Welcome to The Family Madrigal, and the Surface Pressure hiding underneath the perfect façade of a magical family with wonderful gifts - everyone except Mirabel. Who probably wonders "What Else Can I Do?" on the regular, when her Abuela seems to blame her for everything.

All Of You probably know the intergenerational trauma this movie perfectly depicts, but it's also a movie that took the time to show deep love and respect for Colombia, mi encanto. By having a Colombian Cultural Trust, and directors willing to take on suggestions and ideas, to make Encanto diverse and representative of real Colombian life, traditions and culture.

Tuns out, Stephanie Beatriz was also Waiting on a Miracle, while recording that exact song.

We Don't Talk About Bruno, except we do. Because Bruno is one of the most complex and interesting characters in this movie. And while Abuela has suffered great loss, become a refugee and a single parent to triplets in the space of one day, beautifully encapsulated by the Academy Award-nominated Dos Orugitas, she's also making her entire family suffer through her own anxiety and trauma.

Basically Encanto is pretty special, and it's one of Disney's greatest modern animated films because of it.

And that's why coffee's for grown-ups!

I would love to hear your thoughts on Encanto !

Verbal Diorama is now an award-winning podcast! I won the Best Movie Podcast in the inaugural Ear Worthy Independent Podcast Awards recently. I am beyond thrilled, and hugely grateful to the Ear Worthy team. It means so much to me to be recognised by a fellow indie outlet, and congratulations to all the other winners!

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Hi, everyone, I'm Em, and welcome to Verbal Diorama, episode 283, Encanto.

This is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies you know. And movies you know. There's probably definitely going to talk about Bruno.

But before we get into all of that, a huge hi and welcome to Verbal Diorama.

Whether you are a regular returning listener, whether you are a brand new listener to this podcast and have literally just joined us because you love the movie Encanto, Regardless, thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. There are a lot of movie podcasts out there that are all vying for your ears and your attention.

Oops, I'm a poet and I didn't know it in all of its forms. So we're talking traditional 2D hand drawn stop motion and CGI, just like this movie.

Or indeed, a mix of all of the above, because there are movies out there that do have a mix of those different art forms in them.

This podcast has been going for six years, and for the last five years, I have covered some of the best movies and also maybe some of the not so great movies as well. I have done the emoji movie, after all. But I've also had the pleasure of featuring some of the greatest animation studios of all time.

Leica, Aardman, Disney, Dreamworks, Sony Animation, Pixar Studio, Ghibli, Cartoon Saloon, Even studios that no longer exist, like Fox Animation, Blue sky, and Don Bleed Studios. The mantra of animation season is quite simple, and that is that animation. First of all, it's not a genre.

Really annoys me when Netflix put it as a separate genre for people to choose from. It's not a genre, it's an art form. But also, I would like to dispel the myth that animation is just for children.

There are a lot of great children and family movies that are animated. Similarly, there's a lot of movies for children and families that are live action. But animation is not just for children.

Animation is just simply a beautiful art form, a way of visual storytelling. And also animation, in my opinion, is the perfect art form, because in animation you can depict pretty much anything.

You're not confined by the laws of physics, gravity, visual effects, limitations. You don't have that in animation. And nothing that's animated ever looks out of place, unlike some really bad CGI that you might find in some movie.

It will really take you out of the experience of watching that movie, but you don't have that in animation because it all looks the same. And for me, this is why.

Animation season is in its fifth year and remains so important to this podcast and to what I believe Verbal Diorama is out there to achieve. It is telling the history and the legacy of movies in general.

But having an animation season is important because I really want to highlight incredible animated films that, you know, like Encanto, but maybe also some of the ones that you don't.

I mean, if you've heard of all of them, that's great. People should know about those movies.

But while I'm covering a Disney movie today on this podcast, there is so much more out there in animation that goes beyond Disney and Pixar and DreamWorks. And if you don't watch these movies, you're missing out on some truly incredible storytelling as well.

Now, I've rambled on a little bit more about animation than I actually planned to, but I just wanted to add that a huge thank you to everyone who listens to this podcast and who continues to listen to and support this podcast. As I said, this podcast has been going almost six years now, over 280 episodes.

It means so much for your continued support, so thank you very much from me. But let's just jump straight into Encanto. I just made something unexpected. Something sharp, something new.

