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#26: Ariel, Stef, and special guest and past host Josué welcome listeners to the family Madrigal! In this episode, they highlight the themes of visual symbolism and color schemes to generational trauma and family roles that can be found in Disney’s Encanto.
Read the blog post for this episode for additional references and resources.
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Transcription
Stefanie Bautista 0:11
Hello, everyone, welcome to the Happiest Pod on Earth. I’m Stef.
Ariel Landrum 0:15
And I’m Ariel.
Josué Cardona 0:16
And I’m Josué.
Ariel Landrum 0:17
And we’re all Disney fans! But really so much more.
Stefanie Bautista 0:20
Yes, I’m an educator who uses her passions and fandoms to help my students grow and learn about themselves and the world around them.
Ariel Landrum 0:26
And I’m a licensed therapist who uses clients passions and fandoms to help them grow and heal from trauma and mental and wellness.
Josué Cardona 0:32
And I used to host this podcast and now I’m back.
Ariel Landrum 0:36
And Happiest Pod is a place where we dissect Disney mediums with the critical lens.
Stefanie Bautista 0:39
Why do we do that? Because just like we are more than just fans, we expect more from the mediums we consume.
Ariel Landrum 0:45
So Josué. what are we talking about today?
Josué Cardona 0:48
So um, you know, last time I was here, we wrapped up by saying what we’re most looking forward to regarding Disney. And I said Encanto was the thing that I was most looking forward to.
Stefanie Bautista 0:59
Yes.
Josué Cardona 1:00
Yeah. And it delivered.
Stefanie Bautista 1:05
It sure did.
Ariel Landrum 1:06
So what specifically is in Encanto that word or term? How are we interpreting it? And then how are we interpreting it in the form of this movie?
Josué Cardona 1:14
Good question. I’m curious I’m curious what but both of you think. I have I’ve done I have like five layers the more I watch the movie.
Ariel Landrum 1:22
We watch these I don’t know if they were called like shorts or like it’s short interviews with Lin Manuel and some of the cast members and they were describing encanto as like your joy, your magic. The the reason you lived almost like not so much purpose. But the the value that you see in your life in your world, in that you can almost ascribe it to anything you can describe it to a location like this place is in cncanto. Or you can ascribe it to a feeling.
Josué Cardona 1:51
Yeah, yeah, it’s funny in Spanish. When you say like, “I’m pleased to meet you,” or like “It’s a it’s a pleasure to meet you.” I guess it’s it would most translate to in English like, “Oh, I’m Charmed.” Right? But but But you say like, oh, you know, and un encanto like to meet you, it’s like, oh, it’s a pleasure. And it can also in Spanish, at least I do. And in Puerto Rico, they use the word to, like in English when we say “I really like something” or like, “I love something.” So in Spanish who would say you know, megusta would be like I like but me encanta would be like, like, I love that thing. And it’s almost like again, like you’re maybe you’re enchanted by it, right? Like it. There’s something I never think about it in that way. And so so when I first heard about the movie to me, it was like, oh, like, oh, there’s this enchantment. Right. And in very much the, the magical fantasy fairy tale way. And I had no idea what the movie was, was going to be, but that’s cool. It’s like it’s gonna be a, like a, like a Latin American fairy tale. But I have a completely different way of thinking of the word now after watching the movie.
Stefanie Bautista 3:03
Yeah, definitely.
Ariel Landrum 3:04
Okay, how did it change?
Josué Cardona 3:06
But I see it as an enchantment in the sense of an illusion, like something that’s not real, almost like a lie.
Oh.
Ariel Landrum 3:15
Yeah.
Stefanie Bautista 3:16
Foreshadowing.
Ariel Landrum 3:18
Trickery!
Josué Cardona 3:21
It can definitely I feel like it can definitely be that. Ya know.
Stefanie Bautista 3:25
I mean, for me, I speak Tagalog. And obviously Tagalog has a lot of Spanish background, and it pulls a lot from you know, Spanish. And when I heard encanto the, the word itself, I pulled canta means to sing. And so I’m not sure about the evolution or the history of that. But when I watched it, I was like, “Oh, this makes sense. They’re singing a ton.” I mean, I knew that it meant something like enchantment, and something like that. Because, you know, all the interviews and all the things that all the trailers that were leading up to it, you know, there’s magic, everybody has powers, and you know, even the houses alive, like, I knew it was going to be some sort of magical thing, but I just kept thinking sing in my head.
Josué Cardona 4:11
Yeah.
Stefanie Bautista 4:12
And even before knowing Lin Manual Miranda was involved in this. I was like this is gonna be a musical for sure. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, it’s an your worm…
Ariel Landrum 4:22
Yes.
Stefanie Bautista 4:22
For everyone and everything. It’s everywhere.
Josué Cardona 4:25
Because it’s funny the language aspect of it. And I’m sure I’ll bring this up, like 100 times during this conversation, but I went, I watched it in Spanish. And of course, there’s a lot of Spanish words in it. I even watched part of it in French afterwards, just to see how they treated the Spanish in it. And it’s really respectful and I like that. One time I was watching it in English, I had the subtitles on the closed captions. And they miss translated one of the one of the words in it. And it’s so funny because it just like you said, like Encanto like, oh, and Encanto has gone to like the word singing in the word. So there’s a part I’m in the Dos Oruguitas scene where they sing in Spanish it says “Con sentimiento,” which is with feeling the subtitle it says, with consent, because consentimiento is the word for consent, but it’s actually two words in the song with feeling, but they translated as as as consent. I love language anyway, I think that’s gonna play I think that plays a big part of in the movie, like, because the words that we use to describe things aren’t necessarily the best ones or, or we’re not all in agreement.
Ariel Landrum 5:41
That Google Translate, though.
Stefanie Bautista 5:44
It’s not always reliable. And I feel as Disney reaches out and does more ethnic content. I mean, you really have to think about the way it’s being translated into English. I mean, there’s so many times I know Josué you know, when we’re watching anime, and you know, certain words mean something in, in Japanese, but then when you read the English subtitles, you’re like, “That’s not what they mean. That’s not exactly what they’re trying to say. But I mean, I guess, good job?” But it doesn’t necessarily convey exactly what the feeling is. So I’m curious to see that, you know, how they’re gonna take it from now on.
Josué Cardona 6:20
I mean, so when I, when I lived in Puerto Rico, whenever there was a Disney movie, it would always appear in theaters in Spanish. And I feelings about that. And as a kid, like, that’s a whole other podcast. But I think, you know, they’ve, and you can tell on Disney+, like, whenever you go into any, any new movie, it’s just in so many languages. And, you know, it’s, I mean, it’s always been part of their thing. But it’s, it’s hard when you have songs too right? Like so many Disney movies are musicals, and they have these songs that are translated, and there’s so much that can get lost in translation, or completely, it’s, there’s just a lot, right, not just the cultural aspect. I mean, there’s some movies, right, there’s some Disney movies that are that are so like, you take Aladdin as as like a 90s example. And maybe Hercules feels that way too. I’m trying to think of a newer one where I had this feeling. But it’s like they’re making pop culture references like of the moment, but of course, they’re like American pop culture references, and how do you translate that in other languages and other in other parts of the world? It’s very, that’s an art form in itself.
