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 8:12 AM on January 24, 2022 [19 favorites]


My daughter more or less forced me to sit down and watch the film carefully - she wanted me to tell her what Mirabel's gift was. I was faced with what I suddenly though of as the 'English teacher's dilemma' - how much to interpret for her? I told her to think about Mirabel's glasses and whether those 'gifts' were really good things. Besides, my interpretation will change and evolve.

I thought the movie was genius, honestly. I was in tears at the end. To me it's the story of a dysfunctional family romance. While the facade of their wonderfulness is cracking, and they are about to lose their privilege. It's so clever and beautiful and I love the use of Latin American magical realism.

(All this to say, I don't understand the article's take on this movie.)
posted by kitcat at 8:12 AM on January 24, 2022 [2 favorites]


I greatly enjoy Surface Pressure. But I can see the hype about "We Don't Talk About Bruno." It exposes that there is a thing that is not talked about. These days there are a lot of lies found in what is not said.
posted by bdc34 at 8:37 AM on January 24, 2022 [2 favorites]


Every person I know who is from a family of immigrants took the same thing away.

Same. I found Encanto far more deeply meaningful than I’ve ever found a Disney movie, but also it’s basically all of our stories. I think it’s also more helpful to see the Madrigal’s land/magic/house not as neofeudal wealth but as freedom from fear and fantasy fulfillment of actual cultural immigrant/Latin generosity. The Madrigal’s magic /is/ everyone’s magic, because they give of it whenever others need. Luisa is spending her time constantly rounding up other people’s donkeys. The mom is giving out her healing arepas in the market square so everyone can have some. That’s why the town rebuilds the house, because everyone gives from their ability to other’s needs. You also see it in the way that everything has to go perfectly at Isabella’s engagement dinner, because the balance of power is equal, and he might back out.
posted by corb at 9:25 AM on January 24, 2022 [17 favorites]


I loved Encanto but it's about the landed gentry of the region and how bad it would be if the Madrigals lost their money sorry I mean land sorry again I meant magic and what if they were poor dammit I did it again I meant non-magical like Mirabel and everyone else in the village.

So Mirabel's character arc differs in a lot of ways from the standard Disney princess arc in that it never involves romantic love or external enemies, but there's still the traditional arc that she goes from being the "ugly duckling" "odd one out" who by the end of the story is confirmed narratively as the most important one of all.

Without the magical realism influence, a satisfying ending would have been that the townspeople help the Madrigals rebuild their home, but it remains just a home, and they remain powerless but reunited. But since Mirabel is the mostest specialest, they get their magical gifts and their Casita back as well, and Mirabel is clearly the "Queen"-in-waiting who will reign over the family when Abuela passes, as she's clearly the one with the next closest bond with Casita.

tl;dr This is still a Disney story, and Mirabel is a Disney princess
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 9:31 AM on January 24, 2022 [4 favorites]


I prefer Fiddler on the Roof ...from my vantagepoint of white privilege mostly because <sarc>Teyve doffs his hat to the patriarchy.</sarc>

I noped the article fast, no mention of world-threatening themes in both Frozen films or (to a lesser extent because it's Pixar rather than Disney Animation Studios) the themes of 'what this family does and does not do' in Coco. It doesn't mention Lin-Manuel Miranda's In The Heights which is mashup of getting by and surviving your parents' ambition of living a better life. I'll go back and re-read. If we're going to talk musicals, Steven Spielberg's just got his take on West Side Story out, that's pretty but likely going to be only relevant for nostalgia.

I liked the handover of responsibility between the generations, that the Abuela's (protective but constraining) walls had to come down to build back better (too soon?). I've been thinking recently how those come after us have to face and solve problems in the world will use a different toolset and mindset to arrive at fixes I can't today imagine. I've said for about a decade that my lot 'are the grown-ups now', so Mirabel's siblings each having their own challenges while taking on responsibility felt about right.