It's not symmetrical or perfect, but it's beautiful. And it's mine. What else can I do? Here's the trailer for Encanto.

The Madrigals are an extraordinary family who live hidden in the mountains of Colombia in a magical house in a vibrant town, in a wondrous, charmed place called the Encanto. The magic of the Encanto has blessed every child in the Madrigal family with a unique gift.

From super strength to the power to heal every child except one. Mirabel.

But when she discovers that the magic surrounding the Encanto is in danger, Mirabel decides that she, the only ordinary Madrigal, might just be her exceptional family's last hope. Let's run through the cast of this movie. This is a huge family. I'm not in a position to sing a song about all of the members of the Madrigal family.

Mostly because I don't want to get a copyright strike. But let's run through them anyway. We have Stephanie Beatrice as Mirabel Madrigal. Maria Cecilia Botero as Abuela Alma Madrigal.

John Leguizamo as Bruno Madrigal. Jessica Darrow as Luisa Madrigal. Diane Guerrero as Isabella Madrigal.

Angie Sapida as Julieta Madrigal Carolina Catan as Pepa Madrigal Mauro Castillo as Felix Madrigal, Wilma Valderrama as Agustin Madrigal Adasa as Dolores Madrigal Renzi Feliz as Camilo Madrigal and Ravi Cabot Conyers as Antonio Madrigal Encanto has a screenplay by Sharice Castro Smith and Jared Bush, a story by Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Sharice Castro Smith, Jason Hand, Nancy Cruz and Lin Manuel Miranda and was directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard. Co directed by Sharice Castro Smith.

Anderson Moana came out that year. Moana, which I'm going to be referencing quite a lot in this episode, actually also featured songs by Lin Manuel Miranda.

Zootopia was directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard. Both Zootopia and Moana had been huge hits, so bringing the best bits of both made sense to Disney.

Howard and Bush wanted to make a musical next, and Lin Manuel Miranda is the guy you get when you want a good musical. See also Hamilton and In the Heights.

John Lasseter brought the team together and Miranda revealed during a press tour for Moana that early stage talks were happening for another Disney animation project. And all three men, Miranda, Bush and Howard, all had the experiences of growing up in large, extended families.

They started with a whiteboard and on it they wrote, families are made up of individuals who evolved, who had hopes and dreams and faults and failures. Can we tell a story that helps our audience see family from a different perspective? It turns out as well, but all families have issues.

Most people don't feel seen or understood by members of their family. Most of us never truly tell our families all our troubles and burdens, and for most of us, members of our families feel exactly the same way we do.

But we never talk about it, so we never actually find out and we just continue to struggle in silence, which ultimately starts creating cracks in our family. But we're going to get onto that.

Juan Rendon and Natalie Osma, who had collaborated with Howard and Bush on the making of documentary Imagining Zootopia, were consulted on Latin American culture with the idea of making the movie set in South America. Howard, Bush and Miranda concentrated their research on Colombia.

Since Rendon and Osma are Colombians and used their firsthand encounters with Colombian culture in their discussions, Disney animation established what it dubbed the Colombian Cultural Trust by hiring Rendon and Osma as the first of a number of cultural specialists to serve as advisors on the movie.

Similarly to what they'd also done with Moana with the Oceanic Story Trust, the team went on a research trip to Colombia, which included a trip to the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Foundation.

While on their Colombian trip, the senior production team of Encanto visited large cities, but they found more inspiration in smaller places like Salento and Barichara, where they met tour guide Alejandra Espinoza Uribe, who showed them around the town, showed off his architecture, and after signing an NDA stating she wouldn't disclose anything about the trip and Espinosa, Uribe would not only become a cultural consultant on Encanto, but.

But she also looks remarkably like Mirabel, with thick dark hair and glasses, and the directors have since confirmed that she was part of the inspiration for the design of Mirabel.

But she also showed the production team the actual lives of the people who lived in Barichara, showed them the handcrafted materials they used to build and create with, and implored the team to treat Colombian heritage and culture with respect.

Mostly because to a lot of people in America specifically, Colombia is more well known for its drug cartels than its culture or history, and the production did want to treat Colombia with respect.

Latin American employees at Disney were invited to join La Familia, a group to collaborate on Encanto, to show cultural representation and sensitivity, which led to the removal of ideas surrounding magical realism.