Ariel Landrum 7:31
I was watching TikTocs with people who had watched the movie in English and in Spanish, and they had mentioned that there were parts that were more meaningful because they were in Spanish that the way that they had to change the translation in English, it lost a little bit of its depth. And spoilers spoiler there’s all spoilers don’t listen to this if you haven’t seen it, they were gonna spoil it. This is a spoiler I’m going to mention again spoiler if you go to the end and say we spoiled it for you. Yeah, cuz they’re spoilers.
Stefanie Bautista 8:03
Turn off. Now listen to another episode, if you have not seen in Encanto go real quick, quick, quick, quick.
Ariel Landrum 8:08
It’s on Disney+
Stefanie Bautista 8:09
And come back.
Ariel Landrum 8:10
Yes. And so at the very end, I’m going to start with the very end someone had pointed out on Tik Tok that, in English, we say, we made this for you. And they gave a doorknob tomb Mirabel, but I guess in the Spanish version there, they actually said this was waiting for you.
Stefanie Bautista 8:30
Oh, that’s different.
Josué Cardona 8:31
I don’t remember that. I was trying to I was trying to pick out the small things like that, because there’s a lot of them.
Ariel Landrum 8:36
Essentially, they were saying that the the nuance that you miss is that she was always meant to have a door. And that her door was always meant to be the house and saying that we made this for you. Makes it sound like again, it was a gathering of the family and the community connectedness this, which is what made the house come together.
Stefanie Bautista 8:55
Yeah, I would have translated that as, “You finally get one, because it was never written in the stars.” But it makes so much more sense. If I think about that it had always been there for you. You just needed to seek it out a different way.
Ariel Landrum 9:10
And it was the doorknob, like the exact design of the original one when she was a little kid because it did have the M.
Stefanie Bautista 9:16
Yeah. That’s interesting. I mean, that changes the whole thing for me, because then it’s not like they’re finally giving her validation in the sense that they’re accepting her it’s validation in the sense that she had always been a part an essential part of the family, which is much deeper than you know, you can finally you know, be Madrigal like you always wanted to be so that’s interesting.
Josué Cardona 9:39
Okay, so so I’m looking at the scene right? And Antonio handed to her in the subtitles in Spanish it still says, “We made this for you.” Estoy para aquí porte,” he says in Spanish, which is like “It’s it’s waiting for you.” It’s not so much like it was waiting for you. But I mean, there is a subtle difference like I guess it it could be like, we made this for you. It’s been, we’ve been waiting to give it to you or this has been here waiting for you.
Ariel Landrum 10:07
Yeah, the TikTocker or had interpreted it as like this item and always been here and it’s been waiting for you. And then to say that the family made it was is essentially alluding to, for the American audience is like, “Oh, now your family accepts you.” Versus like, “You always had value and purpose.”
Josué Cardona 10:26
Yeah, yeah. I found like four different interpretations for the movie in general.
Ariel Landrum 10:31
Okay.
Josué Cardona 10:33
Yeah, yeah. But but the language stuff like subtle things like that can make a huge difference. Well, there’s like the enchantment piece. And the miracle, like, if you go back, and you start looking at when they refer to it as the Encanto and when they refer to the miracle, those are two different things, I think. Yeah. And then there’s also the idea of the gift. In Spanish, they use two different words. In English, I guess you could say, like, your gift or, or it’s funny in French, who says pouvoir which, I believe is like power. And then. But in Spanish, there’s a word that’s I dong, which is like, it’s more like, talent or skill.
Ariel Landrum 11:13
Okay.
Josué Cardona 11:14
Right. Like the nuance between saying, like, this is an ability, like, is this like, an ability that you earned and grew and developed or an ability that you were given because of this miracle? Like, there’s, there’s a lot of nuance there. And depending, you know, and I didn’t think about it until you you think of the different words. And again, like, the language, just even just an English as using different words can mean different things.
Ariel Landrum 11:40
Yeah. And there’s so much nuance. And I don’t know if I’m, for me, personally have seen any other Disney movie that has had that same nuance, and maybe it’s because I’m seeing more people talk about it, and so that’s what’s having me notice, or if it was intentional by the creators, and maybe a mix of both.
Josué Cardona 12:01
Yeah, I feel the same way. I was thinking, I don’t think I’ve ever studied Disney movie this hard. What makes it super helpful for like Geek Therapy conversations is how relatable that can be and different ways that it is relatable, the more helpful it can be. And I keep seeing so many layers in it. And I don’t know like I feel like Elsa’s movies. What else has movies called?
Ariel Landrum 12:24
Oh Frozen.
Josué Cardona 12:25
Frozen. I’m like yeah, what?
Ariel Landrum 12:26
Oh, I was about to say ice age for like a quick second.
Stefanie Bautista 12:33
Oh, yeah.
Josué Cardona 12:34
Yeah, so my dad, no, it doesn’t DreamWorks. So they’re technically not Disney movies.
Stefanie Bautista 12:40
That’s not even Disney.
Ariel Landrum 12:42
Yes, yes. They’re not even Disney.
Stefanie Bautista 12:45
They fully have animals, not even people.
Ariel Landrum 12:48
So does that count as one?
Stefanie Bautista 12:50
Oh, my gosh, we haven’t counted in a very long time.
Ariel Landrum 12:53
It is a new year. If you are new audience member and you have not been listening to our past episodes. I have a tendency to name things very similar, but not the same. And they match in my mind. And so I think this counts as one.
Josué Cardona 13:08
Like consentimiento and consent.
Ariel Landrum 13:10
Yes, exactly. That is exactly it.
Stefanie Bautista 13:14
The Ice Age one threw me for a loop. I had no idea where that came from.
Ariel Landrum 13:17
Well, I went in my head. So this is exactly what went in my head. He said, “What was that Elsa movie?” And I was like, “Frozone? No, that’s a character so must be something with Ice. Ice Age. That’s it. That’s a movie. Oh, no, wait, no, it’s Frozen.”
Stefanie Bautista 13:31
Frozen.
Josué Cardona 13:32
I want to study you Ariel.
Stefanie Bautista 13:35
Do a deep dive. Let’s do another rewatch of Ariel and see what we find out. But anyway, um..
Ariel Landrum 13:47
Not studying me studying the movie that we were talking about.
Josué Cardona 13:54
Yeah, I feel like Frozen one was way more straightforward, Frozen two have had more depth, where like, on a second viewing, I felt like oh, that song means something different. Like, Let It Go just means Let It Go. But like…
Stefanie Bautista 14:09
Into the Unknown?
Josué Cardona 14:09
Into the Unknown has has some depth, right? It’s like, “Wait a minute. That’s a few different things happening at the same time.” And this one, I feel just a lot of that. And not just because of the of the language and the culture piece. I think just the story that it’s telling has lots of different layers. It’s almost like, the last time I watched the movie, I felt like I could see multiple things happening at once. And they’re saying one thing, but at the same time you see something else happening? And you could interpret either one.
Stefanie Bautista 14:42
I think I I’m glad that you mentioned that because I remember when I started to watching Encanto. It felt a little messy to me, because I didn’t know the perspective it was trying to take at first because she was introducing them as if like she was yes introducing us to her world and her family when she’s talking to me these kids, but then it was almost like a show she was introducing.
Ariel Landrum 15:04
Yeah.