[I've cut a few more paragraphs of yuck, hoping that this is a 'yum' thread that doesn't need my 'yuck' in it. I can bring them back later if the conversation heads in the direction where you want a white guy in the UK to patronise you on the subject of the world's problems. I'd like to talk about feeling so strongly about the world you break out in song, and when those feelings overwhelm you have to dance it out.]
posted by k3ninho at 10:43 AM on January 24, 2022 [2 favorites]


(Psst - I'm pretty sure it's Colombia/Colombian. Not Columbia/Columbian.)
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 10:52 AM on January 24, 2022 [3 favorites]


Thanks BlueBlueElectricBlue! I will work on my old fingers.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:55 AM on January 24, 2022 [1 favorite]


This is the closest Disney has come to dropping the princess arc. Those are just a form of coming of age story anyhow. The most recent Disney princess movies are about inheriting a kingdom/realm/island with a problem and solving that problem. Inheriting the future. Now we have a young woman 'inheriting' the matriarch role and the family home.
posted by kitcat at 11:15 AM on January 24, 2022 [4 favorites]


More and more of the world sees the flame of America’s miracle flickering too.

"America's miracle" is the kind of hyperbole that makes me roll my eyes. The USA got its start as a violent disagreement between a group of wealthy English landowners and the king, with no input from the slaves, indigenous people, and others who would be affected by the birth of a new nation. Like most human enterprises the US has accomplished some good things and some bad things. None of that is miraculous and to say it is follows in the footsteps of manifest destiny and American exceptionalism, neither of which led to our finest moments.
posted by TedW at 12:28 PM on January 24, 2022 [7 favorites]


I loved the songs of Encanto, but yeah the story was missing a little something. I liked the theme of intergenerational trauma and magical realism and how the person you thought was going to be the villain (Bruno) turns out to be a victim himself. But there was something missing in the way it all fit together. The end felt limp.

Moana was the opposite for me, great story and meh songs (except for Maui's "you're welcome" which was in the vein of all the Broadway style Disney Renaissance numbers of my youth).

I wouldn't read either of them as about America, because they are so specifically Colombian and Polynesian, to the point of getting a culturally appropriate voice cast. For that alone, they are SO much better than the brownface mishmash that was Aladdin.
posted by basalganglia at 10:11 PM on January 24, 2022 [1 favorite]


Huge thank yous to the commenters who said migration and inter-generational trauma provide a context to this film missed by TFA ... it's okay if this film isn't about [a white guy in the UK] and my experiences. (And may the road be easy for you working out what you have to do to survive and what you then have to do differently to thrive.)
posted by k3ninho at 12:04 AM on January 25, 2022 [3 favorites]


But I can see the hype about "We Don't Talk About Bruno." It exposes that there is a thing that is not talked about.

More specifically, Lin-Manuel Miranda said that the song is about the thing that is not talked about THAT EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT.

Moana was the opposite for me, great story and meh songs (except for Maui's "you're welcome" which was in the vein of all the Broadway style Disney Renaissance numbers of my youth).

Most of the songs in Moana didn't stick with me, but "How Far I'll Go" is a classic Disney "I Want" song that is only surpassed in that category by "Part of Your World."

For the record, I have loved every Disney movie that has come out since about Tangled. They just know what they're doing there.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:05 AM on January 25, 2022 [3 favorites]


This is a pretty sharp division in my household. My best friend/housemate and I resonate SO strongly with Mirabel's family. She's from a very traditional Mormon family and I'm from a sprawling Latin/Native family that until recently was headed by our 90-something year old Abuela. We just got that vibe, the strong undercurrent of familial love might be unconditional, but approval? Approval is SUPER conditional. Don't fit the mold? Can't live up to expectations? You just keep letting everyone down.

My husband is a white cis man only child with loving parents. My friend's husband is a white cis man who was the baby of his dysfunctional but loving family. They think the songs are slapping, but they just do NOT get it.

So I understand this movie isn't for everyone, critically, most Disney movies can't be for everyone. But damn, I looked at Mirabel, and I saw myself as a teenager. I saw the first Disney "princess" who truly looked like me. The first family that even looked close to my own experience. It's a powerful thing.

Also, I was happy with the ending. It's a Disney movie, we totally aren't going to get a Disney movie where the magic didn't come back at the end! I did feel a bit sorry for Mirabel. Now that she's pretty much confirmed as the next head-of-household, once Delores and the Hunk get hitched, and she turns 18, the pressure to find Mirabel a suitable husband is going to be ON.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 11:08 AM on January 25, 2022 [7 favorites]


ALSO! Did anyone else notice that both husband's either took their wives last name, or had little to no objection to their children taking the Madrigal last name? Not even hyphenated, which is often a thing. I know that was a social class divide thing, but I'm just happy anytime a woman gets to pass on her name like it's totally chill thing to happen.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 11:11 AM on January 25, 2022 [6 favorites]


Saying the movie is about landed gentry is pretty funny since they're chased by dudes on horseback who're killing them at the start of the movie with literally nothing but the clothes on their back and children. And then a magic candle appears.