Instead, they read Cuban author Elego Campatier's Lo real Maruvalosa, the wonderful real and understanding the worldview of the Afro and indigenous populations, that water is sacred for indigenous people, and that the miracle that forms the basis of the movie should come from a river.

The directors were receptive to any and all ideas, and the large family at the center became a diverse representation of Colombian's diaspora, representing indigenous people as well as Afro Colombians. It was la familia that added Bruno's line, sana, sana colita de rana.

Apologies for the terrible pronunciation of that, which is a lullaby, which in English means heel, heel, little frog's tail. They also came up with the title Encanto.

But obviously then the pandemic happened and the Disney animation team was not actually able to travel to Colombia and everyone went remote, including Alejandra Espinosa Uribe, who sent detailed images of Colombian life to the animation team, including hand gestures and facial expressions. She also sent fabrics, including skirts made by hand in Velez, so the animation team understood the weight of the fabric and the texture.

This fabric was used for the inspiration for much of the clothing in the movie, but especially Maribel's skirt.

But I am getting slightly ahead of myself here, because while they had an idea of the story they wanted and they had Alejandra Espinoza Uribe's guides on Colombian life, Howard Bush realized they needed a second screenwriter to help flesh out the characters, and they turned to Charisse Castro Smith, a playwright who focuses on complex dimensional female roles. She's also written for the TV series Devious Maids and Netflix's the Haunting of Hill House.

Castro Smith, who also looks a little bit like Maribel, was brought on to co write, but was also asked to co direct.

After eight months on the project, she used her bond with her own Abuela to create a matriarch whose bravery and struggle would lead to the weight of expectations she places on her own family. She wrote the opening prologue and Abuela's story. She even provided the scratch vocals for Abuela as well as other characters.

And unlike Moana, it would be a large family. Moana was originally going to have eight brothers before that idea was scrapped.

The family would be at the heart of Encanto, and everyone knows the more characters, the more exposition you need to describe each character, the more story arcs you need for each character. But they wanted to have the archetypal family personalities that occur in every family.

The golden child, the rock, the outsider, the one who is always trying to help others, the one who knows all the gossip and imbue these people with magical powers that enhance these stereotypes. Disney, when they heard about all of these characters, were slightly concerned though.

And as we've seen on this podcast many times, lots of characters can either dilute a movie or place the focus upon the most interesting of those many characters. I mean, who cares about Batman when you have Catwoman or the Riddler to watch?

It was unheard of in Disney to have so many characters, each with their own separate arcs. They suggested having five characters instead of 12 to alleviate the issue and to introduce each character without cumbersome exposition.

Lin Manuel Miranda wrote the song the Family Madrigal even before the second or third acts of Encanto had been completed. He was inspired by the song Belle from Beauty and the Beast as well as Colombian performers during their research trip to Colombia.

Bear in mind as well that Lin Manuel Miranda was also working on Tick Tick Boom at the same time. He likes to work on multiple projects at once.

Apparently it would be two years after writing the Family Madrigal that he was writing the final song, Waiting on a Miracle, which is inspired by the Colombian musicians like musical group 200D Cilantro in a small mountain town Barichara and the region's 12 string tipple which is 3/4 the size of a classical guitar. And for each sister, coincidentally, Lin Manuel Miranda had inspiration in real life for the eldest perfect sister Isabella.

He knew a Latin American botanist and for middle's strong sister Louisa. His sister Luz was six years older and the one who took on the responsibility, whereas he was the baby brother that got away with everything.

Miranda also picked up on the film's motif of butterflies and transformation to create the folk like Dos Uruguitas which is sung by Sebastian Yetra. It was the first song that Miranda had ever written, Beginning to end in Spanish.

It's also the only song to rival married life from up in emotional resonance. Seriously, I always blub like a baby at that particular scene in this movie.

Stephanie Beatriz would go on to voice her, and Tia Pepper was originally going to be Immortal. And as for Bruno, well, we don't talk about Oscar. Does it really work as well? And yes, Oscar was Bruno's original name.

Other options for the name for Bruno included Arlo, Marco, Anko, Andre and Emo in initial drafts of Encanto, we don't talk About Bruno didn't feature at all, and in early drafts they struggled to not let it become a buddy movie between Mirabel and Bruno.

But something clicked when the filmmakers reckoned with the repercussions of Bruno's gift, figuring that his precognition would likely turn the family and the townsfolk against him.