Stefanie Bautista 15:05
And I’m like, “Wait, is it gonna take that like breaking the fourth wall perspective? Is it not? Is she involved in this? The kids seem to be aware but not fully informed of what’s going on, which is why they’re asking her all these things?” in the opening number. And they keep asking her like, “What’s your gift? What’s your gift? What’s your gift?” And she keeps avoiding it, avoiding it, avoiding it, then you’re like, “Okay, I see where this is going. You you’re taking this outsider perspective, but like, with an insider, I, and it confused me for a bit, but then as the song kept going, I was like, “Okay, I kind of see what’s happening here.” And another thing is, I like how you mentioned Frozen, and I’m thinking Moana, because all of those are not Pixar, but also CGI Disney movies.
Josué Cardona 15:50
Yep. Yep.
Stefanie Bautista 15:51
And I feel like that depth and multi perspective. Let’s do another rewatch, and see what else we get from this is very common in all of those movies.
Ariel Landrum 16:00
Mm hmm.
Josué Cardona 16:01
Yeah.
Ariel Landrum 16:02
And, and when I think of that first intro song, I, I when I saw it, and I heard it, I immediately thought like, “Oh, at some point, they’re gonna make this into a Broadway play, because there’s no way that this song isn’t the start of a Broadway musical.”
Stefanie Bautista 16:14
Yes, exactly.
Ariel Landrum 16:15
And I was like, “Well, I know who wrote it. So that makes sense. Like, okay.” But then I got that, that shift when they were pressing her and pressing her was like, “Oh, there’s a tonal shift here.
Stefanie Bautista 16:26
Mm hmm.
Ariel Landrum 16:26
Watching the shorts. There’s like a part. Lin Manuel wrote as a trumpet sound and, and then she had to sing it like that trumpet sound. And he he was like, “Well, I trusted that you know, Stepahnie could do it. I trusted that she could do it.” But when you hear the way the trumpet goes, and how she sings it, it’s like she’s cracking in her voice. Like, “Oh, my God, they’re gonna catch they’re gonna, they’re gonna know that I’m the one who’s not gifted.”
Josué Cardona 16:52
Yeah yeah.
Stefanie Bautista 16:54
she thinks that hurriedly to like, she’s just like, I can’t really keep up. And I’m like, really trying to avoid it. But I mean, even mentioning that her voice is cracking that kind of alludes to the house later on.
Ariel Landrum 17:06
Yes
Stefanie Bautista 17:07
So yeah.
Ariel Landrum 17:09
Symbolism. Depth.
Stefanie Bautista 17:10
It’s heavy! So much.
Josué Cardona 17:16
I just thought one of the funniest jokes I saw online about that song at the beginning, was that there’s only six cousins. She makes it seem like so complicated. And so there’s only six cousins. The family is not that big. They all fit in one house.
Stefanie Bautista 17:30
Doesn’t it make you think of your family? And you’re like, “Oh, I have to keep track of like 16 to 20 something. And she’s only keeping track of six.”
Josué Cardona 17:39
Yeah, like I went to visit a an aunt once in, like my grandmother sister in Delaware. And they owned like eight houses in the area. And they were over 40 cousins at that point. I was like, “This is ridiculous.” I never even met them all. I was there for two days. Yeah. So…
Stefanie Bautista 17:56
I think maybe that would have blown the general audience’s mind a little bit too much.
Josué Cardona 18:02
But my favorite part of this of the of that whole scene is at the end when the kids at the end say like, “I think you’re I think your power is denial.”
Ariel Landrum 18:12
Denial is not just a river Egypt.
Stefanie Bautista 18:17
Your power is denial. And were like, “Hmmhmm I can relate.”
Josué Cardona 18:20
Yeah, yeah.
Ariel Landrum 18:22
I subscribe.
Stefanie Bautista 18:23
Yup. Did the opening the family madrigal song remind you of the first song in Beauty and the Beast because of the way it was paced, and that, you know, just keeps getting faster and just like in Beauty and the Beast, how like the townspeople end up? Joining along. At the end, I immediately went to beauty in the piece. And I’m like, Oh, this is like the same pacing, but like, on a grander scale. So I don’t know if you guys, it reminded you of anything, but I was just like, “Oh, this is kind of like it’s kind of Beauty and the Beast. Where we’re being introduced in…”
Josué Cardona 18:57
Yeah, and it’s an introduction. Yeah. To the characters and the location. Right. It’s like literally moving you through and Yeah, welcome to the although in this case, it’s Welcome to La Familia Madrigal, right. And there. It’s like, what what does it say? In in Beauty and the Beast?
Stefanie Bautista 19:13
Their singing about Bell.
Josué Cardona 19:14
Oh right, it’s like an introduction to her and anyways, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Ariel Landrum 19:18
Okay. Curious. Where did everybody see it?
Stefanie Bautista 19:20
I watched it right. When it was the day it was released at home. Yeah. So I did have to pause a couple times. Because of my child. He did sit through like the first five minutes of it, because there was just like, lots of colors and stuff. And that was really cool. And then he just bounced, he’s like, this is too much exposition for me at this point. I need to go.
Ariel Landrum 19:44
Peace out. Mama.
Stefanie Bautista 19:45
Tell me tell me the synopsis later. I’ll listen to the podcast.
Josué Cardona 19:50
I saw it at home as well. COVID you know, I wanted to I couldn’t bring myself to do it. And and so yeah, was it couple days after it came out on Disney+ that I saw it.
Ariel Landrum 20:02
So I saw it in theaters when it came out that that opening weekend in Thousand Oaks which for those who aren’t around here that’s like the rich neighborhood. And the funny thing is their AMC tickets are cheaper than our area, which is not the rich neighborhood. So that’s odd. But we chose that one really, because there was when we bought the tickets like that night, there were only two other people in the theater. So I was like, oh, and it was lounger seats. And it was one of those like, you could order from your seat if you wanted to. And it was my roommate, Greg and my roommate Travis, who we have had on the podcast before. We got up close parking. It was actually very magical. There was nobody in the theater the musical was great. The movie was great. We and then I bought the ectoplasm popcorn bucket from Ghostbusters. They had one it was a gift from my partner it did not have any signatures on it. So apparently What’s His face had signed them secretly some of them… Uhh
Josué Cardona 21:05
Slimer?
Stefanie Bautista 21:07
Bill Murray,?
Josué Cardona 21:09
Dan Aykroyd?
Ariel Landrum 21:09
That’s it. Dan Aykroyd okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah
Stefanie Bautista 21:12
We were gonna Slammer was a good guess though. blah
Ariel Landrum 21:18
I really liked it in theaters. I felt bad for the like the other two people that were there because I think they were on a date and they probably would have liked to just have the theater to themselves. And it was just like these three mooches like in the middle.
Josué Cardona 21:29
Sucks to be them.
Stefanie Bautista 21:30
Nah they know what they were getting into. They know what they’re getting into. Pick another theater. Good job. Nice. Did you watch it at night Ariel?
Ariel Landrum 21:40
Did watch it at night. It was a Saturday night. I will be honest, when I first saw it in theaters, so much was had happened. Like in the movie. When I left. I was like, “I don’t know, I can’t tell if I like this or not.” And then in watching it at home with my roommates, who also sort of other roommates. I have too many roommates. We live in LA so that’s what happens. But anyways, they also said “Well, I don’t know if I like this or not. I have to think about this.” And I had already processed it that I loved it. And I think the pause for me was I was I was looking for a bad guy. I for me the what I took was like the bad guy being essentially generational trauma.