I guess that is how every empire is born. Being rode down by horsemen and finding a magic candle.

Or it could be about refugees/immigrants/inter-generational trauma. I'm kind of exhausted how every single thread has to have at least one super cynical hot take.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:00 AM on January 27, 2022 [8 favorites]


I guess that is how every empire is born. Being rode down by horsemen and finding a magic candle.


Or because some watery tart threw a sword at you.
posted by TedW at 10:40 AM on January 28, 2022 [2 favorites]


Saying the movie is about landed gentry is pretty funny since they're chased by dudes on horseback who're killing them at the start of the movie with literally nothing but the clothes on their back and children. And then a magic candle appears.


Agreed. Sorry, it is a fundamental misreading.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 3:13 AM on January 29, 2022


I'm ... not sure I entirely agree? The Madrigals did not start that way, but within the confines of the encanto they have become the ruling class. They basically live in a castle on a hill above the other townsfolk! Abuela's actively working to strengthen and extend the dynasty with arranged marriages; there is a literal conversation about how politically expedient the Guzman marriage would be.

Also interesting, I think, that Abuela's first reaction to Mirabel's concern about the magic faltering is to reassure the townsfolk that "the magic is strong"; for her the magic is the source of their social position and without it they'd be ... just ordinary people?

(I love this movie -- although on first watch it was a slow burn that didn't really spark until Surface Pressure which is both a barnburner of a song and an "ooooooh I see what you're doing now" pivot.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 10:24 AM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


I suspect in some cases, whoever has the most powerful last name is who gets it. It'd be bragging rights to be a Madrigal over there.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:47 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Saying the movie is about landed gentry is pretty funny since they're chased by dudes on horseback who're killing them at the start of the movie with literally nothing but the clothes on their back and children. And then a magic candle appears.
(posted by OnTheLastCastle at 4:00 AM on January 28 )

I'm ... not sure I entirely agree? The Madrigals did not start that way, but within the confines of the encanto they have become the ruling class. They basically live in a castle on a hill above the other townsfolk! Abuela's actively working to strengthen and extend the dynasty with arranged marriages; there is a literal conversation about how politically expedient the Guzman marriage would be.
(posted by We had a deal, Kyle 2 days ago)
My comment seems to have touched a raw spot, but I stand by it. I love this movie, and I rank it second only to Coco among the latest Disney ones. I can also notice things.

Over the years, I've met a number exiled Cubans and Chileans. Some ran away after the fall of Batista, some came after the coup that ended Allende. People running away with the clothes on their back, both of them, but some of them had magic sorry I mean money and jewels sewed in their clothes. To prevent a misunderstanding, I'm not saying the Madrigals supported a criminal regime and that the horses-and-torches people were liberators. But having heard this story many times, I notice when someone has a lot of resources to fall on, and when someone doesn't.
So Mirabel's character arc differs in a lot of ways from the standard Disney princess arc in that it never involves romantic love or external enemies, but there's still the traditional arc that she goes from being the "ugly duckling" "odd one out" who by the end of the story is confirmed narratively as the most important one of all.

Without the magical realism influence, a satisfying ending would have been that the townspeople help the Madrigals rebuild their home, but it remains just a home, and they remain powerless but reunited. But since Mirabel is the mostest specialest, they get their magical gifts and their Casita back as well, and Mirabel is clearly the "Queen"-in-waiting who will reign over the family when Abuela passes, as she's clearly the one with the next closest bond with Casita.

tl;dr This is still a Disney story, and Mirabel is a Disney princess

(posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 2:31 AM on January 25)

Spot on. Mirabel is the dynastic heir of a great house. The role of traditional Disney Princesses is to get married, which symbolises dynastic continuation. Mirabel's role is to become the new matriarch and cornerstone of the Madrigal clan, a different kind of dynastic continuation.