And rather than tell the story of Bruno's estrangement with exposition, they turn to Lin Manuel Miranda delivering the truth in song form and him disappearing after a family wedding and after Mirror Bell didn't get her gift when she was five, she's now 15, so that means Bruno has been gone for 10 years by this point, and he'd become almost like an urban legend, with everyone having their own misperception of him and what he did.

But the song also served to tell us a little more about other family members, about Tia Pepper and Tio Felix's wedding day, and also Dolores's admission that she hears him in the house.

The design for Bruno's room was partly inspired by the Salt Cathedral of Zipakira, which is a stunning underground cathedral in Colombia that's located inside a salt mine.

The river where Abuela Alma loses her husband Pedro, and is given sanctuary by the Encantone is based on a real multicolored river called Canio Cristales, which exists in Colombia. It is in the Department of Meta, inside a remote national park.

A special permit is needed to visit it, and only a few people are permitted to visit each year. The area that the Madrigal family lives was inspired by the Cocora Valley in Colombia.

Such was the production's intent to really focus on and showcase the beauty and Diversity of Colombia. 800 people in total worked on Encanto over five years.

I mentioned Waiting on a Miracle was the last song Lin Manuel Miranda wrote. Stephanie Beatrice recorded the song while she was overdue to give birth.

Visual effects innovations for the movie included A new eye shader which supported refraction and the development of a visual tool that emulates a hologram.

The heads of animation for Encanto, Renato do Onjos and Kira Lettermarki would state that Encanto was the hardest film they'd ever worked on, due to the multitude of characters, the complex animation styles, and bringing in the choreographers much earlier than usual. Choreographer Jamal Sims and assistant choreographer Kai Martinez created the dances within the film.

They were shot by animators who then used the footage as a reference to animate the same moves onto the characters.

Bruno's hologram was based on an existing hologram shader that had been developed by Hyperion for Big Hero 6, as well as a prototype of the teleportation shader Pixar had used for portals in Incredibles 2. Their approach was to develop a custom solution in Disney's Hyperion.

Renderer design said that all the artists had to do was set up the 3D geometry that they wanted to put inside of the hologram in a target space hidden somewhere in the overall scene, and then select the geometry in the main scene that they wanted to act as the entrance portal, select the geometry in the target space they wanted to act as the exit portal and link the two using the teleportation shader.

Going from the start of brainstorming and prototyping to delivering the final production version of the hologram shader took the team a little over a week, which is incredibly quick for a large new rendering feature.

Felipe Zapata, a Colombian botanist, was consulted by the production team in order to choose and illustrate the plants and flowers that Isabella could grow. His guidance made it possible to choose the right plants and display them in precise detail.

Isabella would end up producing sundew, stranga figs and a river of jacarandas. Realistic plants can also be seen in background scenery. These include cecropia trees and the well known but now endangered wax palm.

There are also economically significant plants shown as well, such as coffee, because Colombian coffee is delicious and it is one of Colombia's major exports. But there's one character that I haven't actually really mentioned yet, the biggest character in the whole movie, and that is the casita.

And the casita presented the team with additional difficulties. In addition to Maribel and her family, the casita was a character unto itself, and not merely just a setting where songs and dances are performed.

Encanto's associate production designer, Laura Le Beauvais, realized that the colors of the casita had to sing as loudly as the music and express as much as the dancing.

Bovet experimented with various color palettes from character costumes and drew inspiration from a variety of Colombian musicals and photographs, giving each room of the casita its own unique textile, handmade appearance and expression. She also took inspiration from Beetlejuice for a home that seemingly comes alive.

And speaking of color schemes, color is most definitely not random in this movie. Each character has their own color.

They chose magenta for the Abuela because she had lost her husband in a Colombian river that contains magenta algae. And since turquoise is a healing color, they gave it to Julieta, who is very calm and a healer.

Mirabel again, is the odd one out because she has no particular color that identifies her with the house. The house has many aesthetic flaws that are intended to convey genuineness and the genuine human struggle Mirabel has in binding her own identity.

Mirabel's costume incorporates nearly every color in her family, much like the house has many colors in common, but none of its own.

Casting this movie made casting almost entirely Latin American actors, the only exception, of course, being Alan Tudyk, who has a small cameo as a toucan.