Stefanie Bautista 22:20
Oh, yeah.
Ariel Landrum 22:21
Because I was looking for that that boogeyman to just like pop out and never did. I was like, where’s I’m I don’t know, if I feel resolution yet. When I saw it the from that lens the second time, I loved it, because I saw all the intricacies and like, like facial expressions and nods and the way people were communicating with each other and, and even like I would say for a lot of the women like, man, their most expressive facial expressions, like if I look at other Disney princess movies or other Disney movies with women, like they got two faces. Like that’s, that’s pretty much about it. And I could see just like, like, what we see Luisa eye twitching. Like it was great. It was great.
Josué Cardona 23:01
I think Moana and the Frozen movies do the same thing. They’re like, there’s it’s everybody’s misunderstood or they have different intentions, right? And like, there’s no, there’s no bad guy in them. Or love interest either.
Stefanie Bautista 23:15
Both movies are very family centric.
Josué Cardona 23:18
Yeah.
Stefanie Bautista 23:18
I mean Frozen. You have the struggle between the two sisters now sans parents, and how they’re navigating their community, their world and their responsibility. Same with Moana. What is her responsibility as somebody coming into this established family and path for her? And then now you’re talking about Mirabel. And what is her role? There isn’t a clear path because she’s an outlier, technically. So where does she fit in, in this puzzle, which is so essential to her community? Like those unknowns become your villain?
Ariel Landrum 23:54
Mm hmm. And that’s it almost feels too real and unsettling. And it’s like, “But this is a movie about a family with magical powers. Like how, how can I hit very, very close to home?”
Stefanie Bautista 24:06
Like they’re mutants?
Ariel Landrum 24:07
Yes they’re mutants.
Stefanie Bautista 24:07
That’s cool.
Ariel Landrum 24:09
I need Professor Xavier.
Stefanie Bautista 24:12
Which is the grandma.
Josué Cardona 24:14
All Disney movies after Frozen are also just super everybody’s got superpowers. That’s, uh, yeah, yeah.
Stefanie Bautista 24:21
I Moana didn’t think she did. But I mean, she did.
Josué Cardona 24:24
Yeah, technically. She’s. Yeah, the bad guy. I don’t know. Huh? Yeah, the more I’ve watched the movie. I guess I’ve watched it three times now. And it’s like an M Night Shyamalan movie. I didn’t realize what was really happening. Now I see other things.
Stefanie Bautista 24:41
That’s funny. I mean, I think even watching it at home, and I live at home with my family. And you know, we’re multi generational family living in here. It was too real. So I was like wait, “These are feelings that I feel on a daily basis, this generational trauma.” So I had to like, I remember because I was watching it you know, it’s it’s bright in there, it’s not like you know, you can hide your emotions because it’s dark. Like we’re just watching it me my husband, my brother, and you know, my son running around with parents are like in the kitchen. And I’m just like, shielding myself. “Let me just wipe this tear real quick. I mean, go the bathroom, but you can keep watching.”
Josué Cardona 25:18
So how do you how do you both define the generational trauma like? Like, how would you which generational trauma do you see in the movie as the kind of the obstacle or the, the, the negative thing in the movie?
Ariel Landrum 25:32
For me, I do see it starting with Abuela’s experience. I don’t want to say starting with Abuela, and simply because I think that she obviously suffered great grief and loss, she had to be a single mother to triplets which, like single mother one would already be difficult. But I think it was the displacement, the colonization, I, they showed it very subtly, in the very beginning, when she’s telling the story of their of their miracle, and then you see it more in depth later on. But I think that if I were to look at it from my white side, I wouldn’t see that. I would think the generational trauma is that Abuela is kind of like really mean. That’s, that’s I would just paint it as this like, basic thing. When I’m looking at it from my Filipino side, and that lens, I see that displacement and colonization being so huge, because literally having to start from the ground up of building a community and a family and creating support networks. And it being really all on her to support the family. I and and literally her I don’t know, power of like she built walls. Technically, she like she built mountains. And she built walls, that desire to protect constantly. I think that is where the generational trauma started, because that over need to protect didn’t allow everyone else their individuality and the way that they probably could have embraced it.
Josué Cardona 27:04
Yeah. Is it has it, like been confirmed, or in any of the shorts or anything like that, that what they experienced was like that the people that were attacking the town, like who they were, or what was happening? Because the movie itself doesn’t say…
Ariel Landrum 27:19
Yeah, I haven’t seen anyone actually confirm that. I would say that I I’m just seeing it from that lens. And I think just because it’s placed in Colombia, and I’m thinking of the history of that community, it would just make sense. Even if the invaders were not colonizers, and essentially this was potential civil war, civil unrest or neighboring town taking over this town Abuela is still displaced a minimum, a refugee.
Josué Cardona 27:51
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Colombia. I mean, a lot of countries do. And and I’m not super familiar with the history of Colombia, and I don’t know, when sort of this takes place. But yeah, the the impression I got was that there’s just, there’s just bad people. Right? It’s like, we’re, we’re escaping violence, which, like today, so many people are displaced, because they’re there. And so many people enter the United States, right through that they try to cross the border, because they’re escaping different types of violence, whether it’s from the government or whether it’s from, you know, other either criminal activity or other things that people are leaving, because they’re trying to find a, a better place for their family is a place where, where they they can feel safe. And so they had to leave, because like, we do see violence at the very least, right? It’s not, it’s not, um, I think it’s up for interpretation. It can definitely, and colonization can obviously be very violent, but it seemed like just people coming in and, and they literally killed the Abuelo. Right. So So there’s, and they’re burning down houses. No, but I like that the movie doesn’t confirm either way. Because again, you can you can read it in a few different ways.
Ariel Landrum 29:07
Really, interestingly, I was also looking for other individuals in the town that were Abuela’s his age. And I wasn’t seeing that a lot.
Stefanie Bautista 29:19
They seem slightly younger, but not as young as her children. Maybe like a little bit older. So that’s interesting.
Josué Cardona 29:29
Yeah, because we saw Mariano’s mom, but we didn’t see Mariano’s grandmother or grandfather. That’s true.
Ariel Landrum 29:35
Yeah. I think that like her being a matriarch for the town, is that added pressure? And because I was in that, in this, my rewatches I was trying to find like, maybe there are these other people that are like, Abuela’s crew, you know, like the elders of the town. And I was not seeing.
