The 60th film on Disney Animation, “Encanto”, generally displays a Colombian family bound by love, complication, and drama. But, they are not the ordinary family that you think. Each member possesses a magical power except for Mirabel. She is the small awkward protagonist who is extremely sweet and emphatic. Since Mirabel is surrounded by bloodlines who have extraordinary power, she struggles a lot in connecting with them.
Who can relate to the movie?
Disney’s Encanto is composed of painful dynamics of the Madrigals family to which young Millenial Latinx viewers can generally relate. This basically portrays a multigenerational household molded with the belief that they have to fit in a particular shape. The Madrigal family’s main struggles are living into expectations that are not their own or the continuation of repeating toxic family behaviors.
These struggles were cut when Mirabel breaks the generational trauma just like many Latinx millennials want to do. She stands up to the main cause of concern – the one person that causes all the hurt and pain.
The Lesson:
The movie is actually challenging us to acknowledge the efforts in mending the bonds as the time of healing ancestral trauma is still fleeting. Just like Mirabel, maybe you are what your family really needs, they just only need to see it.