And it also meant casting many voice actors of Colombian heritage, including Stephanie Beatriz, whose father is Colombian, John Leguizano, who was born in Bogota, Diane Guerrero and Hadassa, whose parents are both Colombian, and Wilma Valderrama, who spent his childhood in Colombia. Many of the cast reprise their roles for the Spanish dub of the film.

Stephanie Beatrice is obviously most well known as Detective Rosa Diaz in Brooklyn 9 9. And so when the production was casting, they originally thought of her for Luisa, thinking that she was tough like Rosa in real life.

When they realized that shock horror, she's just acting tough as Rosa Diaz, they instead cast her as Mirabel.

And this is one of those incredible animated movies that actually has a really important message behind all of the beauty and the color and the amazing songs and the wonderful characters, and that this is a movie about generational trauma and how we pass our trauma down.

Part of the team's multi year research process for Encanto included speaking with psychologists, trauma counsellors, mental health experts, family therapists, and dozens of families who helped them find the dynamics and struggles of the madrigals stemming from Abuela's constant state of survival mode and being so protective of the family and the family's gifts, which leads to the weight of expectation, which leads to cracks in relationships depicted by cracks in the casita, the fact that Abuela's past is always spoken of positively, in that they found the village. They built a community. Nothing negative is ever really talked about. So much so that when Mirabel doesn't get a gift, it's never talked about.

She's just seen as the disappointment of the family. And yet Mirabel tries to view it positively that she's worthy in other respects.

But her grandmother clearly thinks that she's a burden on the family because she can't give the family what the rest of them can, even though Abuela herself also has no gift. Abuela survived conflict, she was a refugee, she had three tiny babies to take care of, and she lost her beloved husband all in the same day.

She's scared to leave the encanto because stepping foot outside is reliving her trauma.

The threat of losing the casita, of going back to a violent world, of facing all that pain again, of seeing her children and grandchildren put in harm's way.

Basically, the threat of reliving the trauma, of losing someone she loves, ends up driving her toxicity and fuels her anxiety, as well as alienating Maribel, who doesn't have a gift to help protect the encanto.

So when Bruno sees a vision of Mirabel ending the magic and destroying the casita, it fuels her grandmother's alienation even more, which also fuels Bruno's self imposed isolation. And yet, it's Bruno and Mirabel, the two black sheep of the family, who actually end up breaking the cycle of toxicity.

Ultimately, by discussing their issues, talking about their problems, it repairs the intergenerational trauma. It repairs the casita, lets Abuela grieve her loss, and also lets Abuela realize that she's treated Mirabel awfully.

And she sees so much of herself in Mirabel, which has led to Abuela keeping her at arm's length. Now, let's be frankly honest. You can't just magically repair intergenerational trauma.

This is not a reflection of reality because it takes time to heal. Sometimes it can take years to heal. You have to go to a lot of therapy.

But this movie goes some way to show that even the most perfect person, the one who seemingly has everything worked out, the one who always posts perfect photos on Instagram, the one who seemingly has a perfect life, perfect job, perfect spouse, or perfect children. It's just not true.

The Madrigals put on an Instagram perfect life with all their magical gifts, but ultimately they are just as messed up as everyone else. The weight of expectation burdens all of us. Whether that's expectation of others or just yourself.

I always have a weight of expectation on me every episode. And that is to give you an obligatory Keanu reference.

If you don't know, this is part of the podcast where I try and link pretty much every movie that I feature with Keanu Reeves for no reason other than that he is the best of men.

Now I actually really thought about this for a long time and then I realized it was so obvious because the easiest way to link Keanu Reeves to this movie is that he starred with actual Bruno John Leguizamo in John Wick Chapter 2. Now obviously you can't really compare John Wick Chapter 2 and Encanto other than I enjoy both of them very much.

I wouldn't necessarily suggest that they are a good companion piece for each other. However, that is quite simply the most obvious and easiest way to link Keanu to this movie.

I've already spoken a little bit about the music, about Lin Manuel Miranda's process of writing the songs in Encanto, and obviously this was a movie that was made partly during the COVID 19 pandemic and so the soundtrack was recorded under strict COVID protocols. So the orchestra and the choir were divided and recorded in different sections and on different days.

They span the distance from Los Angeles to Colombia. Jermaine Franco composed the score for Encanto.