Stefanie Bautista 29:52
Oh, no, she is the elder of the she is the crew. She is the crew. And I think that’s part of the loneliness of, you know, migrating? For me, I saw a lot of, you know, my grandma, I mean, my grandparents who migrated here. They’re not all here anymore. So I could only imagine what they went through. And we as third generation, I guess, don’t hear about those stories. And so it was very relatable. Watching all of the grandchildren, all of the kids even not having that story in their head to go off of and that’s, you know, maybe something that they can identify with Abuela. But she kept it locked in, because it was so traumatizing for her that she just did not want to revisit that. And I mean, even personally, for me, I didn’t hear about our migration story until I was a full grown adult. And I had to pry and ask, because they just, it’s, it’s just not something that they want to talk about, it makes, makes total sense. And, you know, seeing that, they had to start a new life in a whole new place. They just wanted to protect what they could control, which was essentially, how we took school, how we picked our careers, and all of that was kind of already laid out for us, because they knew it was a sure shot, you’re going to make money doing this, you’re going to you know, have a stable job. But if there was any deviation from that, it was kind of like, “I don’t know, and are you really part of this family? Or are you even really thinking of, you know, what, how, how much difficulty it took for us to get here and to establish a life here.” So there were many, many layers, as I was thinking about, and these thoughts didn’t come to me until like almost the end of the movie. Especially when they flashback to what actually happened on the river. Like, that’s when it was like, boom, it hit full force. And I was like, “Wow, there’s there’s a lot happening in, you know, Abuela’s experience. And up until then, you’re talking about Mirabel. And we’ve been calling her MaryBelle Mirabel’s experience, and how she you know, you see her as the full protagonist, like, you know, “Why doesn’t she have her power? Why isn’t she you know, she’s special too. And, you know, look at all these amazing things that she’s doing. She’s supporting the family, keeping them together.” And you almost antagonize Abuela, because she keeps being that’s her roadblock. But then once that breaks, you’re just like, “Oh, wow. There’s so much more that she doesn’t even see. And it’s not even having to do with whether she has a power or not. It’s really about you know, what role she brings individually to the family.”
Ariel Landrum 32:44
even when you’re talking about those loss stories and narratives. When I think of this story and how it aligns with a lot of my clients who are a second or third generation. They talk about whole families, they don’t know. And we don’t know Abuelo’s family. Mirabella doesn’t know if she has other cousins on that side. Other aunts and uncles, it was this this huge cut off that’s probably never never going to be healed or reconciled. That unspoken questioning, like, like, we don’t talk about Bruno, right. Like there’s, there’s those family members who it’s like, in some cases, I don’t even know if they exist. That’s how that’s how much sacrifice my family’s had to make, especially when I think of my clients who are refugees, specifically, like my Cambodian clients. They just whole sides that they can’t ask their parents or their grandparents about because they were like the discipline, we made the sacrifice to survive. We also essentially have to say, “I’m not going to think or talk about them, because if I do, I would be in too much grief, I wouldn’t be able to move on in my life, I have to pretend that that part of my life never happened.”
Stefanie Bautista 33:51
As if they were responsible.
Ariel Landrum 33:52
Mm hmm.
Josué Cardona 33:53
So that the scene at the end Abuela says, “I’ve never come.. I’ve never been here since.” Right. I mean, they literally she hasn’t been to this location, but like, metaphorically, right? It’s like, “I don’t I don’t talk about this. I don’t think about this. I don’t come back here.” And but she she had literally built a mountain between the town and where that happens. So she didn’t right that she didn’t want to revisit that. The power of denial. So like, there’s this literal piece of like, “Oh, I haven’t actually been here.” And then again, like whenever you watch a movie, right, it’s two hours, we can make a lot of assumptions about what what they do or haven’t talked about over the years at the dinner table. But But Mirabel, it says, “Now I see I had no idea like, I didn’t know this story.” You know, and she had never seen that place right when she when they see that that moment in Bruno’s vision. It’s like, “Where is that? It’s like, nobody knows where that is. No one’s ever seen it except Abuela.
Stefanie Bautista 34:58
No one’s ever been there. Yeah. They’ve never been outside of the, you know, the community.
Josué Cardona 35:04
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so like everything you’re saying, right, like they showcase that literally. They actually, they actually play with those ideas at the end. “This isn’t something that we talk about.”
Stefanie Bautista 35:18
Yeah.
Josué Cardona 35:19
“Or would visit.” Yeah.
Stefanie Bautista 35:20
Everybody has that one family member that they don’t like talking about. And that was super relatable. I feel there’s I mean, there’s so many stories like what as as a child, and I think looking at it as a child’s perspective, like watching it, you’re just like, “Yes. I have lots of family members, they’re in and around, I see most of them sometimes.” I mean, even now, I feel like posts are, during this pandemic, you’re seeing less and less of these people, you know, you’re not, especially if you’re from another country, you’re not traveling back to see and connect with these people. So as far as you know, they could be fairytales. So if you, you know, ask, there’s only so much information that’s going to be divulged to you. Because, you know, not everybody goes through their family tree like that. And I even see it we do a family tree activity in I think it’s first or second grade. And we have to give them at least a month, because they can’t, they can’t fill as much as possible, because some of the information isn’t there, especially for my students who you know, migrated here, or my students who, you know, families migrated here, they have to do some digging, being able to identify that. As a kid, you’re just like, :oh, wow, do I have other cousins? Do I have other family? What? Who are these people? How do I connect to them?” And then you open a Pandora’s box, and then all of a sudden, they just want to know everything about their families.
Josué Cardona 36:48
Yeah, the way they show that, you know that that song with Bruno and like, the version, and everybody’s mind that story that everybody tells, and then when you meet him, he’s so different from that. And he’s giving you his perspective on things. He really does that a little bit when he’s talking to Mirabel. And then at the end in the song, right? He’s like, he comes right out. Because in the, in the wanna talk about Bruno song, they talk about how he ruined the wedding.
Ariel Landrum 37:14
Yeah.
Josué Cardona 37:14
And immediately when he gets his part to sing at the end, he’s like, let me set the record straight. It’s like, I this is what I was saying, like, I love you. I just like, it wasn’t even a vision. Right? But everything I say, you know, I’m always everything I do is wrong. So it doesn’t matter what I do, it’s interpreted incorrectly, even when he shows Mirabel the vision. And she’s like, interpret it interprets it a certain way. And he’s like, Oh, every time.
Stefanie Bautista 37:44
Here we go again.
Ariel Landrum 37:45
It happened again.
Stefanie Bautista 37:47
This is why send the rats out. I don’t want to deal with your people.
Ariel Landrum 37:50
Well, and looking at like family systems and roles, Bruno could be or is identified, essentially, as the first black sheep of the family.
Stefanie Bautista 37:58
Yeah, I mean, so much so that he is so desperately trying to connect through even the cracks of his room. And the food, which is such an essential part of family and gathering him just reaching out through that wall and getting scraps like that was, oh my gosh, my heart. Like…
Josué Cardona 38:19
Yeah, yeah.
Stefanie Bautista 38:20
I get that. It’s, it’s like not being invited to the family party, and just getting scraps from whoever reaches out to you. Like, that’s, that’s a real thing.
Josué Cardona 38:31
Yeah, he says my gift wasn’t helpful for the family, to the family. So like, like, I was a burden, kind of right. Or my gift was a burden.
Stefanie Bautista 38:41
I mean, that can mean so many things. It could be you know, your, your values, your beliefs, the way you know, you choose to identify yourself, it could be the career choices you make. There’s so many different ways to connect and interpret that into, you know, everyday lives of navigating around family, community and connection really, between blood relatives.
Ariel Landrum 39:01
I also think when like, again, that family systems, the person Bruno was protecting was Mirabel and she is the new generation black sheep. The difference is that he he left when he was ostracized and then chose to leave now when we come to find out he living in the walls. She’s the one who stays and tries her best to conform to the family tried try to find a place to to be useful to try and be appreciated, understood. She’s really working hard and I think that that makes her a very different black sheep because she gets the pain in person of just the regular rejection she I almost picture her as like the kid that while you didn’t get the lead in the play, you were only the tree so that’s not something to celebrate. Not the fact that you went out and did something fun for yourself or that you stepped out of your comfort zone and like joined the theater group is the fact that you didn’t show that you were the best.
Josué Cardona 40:05
Yeah, yeah.
