Political Pressure
Disney’s Encanto 2021 was a family movie worth watching, but even in the theater I had the feeling I often have with certain movies where I can’t tell what it is-but something is missing. The music was excellent, the family dynamic heartwarming, but elements in it felt only half done. So what is it Encanto did well, and where did it fall short?
I’ll start with the good in the movie, the things that made it worthwhile-but then delve into the subtext where the movie primarily faltered.
Encanto was about family: I’m a believer that most of the Disney greats have romance, but the ones without it primarily focus on an equally strong form of love: familial. Not everyone has found true love but most people know what it’s like to have a family of some kind. The dynamic between the siblings, and how they were all different, and each had perspective flaws but still loved each other was a good theme to send to audiences young and old:
The home being fractured and losing its power because of the fractured relationship between the Matriarch of the family and Mirabel was a wonderful allegory on how mending relationships in the home are what really matters.
The Madrigals are the most admired and respected powerful family in the land, but the home is losing its power because of the fractured relationships between loved ones. All of the feasting and celebration doesn't matter if a home doesn't have peace, love and respect. Ultimately that's what Encanto is about finding.
The Movie hit where it hurts: Every Disney film, and movie that makes an attempt to be serious in general, needs a left hook of reality in some way. To put it plainly, it needs tragedy.
Simba’s father is murdered by his own brother
Pinnochio is nearly hoisted away with a herd of enslaved little boys when he succumbs to his selfish desires and abandons morality for “Pleasure Island.”
Coco’s father was murdered by his best friend so he never got to see his little girl grow up.
All of these are Disney’s way of implementing painful truths into their stories. To omit tragedy, human error, and pain from a movie is to make it as false as the fantasy elements themselves. You can have people fly or use magic in a story, but if you want the audience to take the story itself seriously it needs to have elements of reality both painful and joyous. Abuela Madrigal’s backstory with her husband was romantic, touching, and heart wrenching. It gave character backstory, and a tragic explanation as to why Abuela is so cold and distant in her family's life today. She gets a redemption arc in realizing her mistakes and changes first by mending her relationship with Mirabel.
Finding Purpose: Mirabel’s journey to be someone worthwhile for her family is an admirable and relatable one. Mirabel isn't a Mary Soo who's overpowered, competent, and skilled at the beginning of the movie. Rather, she’s insecure, relatable, quirky, but brave, compassionate and has a deep desire to be helpful to her family like her siblings. Her gift isn't the same as all of theirs, but it is unique to her and the film teaches everyone has something to offer.
What it could have done better
Celebrating differences only extends to the females: I applaud the diversity among the sisters in the movie, there’s a strong muscular sister who shoulders all the family burdens and never lets anyone see how it weighs on her. There’s a sister who believes she always has to be perfect but it's secretly stressing her out, Mirabel is smart, funny and enigmatic, both the mother and the grandmother are different as characters. However, the males in the movie are not afforded the same courtesy by the writers. A large family is a great opportunity in writing to create all kinds of characters, but there was no male equal to any of the females in the movie.
Mirabel’s father was physically unimposing and generally ungifted, he was always getting hurt and having his wife heal him.
Bruno, while a likable character, was also physically weak, unimposing, and not respected or taken seriously by the rest of the household.
The man engaged to Isabella is a vain mock masculine joke who has to constantly be made fun of or injured.
There was a strong sister, a feminine sister, a quirky smart sister, for the men there are only variations of weak and unimpressive.
Why is it so important that men be relevant? You might not think the portrayal of men in a Disney movie matters that much, but truly it does. I was on the other side of the argument when films had women underrepresented, or only portrayed as weak, or eye candy, if females only purpose in a movie was relegated to one of those things then I had a problem with the movie. If all of the women are varieties of competent, talented, pretty, and the men are all weak and buffoonish then it creates an imbalance in which one gender is relegated to being disposable or at the very least irrelevant. That might sound harsh but it's the world the film creates:
The men in the movie don’t do anything for the town or the village like the women.
The men in the movie are constantly weak, injured, or embarrassed in some fashion.
None of the men in the movie are allowed to be strong or traditionally masculine.
What is the movie projecting by this? Young girls watching Encanto will see that girls can be anything, muscular, talented, pretty ect (which is a fine message). But men aren't very useful in general in the movie (which is damaging to boys and girls). If I were a boy and watched this movie there wouldn't be a single cool character to latch onto. The only man in the film who is masculine, brave and virtuous is Abuela’s dead husband. I was always offended when women had no relevant roles in films, and my indignation spreads to the inequality men are being given in recent Disney movies as well.
Overall good, but it could have been better: The movie was heartwarming, mostly engaging, and I loved some of the music, but it could only be so within the constraints of the Politically correct world Disney has become. Among those PC rules are: the villain cannot be evil, or there won’t be a villain at all, we cannot allow a traditionally masculine male hero or love interest, and females cannot be burdened with true romantic affection for a man. Occasionally some of these will creep in, but as a general rule of thumb most have gone out of style since Tangled in 2010.
-Jubilee