She is the first woman to compose music for a Walt Disney Animation Studios film, and also the first Latina to win a Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media with her score for Encanto.

All of Encanto's original songs were listed on the US Billboard Hot 100 and the soundtrack spent nine weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 chart in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. The album peaked at number one.

Surface pressure and We Don't Talk About Bruno have become the album's biggest singles, peaking at number eight and number four respectively. We Don't Talk About Bruno also topped the UK Singles chart for several weeks.

We Don't Talk About Bruno is Disney's first ever original song to top the charts here in the UK and is its second best selling song in the US behind A Whole New World from Aladdin. It surpassed Frozen's Let It Go as the highest charting Disney song. The Family Madrigal also charted here in the UK at number seven.

In addition to the Granny for Best Score Soundtrack, it also received the Annie Award for Outstanding Music in a Feature Film, the Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack, and Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for Dos Uruguitas.

So when Louisa didn't really get represented in Disney merchandising in favor of Mirabel and Isabella, it did draw some criticism, but Disney marketing has always favored the traditionally pretty female characters. There was also little merchandising of the Afro Colombian members of the family either like Antonio or Dolores.

So really, if we want to break generational curses, it might be a good idea for Disney to start with merchandising characters who are showing difference in representation. Just an idea. I know it's a bit out there, but let's just put it out there anyway.

The movie was released theatrically in the United States on the 24th of November, but in response to the COVID 19 pandemic, it had an exclusive 30 day theatrical run before being released on Disney on the 24th of December. But in those 30 days this movie did business.

On his first week of release it landed at third in the box office, having technically only been out a day at that point, but still earned $13.4 million. Ghostbusters Afterlife was the number one movie that week.

Its second week is shot up to number one, where it stayed for two weeks before dropping down to second on the release of west side Story and then down to third in its fifth week, which by that point it debuted on Disney Plus. Despite this, it still stayed around in the top 10 for two more weeks though, and continued to make money in cinemas.

It even jumped back up from 22nd at the box office to 14th in its 14th week of release.

On its 120 to 150 million dollar budget, Encanto made 96 million dollars domestically in the US and 160.7 million dollars internationally, for a total worldwide gross of 256.8 million dollars. Now it likely didn't quite break even depending on how Disney account for it.

And technically, this was in the middle of a global pandemic, so I still think this movie did exceptionally well.

It has a 92% of rotten tomatoes, with many critics praising the animation, the characters, story and Lin Manuel Miranda's songs. It was also praised for its Latin American representation and diversity and its depiction of family dynamics.

But the film's lack of a traditional villain, something Disney has been doing more and more in recent years, did come under criticism.

Out of 99 nominations, Encanto won 48 awards, including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, three Annie Awards for Best Character Animation Feature, Best Music Feature, and Best Storyboarding Feature. It also won the BAFTA for Best Animated Film and the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Animated. And we don't talk about sequels, no no, no.

And nor has anyone involved in the production.

Now I've never been to Colombia, but here in the UK I think we maybe have a different opinion on Latin American countries than somewhere like the US does. And what I mean by that is that US TV shows and movies tend to depict Colombia as violent drug lords or where some characters made comes from.

There never seemed to be any positive representation of Colombia in the media that I saw because that media came from the US and I guess here in the UK we don't meet very many Colombians. To me, Colombia gave us Shakira and so in my sheltered English upbringing, Colombia must be great because Shakira is great.

I should probably add that I never really watched Modern Family, so a character coming from Colombia played by Sofia Vergara also wasn't really on my radar. Disney has this history of Attempting to depict non English speaking or non European cultures. And their stuff mostly tends to be more miss than hit.

And it tends to be why their older stuff has content warnings for outdated language or opinions on Disney plus Disney have struggled in the past with handling different cultures or handling race. Even Moana has its criticisms from Pacific Islander communities. But at least Moana tried to include key Polynesian elements in Moana's story.

Hollywood has never really known how to depict Colombia, and it seems to me, going from think pieces on the Internet, at the very least, that they seem to have actually got it fairly right within Canto. Colombia as a country has a messy, violent history.

At least the last 200 years has been fraught with nine civil wars, the advent of communism and armed conflicts resulting in things the country is infamously known for, like drug trafficking, violence and trauma affects all Colombian families in a way, and so it makes sense that a movie set in the early 20th century would also reflect that suffering and pain, but in a palatable way that the whole family can understand.