Ariel Landrum 40:07
Yeah. Even when we’re thinking about Bruno being able to see the future, that makes me think of someone who’s just an insightful in a family that sees the way things are interconnected, and it’s like “You spoke about it. That’s why you’re being ostracized. That’s why you’re the you’re the black sheep, you highlighted stuff that we all, you know, agreed was going to not be highlighted in the way that you presented it. You were you were too honest.”
Stefanie Bautista 40:37
He was just checking facts.
Josué Cardona 40:39
Yep.
Stefanie Bautista 40:39
He was just speaking facts. And they were like, no, no, no, we don’t like that fact.
Josué Cardona 40:43
Yeah, I think that’s my, or the other one that resonates the most with me like that, that version of it, right? Like that metaphor of like, you need to shut up, man. Like, you got to stop saying, You got to stop spitting facts. You cannot tell people how it is. You need to choose your delivery. It’s like, like, it’s what I do. Like, I just like, I’m I got an opposite version of that would be like, oh, you know, he’s a town Oracle. And he helps us, you know, by foreseeing the future and helping us prepare for the things that are coming, but instead everybody’s like, “Ah, this asshole he told me I’m gonna get fatter, I’m gonna lose my hair and look.”
Ariel Landrum 41:23
“He killed my goldfish.
Josué Cardona 41:25
Yeah. Yeah.
Ariel Landrum 41:26
He just said it, and it happened.
Stefanie Bautista 41:28
Yeah it happened.
Ariel Landrum 41:28
It wasn’t the fact that I wasn’t feeding the goldfish.
Josué Cardona 41:32
Or like, Oh, my goldfish is gonna die then like the me. Let me enjoy this time with it. Right. And like, let me prepare for it. Nobody saw it that way.
Yeah.
I think I mean, every power we can go through, like how each of them was
Ariel Landrum 41:48
A blessing and a curse.
Stefanie Bautista 41:49
blessing and a curse.
Josué Cardona 41:50
Yeah, it’s like gifts in in, in, in quotations. Right?
Ariel Landrum 41:56
Well, do we want to go through everyone’s powers? Or do we want to talk about their doors? Or do we want to talk about their clothes? Because I’m gonna tell you, my my art therapy, symbolism, all the colors, like it’d be coming out. So
Josué Cardona 42:11
I’m following your lead.
Stefanie Bautista 42:12
I mean, I think we can shift to visually how beautiful this movie was. And I think celebrating color, and how they played with color and shadow and light and making Bruno look super drab, spoke to our visual appetite of you know what we expect from not only a Disney movie, but a Disney CGI movie?
Ariel Landrum 42:36
So if you look at Bruno’s..Yeah, well, if you look at his outfit..
Stefanie Bautista 42:41
His rags poor guy…
Ariel Landrum 42:42
His rags.. For anybody goes to the Disney parks that Disney Imagineers created two colors to hide objects in plain sight that they do not like. And one of them is called Go Away Green. And that is the color of his outfit. And if you look at the movie posters, he is in plain sight. He’s in the background next to all the green objects. And like to me that we don’t talk about Bruno, but he’s been here the whole time. And we actually do talk about him. It’s just an whispers and away from Abuela. That Go Away Green was just like so in your face of like how we treat this character.
Josué Cardona 43:16
That’s so cool.
Stefanie Bautista 43:17
You see him in the shadows, but only on the second like watch. You’re like, Oh there he is!
Ariel Landrum 43:21
He’s in the song when Dolores is singing and she’s doing the hip and boom there he is.
Josué Cardona 43:30
I’ll watch it again.
Stefanie Bautista 43:34
Go Away Green. That’s hilarious.
Josué Cardona 43:36
Yeah.
Ariel Landrum 43:36
The other thing with the colors is that Pepa, so how you can tell who’s related to who is Pepa’s side of the families wearing warm tones, and Julieta’s side of the family is wearing cool tones. And the interesting thing is that Abuela’s a purple. So sort of like a mix of warm and cool. And that Go Away Green is actually you know, getting more towards the cool side. And that’s also where the person who’s the new generation black sheep is. So it also shows you somewhat of how the family is split.
Josué Cardona 44:07
Yeah, yes. Yeah.
Stefanie Bautista 44:09
Mirabel expresses a lot of those purple tones, which implies that she draws from everyone, both sides. You can see a little bit of everybody’s color in her skirt, the flowers on her shirt, and the fact that it’s white.
Ariel Landrum 44:23
Yes.
Stefanie Bautista 44:24
That says a lot because her shirt is white. It’s white and black. And, you know, it makes all of the other colors standout which says a lot about her role in the family.
Ariel Landrum 44:34
Yes, yes, that she essentially highlights everyone’s powers and celebrates them. And the other interesting thing is the patterns on everyone’s outfits. So Abuela has butterflies and so does Mirabel. Sort of alluding to that moment in the future and alluding to how connected they are to the the miracle or the magic or the encanto and how they each celebrating their family members, gifts but very differently because Abuela was essentially saying you have to use the gift in this very specific way. And Mirabel saying like, no, it’s your gift, celebrate it how you know would be beneficial for you and you know, it doesn’t have to be a burden.
Stefanie Bautista 45:20
Mm hmm.
Josué Cardona 45:21
Butterflies everywhere.
Stefanie Bautista 45:22
Butterflies everywhere.
Butterflies in the sky. Let’s see. Okay, other outfits. Okay. Julieta has a mortar and pestle and hearts. And she is the person who heals…
Josué Cardona 45:34
Through cooking…
Ariel Landrum 45:35
Through cooking to the cooking and a mortar pestle can be used for for medicine and it can be used for food. Like that’s that’s the interesting thing about it. And I think the hearts are important because she tells Mirabel that she healed her with her love.
Stefanie Bautista 45:49
Yeah. My love healed you.
Ariel Landrum 45:52
My love healed you.
Stefanie Bautista 45:53
What a mom thing to say.
Ariel Landrum 45:56
Pepa has the sun earrings and the sun dress. So you know whether. Bruno has hour glasses, like for time. Dolores has soundwaves on her collar. Isabella obviously has flowers almost everywhere. Luisa has dumbbells at the bottom of her skirt.
Stefanie Bautista 46:14
She does.
Ariel Landrum 46:15
Camilo has chameleons on his outfit, and I think his name even means chameleon.
Stefanie Bautista 46:19
Oh!
Josué Cardona 46:23
Wow!
Stefanie Bautista 46:24
I missed that. It looks pretty plain to me.
Josué Cardona 46:26
Well, I mean, he’s always like shape shifting. Right?
Ariel Landrum 46:28
He’s always shape shifting.
Josué Cardona 46:29
Yeah, yeah.
Ariel Landrum 46:30
And then Antonio at first had doesn’t have anything. And then when he gets his door, he changes his outfit, and it has animals on it.
Stefanie Bautista 46:38
Cute.
Josué Cardona 46:38
And then very interesting. Lee, Julio says husband, Augustine, who is like very protective of Mirabel. His outfit has a piece for each daughter. So he’s got a flower in his pocket. And then his socks, one sock has dumbbells, the other one has embroidery.
Stefanie Bautista 46:56
Oh, I need to I need to zoom in on these details.