I also wonder about the neighbours that the magical Madrigals live among. Did they also run away from the horses-and-torches people, but didn't find magic? Or did they always live in the valley, and then the Magical Madrigals showed up and moved in among them? Who knows, and in many ways, who cares. The movie certainly doesn't. But watching movies is also an active pursuit, and understanding a story involves putting the information on the screen into its wider context. For some of us, it just happens. I wasn't trying to make up a point for a term paper, or worked hard at crafting a hot take. I just noticed.

When I rewatch Coco, at no point do I think to myself "why is this family so special and better than their neighbours?". They're one more family in their village, and the fact that grandpa was a singer that didn't quite make it because is not pre-ordained. They're not "better people" than their neighbours. Kyle has documented the special standing of the Madrigals in their valley, which is what I saw too on my first, enthusiastic screening of Encanto. Which I love. Despite not being a Lin-Manuel Miranda fan in general. My kids and I have queued up In The Heights for our next Sunday movie watch, and I'm looking forward to it and hoping to enjoy it, a lot. Because one can have more than a single opinion about things.

Something I'm enjoying is following the buzz about Encanto on social media, and the different takes from different populations: Colombians saying how great it is to see US popular media representation that's not all about drug cartels, lit snobs complaining that "it's ok, but it's no García Márquez!", feminists reading it as a film about a woman overcoming her self-doubt, lovers of musicals and animation just raving about how well put together it is... and yes, immigrants seeing themselves in an immigrant story about the challenge of continuing family traditions past the first couple of generations.

One can see all these views and agree with them (except the Magical Realism snobbery, fuck gatekeeping), whether we see ourselves reflected or we recognise experiences in others. For what it's worth, I'm a Spanish speaking immigrant in Australia, and I live for movies that both my daughters and I can share and enjoy that pulls us closer to my --their-- family's other language. I loved the movie unreservedly. My comment was not angry, just observant.

posted by kandinski at 2:47 PM on January 31, 2022 [4 favorites]


I also wonder about the neighbours that the magical Madrigals live among. Did they also run away from the horses-and-torches people, but didn't find magic?

Having rewatched yesterday: yes. In the Dos Orugitas sequence there's a large group of people escaping with the Madrigals; they reach safety while Pedro turns to face the riders.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:41 AM on February 6, 2022 [2 favorites]


Abuela's first reaction to Mirabel's concern about the magic faltering is to reassure the townsfolk that "the magic is strong"; for her the magic is the source of their social position and without it they'd be ... just ordinary people?

Just rewatched it, and I think you're misreading that section - it's not that the magic is the source of their social position but it's the source of their safety and the safety of everyone in the village. The magic is what keeps them encircled by mountains that can't be penetrated - when the magic fails, the mountain cracks, leaving a path in. The focus on the magic is consistently on how the magic can aid and protect the community, not on how it makes them special and better than their neighbors.

Abuela's actively working to strengthen and extend the dynasty with arranged marriages; there is a literal conversation about how politically expedient the Guzman marriage would be

Similarly, I don't think it's actually clear that this is an arranged marriage and I think there's indications against that - it's just a family-enhanced marriage, where it's understood that the family can bring the weight of their social disapproval on the match. Yes, Isabela says she's not that into him and she's just doing it for the family, but there's no indication the rest of the family is even aware of that, they think she's thrilled. (See: the number of times people are telling Mirabel not to ruin things for her sister/assuming that Isabela is justified to be hurt).

Also similarly, I think there's some cultural pieces missing in that strengthening the family and having the family involved in a marriage isn't necessarily a thing that only the privileged or political do. Mariano's family would likely be coming to a dinner to meet the family of any girl he was planning to get engaged to, and there's no indication Abuela is interested in anything else but making sure that her grandchild marries someone known to be a good person who will become a good husband and father and stick around and contribute to the family.
posted by corb at 9:30 AM on February 6, 2022 [2 favorites]


I'm kind of exhausted how every single thread has to have at least one super cynical hot take.

I'm super-late to this thread but THANK YOU YES. I loved every minute of this movie and related *hard* to so many of the themes and stories. Intergenerational trauma resulting in obscenely high expectations for the win!

I also think every single song is a bona fide banger.

Any landed gentry I've ever consumed media about did not make it their daily duty - their "work and dedication" - to serve everyone who lived around them by physically helping them build their homes, tend their animals, watch over their infants to let a new mother rest, etc. No idea what landed gentry y'all are encountering in your media, but that's not what they do.
posted by tzikeh at 10:32 PM on February 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


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