Going back to what I mentioned in Turning Red about how you can depict these things in animation in a more palatable way than you can in live action, even today, so many people are fleeing war and persecution and ending up as refugees, they can't always find their own magical encanto.

So the fact we can see Colombia in its beauty, its culture, its wonder and its joy, as well as the music, the stories and the characters in a well researched movie that doesn't just depict Colombia, it respects Colombia and loves Colombia.

They could have chosen to focus on the conflict to the killed Pedro and caused Abuela's pain, but they chose to focus on the story of surviving and thriving.

And it's hard to comprehend a family member being, quote unquote, the villain or the antagonist having a rift in your family and feeling like you don't belong because you're different. It's hard.

But I love that this movie goes there and gives us a seemingly perfect family and then shows us the issues and cracks and lack of communication and understanding that happens in all families. As well as that weight of expectation, I can relate on different levels to different characters. Mostly Louisa, because I'm the strong one.

I'm not nervous. I'm as tough as the crust of the earth is.

But also Mirabel, the people pleaser, the one who just wants to make her family proud despite not following the same path as everyone else. My sister is Isabella, she just is. Except in my family on the eld, since she's the youngest. But my sister is the perfect Isabella.

Bruno is perhaps one of the most complex and interesting characters in the movie, so heavily burdened by his gift and by his love for his family that he excels himself, but not really, but exists in some lonely, resentful purgatory.

Bruno is easily what Mirabel could have ended up becoming, but unlike Bruno, Mirabel turns any resentment she may have into empathy for her sister Isabella and for her grandmother. Even though her grandmother has emotionally abused her for years for not meeting her expectations, Mirabel forgives her.

Mirabel breaks the cycle of abuse, of hurt people, hurting people.

Mirabel has the real gift Some of the other little things I love about this movie are the male characters Felix and Augustine, who are just so happy to be there that they embrace this life. Also with no powers but just love their winning and take on their surnames because they have zero toxic masculinity.

But mostly a huge thank you to this movie for showing so many different skin tones and educating people on the beauty and majesty of Colombia of having literally some of the catchiest songs that have come out in recent years on Disney movies. But most importantly, I now know that Columbia is more than just Shakira. But I want to end on this.

You are worth more than your gift, whatever that gift may be. Remember that. Thank you for listening.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on Encanto and thank you for your continued support of this podcast.

If you want to get involved and you want to help this podcast grow, you could leave a rating wherever you found this podcast or review or a rating and review. Both is good. You can also find me.

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And if you like this episode on Encanto, you might also like some previous episodes. I've done many episodes on Pixar movies and many episodes on animated movies full stop.

But the two that kind of came to mind when I thought of this one were episode 75 Coco and 282 Turning Red, which is the previous episode.

But there are a lot of similarities between Turning Red and Encanto, especially when you think of intergenerational trauma and passing down your trauma to your children. So the next episode don't make me throw this hummus. It's spicy.

We are moving away from Pixar and Disney and we're going to go to Laika and their second feature, the follow up to the excellent Coraline. This time though without Henry Selick. Norman Babcock is just a normal 11 year old kid who enjoys watching low budget horror movies with his grandma.

But his grandma is dead.

And coming up to the anniversary of the Blithe Hollow witch and the witch's curse that only Norman with his powers of talking to the dead can prevent. And when he fails, zombies arise from the dead and start meandering into the town.

The next episode of Animation season is gonna be on the movie ParaNorman. So please join me next week for the history and legacy of ParaNorman. Now, I always say this podcast is free and it always will be free.

However, unfortunately it's not free to make a podcast. So this podcast relies on the generous support of some wonderful listeners. If you wish to join them, you are under no obligation.

You can continue to listen to this podcast for free for as long as you want.

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They are Sade, Claudia, Simon, Laurel, Derek, Katie, Andy, Mike, Luke, Michael, Scott, Brendan, Lisa, Sam, Jack, Dave, Stuart, Nicholas, Zoe, Kev, Pete, Heather, Danny, Ali, Stu, Brett, Philippan, Michelle, Zenos, Sean, Rhino, Philip K, Adam, Elaine, Kyle, and Aaron. If you want to get in touch with me, you can.

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Or you can just fill out the contact form and say hi. You can also find work that I do at filmstories.co.uk, you can check out issues of the magazine and articles too. And finally,

Bye.