Ariel Landrum 47:02
The other thing that I thought was really interesting with the doors is that everyone’s door picture, their doors of them as an adult, except Antonio, he’s the only one who has a kid. And that to me really represents like the generational curse being broken, because he’s the one who got to grow up with his power and choose like, how it benefit for him. Whereas everybody else when there’s going to be broken was when they were adults. And it’s like, this is how far your power is going to go.
Stefanie Bautista 47:31
Yeah.
Ariel Landrum 47:31
And and then there’s kind of like this endpoint of like, there, it’s just going to be up to the family if they decide to continue to flourish. Or if that’s it. They all take a picture with Abuela in front of their door, and they’re all little kids in front of their door but their doors an adult.
Josué Cardona 47:49
I don’t know what photos like the photos that you’re referring to.
Ariel Landrum 47:53
There, they’re actually on the wall.
Josué Cardona 47:55
So is there a photo that shows them as children in the photo, but their adult version on the door?
Ariel Landrum 48:01
Yes.
Josué Cardona 48:02
Ah…
Ariel Landrum 48:03
Yes, yes.
Josué Cardona 48:04
Okay. Okay. Okay.
Ariel Landrum 48:05
So it’s taken right when they got their powers.
Josué Cardona 48:08
That’s a hell of an attention to detail if that if that.
Ariel Landrum 48:12
This is one screen grab. This is the first one that I could find and see how they’re their doors are all taller than them. But with a Antonio, he’s about the same size.
Stefanie Bautista 48:20
There’s Dolores, and her hair is big. I like how Bruno’s looks super scary….
Ariel Landrum 48:28
Right?
Yeah.
Stefanie Bautista 48:32
I know that there’s been a lot of like Easter eggs that people have been seeing. I haven’t quite looked at all of them. But it seems like there’s much more to discover, aside from seeing Bruno creep in the back during the songs because, like we mentioned earlier in the podcast, there was just a lot happening. And a lot of that continues to happen through the story. Because there’s a lot of people that you’re keeping track of, there’s a lot of stories you’re keeping track of there’s a lot, there’s just a lot you’re you’re processing at the moment. So it would be easy for them to embed something, especially within the house because the house itself, it’s it’s, it’s its own character.
Ariel Landrum 49:12
Yes.
Stefanie Bautista 49:12
It represents the family. So and it’s alive. So, I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a lot of things that either foreshadowed or explained.
Josué Cardona 49:23
The symbolism is is all over the place. Right? And in some ways, like referring to the clothes, it’s like in your face. If you watch the movie in English, the scene where with the flashback at the river, it plays Dos Oruguitas in Spanish. And then I’m assuming when you saw it at theatres Ariel there were no subtitles for the song.
Ariel Landrum 49:45
No, None None. It was just playing in Spanish so that I mean, I got the feeling for what was being presented. It was really emotional.
Josué Cardona 49:55
So so if you watch if you watch To the end, then he plays the English version of the song of the Dos Oruguitas during the credits.
Ariel Landrum 50:05
Oh credits. Oh okay.
Josué Cardona 50:06
Yeah yeah. And then if you listen to the actual lyrics, like if, if the song if Dos Oruguitas was translated during that scene, it would, it literally explained some things, that it’s very literal the song in English, it’s way more subtle in Spanish. But this, the very literal version kind of explains a bunch of stuff. And when I, when I saw it again, so many things jumped out, like, sure we talked about like the butterflies in the clothing. The song is Dos Oruguitas, two caterpillars, just like the song is all about to butterflies, and Abuela and Mirabel are the butter, like I’ve gone through different interpretations of the song, but when you rewatch it, they just put the subtitles on for the song as it’s going. And you’re like, oh, and it’s and that’s actually, I mean, the way I’ve interpreted this is that the song goes into, it’s actually two stories. There. It’s a Abeula’s story with with Pedro. And then Abeula’s story with Mirabel, and and it’s like, oh, you know, like, we’re in love, you know, blah, blah, blah. But then the point is when something changed, like we were trying to avoid anything changing, right? Like we talked about the generational trauma. And then once things changed as a caterpillar, I created a cocoon.
Stefanie Bautista 51:21
Yeah.
Ariel Landrum 51:22
Oh, interesting that hardshell.
Josué Cardona 51:25
Exactly. Once you go through, you’re like, Oh, she made a cocoon around the town around herself for every single one of her children. Right. And then as you keep listening to the song, and then you see it again, like now I can’t unsee it, but it’s like, in the song at the end. It’s like, oh, now we’re talking about this butterfly who breaks cocoons open and sets people free. And like the yellow butterfly is there at the beginning of that scene.
Ariel Landrum 51:55
Yeah.
Josué Cardona 51:55
In front of Pedro, right, like in the scene when when when Abuela meets him. And then it appears again, for Mirabel right it’s like it’s like it’s it’s a well as story in two parts with two different people like he tried to hold on so hard to the first one. And then the second person who came along is the one who’s breaking all the cocoons and like if you look at that, at the again, we’re talking about this visual storytelling that’s almost separate. There’s something going on there right like it’s it’s almost like the more I The more I think about the movie, the more I realize that everybody thinks that they’re doing one thing like everybody’s just misinterpreting their own ability and misusing it. So yeah, Abuela I wants to protect, but she’s gone beyond protecting. Now she she doesn’t, it is what the song is all about, like the song telegraph’s the whole story. Oh, okay, I’m protecting. But now I don’t want to let go. And the song is all about like, you have to let go. Like, that’s part of the process little caterpillar. Never. Like that’s the miracle. The miracle is like you growing. And so there’s this visual and I think this is why I think that actually Mirabel does have a power and like I can go into all that because visually, the cracks always stem literally from where she is. And there’s like even when she goes to Bruno’s cave like, and she like stomps on the ground. She like she she breaks the floor, like and she and whenever she meets with any of our sisters, or cousins, she she makes everybody she basically takes down the barriers. Right? Like she’s like, Luia, do you want to talk? She’s like, No, boom, she she burst into song.
Ariel Landrum 53:34
A friggin awesome song.
Josué Cardona 53:35
With Pepa she’s like, you know, but Bruno. She’s like, we don’t talk about Bruno. But on my wedding day, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, right? When she’s talking to Isabela. She’s right. She’s literally her like hypeman in the background, right? She’s in the sun. She’s like, Yeah, grow, grow, Rise, Rise as she’s doing this thing. She’s so taking everybody. She’s breaking down all these barriers. And basically like, the more I’ve again, I’ve obsessively listened to Dos Oruguitas of you that today listen to it twice simultaneously by accident, because I sound alarm with it. And I was listening to it separately on my phone, and it was playing twice. Pretty funny.
Stefanie Bautista 54:12
So it was echoing itself.
Josué Cardona 54:17
So there’s this, like this visual pattern throughout the movie from the very beginning, where it’s almost like what she’s doing is what Mirabel is able to do is always take down these barriers or like, destroy the cocoon. So like, I think that the the doors the rooms are Abuela’s way to create another cocoon for them and protect them as much as possible. Like, what if I made your perfect room?
Stefanie Bautista 54:47
Yeah.
Josué Cardona 54:47
Right. You’ll be the safest place I can possibly make for you is like is like the room of your dreams. And she creates this for each of them. And then but Mirabel’s power is the opposite of that right? It’s like not to create because it’s to unite everybody so she touches the door and it just disappeared. It’s like nope, that’s why I think that at the end when the door when she when she touches the door, it creates a new door with everybody on it, including the family members who don’t have powers. And then when you go back into the house, the new the newly modified House…
Stefanie Bautista 55:23
New casita!
Josué Cardona 55:24
Yeah, all the doors are have disappeared, like they’re not there anymore. They’re just blank. They’re just like, they’re, they’re like portals. They don’t actually have the doors on them anymore. Because she’s like, she’s broken the the chrysalis I think she’s like, broken all the cocoons, even in the vision, when you turn it, it’s almost like the the cracks are sprouting out of her. They almost look like wings in a way, right? But it’s like she’s she’s literally breaking all the cocoons all of this stuff. And again, you could you could translate to like, she’s breaking the barrier of talking about the trauma, she’s..
Stefanie Bautista 55:56
She’s breaking the barriers of secrets.
Josué Cardona 55:59
Now, it’s, it’s almost frustrating. I go through the movie, and I see, I see all of those things, and we see all of that symbolism. And then you see that the family doesn’t see it. Right. Like the family is completely, they’re always missing the mark, like, like, we had that whole conversation about Bruno just now, like, everything he could have been so helpful to you had you just reframed your thinking.
Stefanie Bautista 56:21
And now that as we’re talking about this, I’m like, yeah, what comes out of a cocoon must, it will. And you’ll never know, it’ll, it might be much more beautiful than what you were trying to protect. And I think that’s what Mirabel was, you know, trying to convey, even though she didn’t know it herself. Because what comes out of cocoon sometimes is unpredictable, it may look one way and may look another, but it has to go through that transformation. I think that’s what happens between generations. Families transform and change. They don’t always look like the generation previous the one right before, they’re all different. And you know, it goes with the evolving of relationships, how we view them, how we see them, how we connect with generations before us, given what we have to deal with in present day.
Josué Cardona 57:11
Again Dos Oruguitas it mentions a world changing and turning always and you don’t want anything to change. So you’ve created this cocoon. And you know, I didn’t even I hadn’t even thought about like the outside world until the right now in that movie, but yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s kind of that’s another metaphor right there. Like if you if you close yourself off from the world that you stop, you stop learning. I think in the English version of the song, I don’t think it says this in the Spanish word and the English version of Dos Oruguitas as it goes. Our Two Oruguitas is what it’s it’s called in English. If you check the soundtrack, it talks about like, where every day we’re loving and learning. Right, like, yeah, and then but once we close ourselves off, we stopped learning.
Ariel Landrum 58:01
Hmm.
Stefanie Bautista 58:02
Hmm.
Ariel Landrum 58:04
I’m curious. Did they actually say the name of the town?
Josué Cardona 58:08
I don’t think so. No.
Ariel Landrum 58:10
Like it’s just Abuela’s hood. Like we like…
Stefanie Bautista 58:12
I don’t think so no.
Josué Cardona 58:14
So I looked up I Abeula’s name earlier today, and I couldn’t remember that they mentioned that in the movie.
Stefanie Bautista 58:18
Oh yeah what’s her name?
Josué Cardona 58:18
But her name is? Her name is Alma.
Ariel Landrum 58:21
Oh, oh, boy. Alma. Okay. Yeah, yeah, I remember hearing that.
Stefanie Bautista 58:26
I’ve got it Abuela Alma. I do. That’s funny.
Ariel Landrum 58:33
Well, before we end today, I do want to mention I made arepas con queso last night. Friggin amazing. Now I’ve never had it authentically. So I’m gonna say it tasted good from what I was able to put together from watching three different TikToks and Binging with Babish.
Stefanie Bautista 58:55
They looked good on your Instagram stories.
Ariel Landrum 58:58
Thank you!
Stefanie Bautista 58:58
They looked good.
Ariel Landrum 58:59
I use mozzarella and oaxaca cheese. What I found out is it needs to be a low moisture, cheese, whatever you put in there.
Stefanie Bautista 59:07
Yeah.
Ariel Landrum 59:08
So…
Josué Cardona 59:08
It’s gotta it’s gotta be like stringy kinda but like, yeah, yeah..
Stefanie Bautista 59:12
Yeah.
Josué Cardona 59:12
So I’ve I’ve had them in street fairs and stuff. And the stands always though is called a mozzarepas, like mozzarella arepas. Right?
Ariel Landrum 59:21
That’s what Binging with Babish called it. Okay.
Josué Cardona 59:24
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ariel Landrum 59:25
There used to be a food truck that would go to my old apartment complex every Thursday. And they only made arepas, and it was so good. And it was I look forward to every Thursday, just like any more of this in my life. So every time there’s like an arepas stand at like, a street fair, or like, a pop up, I’m like, oh my god, let’s go. Because there’s so few and far in between here. I mean, even in LA, which you could probably find any sort of cuisine out here. You got to seek them out. So, you know, I don’t remember the name of that truck, but they were doing the Lord’s work.
I had a lot of people saying that like arepas looked exactly like pupusas and so the difference is that pupusas are filled before you cook them and arepas and gorditas are stuffed after you cook them. And then pupusas and gorditas they’re made with instant corn mesa and arepas are made with pre cooked corn mill called masarepa. So. So if you make it here, you’re probably going to find instant corn mesa. So it’s probably it’s gonna taste more like a pupusas. But if you have access to masarepa, then you’d be chef’s cheese good to go.
Stefanie Bautista 1:00:32
I mean, that’s a difference between storebought tortillas and you know, hechas a mano. Right. So different.
Josué Cardona 1:00:39
They look good in the movie. Disney you did good. Those arepas look good.
Stefanie Bautista 1:00:42
Yeah.
Ariel Landrum 1:00:43
Well, if you want to give us your thoughts on Encanto, your theories, anything that you discovered, please tweet at us @HappiestPodGT or DM us on Instagram @HappiestPodGT. We would love to hear if you tried arepas.
Josué Cardona 1:01:03
As always, just you know, go to GeekTherapy.org Check out everything. We’re working on all different shows and projects that we’re cooking up. Yeah.
Ariel Landrum 1:01:12
Yeah. Thank you for coming.
Stefanie Bautista 1:01:13
Yes.
Josué Cardona 1:01:14
Thank you for inviting me. I want to talk about this movie all the time.
Stefanie Bautista 1:01:17
I know. Let’s do some more. Let’s do it. Thank you for listening. We will see you next time.
Ariel Landrum 1:01:23
Yes. Happy New Year, everybody!
Stefanie Bautista 1:01:25
Yeah Happy New Year!
Josué Cardona 1:01:25
Bye.
Media/Characters Mentioned
- Encanto
- Abuela Alma Madrigal
- Mirabel Madrigal
- Luisa Madrigal
- Isabela Madrigal
- Bruno Madrigal
- Pepa Madrigal
- Julieta Madrigal
- Antonio Madrigal
- Camilo Madrigal
- Agutin Madrigal
- Dolores Madrigal
- Felix Madrigal
- Moana
- Frozen
- Elsa
- Beauty and the Beast
Topics/Themes Mentioned
- Diversity
- Family
- Family roles
- Family values
- Black sheep
- Generational trauma
- Expectations
- Secrets
- Gifts
- Mircales
- Powers
- Superpowers
- Symbolism
- Metaphors
- Forshadowing
- Color theory
- Hues
- Visual representation
Questions? Comments? Discuss this episode on the GT Forum.
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Website: happy.geektherapy.com
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| Josué on Twitter: @JosueACardona
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