Let's Talk About Bruno

GeekTherapy · March 30, 2022, 3:04am

Originally published at: https://geektherapy.org/lets-talk-about-bruno/

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#315: The Crew gushes about Encanto, touching on family systems, perfectionism, and growth.

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Transcript

Josué Cardona 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network here at Geek Therapy. We believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves through the media we care about, my name is Josué Cardona. And I’m joined by Lara Taylor.

Lara Taylor 0:22
Hey.

Josué Cardona 0:23
And Link Keller.

Link Keller 0:24
Hello.

Josué Cardona 0:27
Link. I feel like if we don’t talk about Encanto you are going to burst

Link Keller 0:32
I’m gonna lose it. We gotta talk about Encanto.

Josué Cardona 0:39
Why? Why do you want to talk about this movie?

Link Keller 0:41
I am obsessed. It’s showed up on my for you page on tik tok with a bunch of people talking about how much they loved it and things that they noticed in the background. And I was like, this is interesting and cute. And this song we don’t talk about Bruno. This is fun. I’m enjoying this. I watched the movie. I loved it. So I watched it three more times. Yeah, so I just I think Encanto is a perfect movie for talking Geek Therapy stuff. We’re gonna get into spoilers cuz we got to talk about Bruno.

Josué Cardona 1:24
We do,

Lara Taylor 1:25
and Luisa and Isabella, and Mirabel and all of them.

Link Keller 1:31
Everybody, yes.

Josué Cardona 1:32
Yeah, yes. Yeah. Not, it’s a hell of a movie. Lots to talk about. To talk about. Yeah, I mean, there’s just so many themes. I’ve been, I’ve been thinking a lot about movies like this, or I guess what movies, it’s not too hard for, like shows that just cover so many different topics. It’s like, if we do one library entry for this thing, like, how long is that thing? How helpful is it if we list 27 Different themes, and

Lara Taylor 2:04
it’ll be helpful because someone will search for one of those themes and be like, Oh, I can hit that. And that and that. And that.

Josué Cardona 2:13
That’s, that’s, that’s the plan. That’s the idea. Yeah. So where do you want to start? Link, where do you where do you want to start?

Link Keller 2:22
I, let’s, let’s start more fun and loosey goosey, and then we’ll get into the grittier stuff. So

Lara Taylor 2:30
like the movie!

Link Keller 2:31
just like the movie, wait, what? Did you guys have a favorite song, let’s start there. My favorite song is surface pressure, which is Luisa’s song, and it is a song about feeling the need to be strong to do anything that your family requires of you anything that your community needs of you. And that is what gives you value as a person, and how awful that can feel. Where if if you’re not hitting 100% of what everybody is asking of you, then you are worthless, worth less. And there is a particular line in the song where she says, Oh, God, I have it written down. I feel worthless if I can’t be of service. And that I feel that so deeply?

Josué Cardona 3:30
drip drip of pressure? Yes. Yeah, he’s

Lara Taylor 3:33
we’re watching this movie at the driving and I just yelled out that’s me. In the middle of the song.

Link Keller 3:41
it me. Yes, absolutely.

Josué Cardona 3:45
Yeah. Lara, do you have a favorite song?

Lara Taylor 3:48
That was that was going to be my favorite song. It’s interesting, because when I went into go see them after we’d watch the movie, I was like, I liked all the songs but nothing really stuck in my head at the end, like you know how Moana had. We’re all go and then frozen had of course the I’m not even gonna name off the two that everybody sings. But, um, nothing really stuck in my head. And then after it hit Disney plus, everybody started singing. We don’t talk about Bruno. And I was like, Yep, okay, that’s the one that is the one to catch. If it’s not going to be surface pressure is going to be we don’t talk about Bruno like I was on the gondola. We have the at our zoo. There’s like a gondola that brings you up to the top of the hill. And we could hear people singing as they were passing us in the window. Like, we don’t talk about Bruno. It was great.

Link Keller 4:41
that’s so cute.

Lara Taylor 4:43
And then it got stuck in my head. So yeah, we don’t talk about bruno.

Link Keller 4:47
Yeah, that one is definitely an ear worm. And, and on the first listen, you’re like this is fun. And then when you go back and you listen again, there are so many little, so many little details in there that you don’t pick up on

Lara Taylor 5:00
And they start singing really quickly, like, I’m gonna need to put on captions to, like get more look at the lyrics

Link Keller 5:06
to guess why I always have captions on because I got to see those lyrics.

Josué Cardona 5:12
It’s like, oh, Dolores told us that song that she like knew all along my favorite is Dos Oruguitas. For sure

Lara Taylor 5:23
that one’s been stuck in my head today too, and makes me cry.

Link Keller 5:27
So sweet.

Josué Cardona 5:29
I’ve listened to that song. Many, many, many, many times

Link Keller 5:33
do you listen to the Spanish version or the English version?

Josué Cardona 5:36
I started listening to the English version in preparation for podcasting about about it. But mostly in Spanish. And a big reason is because of what you just said about the details. I, I’ve started thinking, I mean, I’ve started studying this movie. This movie has layers and the symbolism is is surprising to me. And I feel like I’ve never watched a Disney movie that was like this, where I could like keep going back and finding all these different pieces to it. Like, by my third viewing, it wasn’t the same movie that I watched the first time because I realized that I connected all these different it’s almost like an M Night Shyamalan movie. Like you don’t know what you know, and at the end you’re like what?

Lara Taylor 6:30
They’ve been telling us this all along. Yeah, and it’s not as obvious as frozen two’s like the first song tells you the end of the movie.

Josué Cardona 6:38
Yeah, well, yeah, well, it’s yeah, it’s funny

Lara Taylor 6:41
like explicitly

Josué Cardona 6:42
Yeah, yeah. Cuz Dos Oruguitas I feel that way now. Like, the more I listened to it, it wasn’t until a third time that I watched the movie that I was like, I saw it completely differently. But yeah, Dos Oruguitas is my favorite. For sure.

Link Keller 6:55
I Love. I love the detail in the intro song where Mirabel is introducing the family when she introduces abuela of well as part is in tune with the Dos Oruguitas song, which I did not pick up on the first time. The second time was like, oh, oh, that’s that’s her song. That’s her song. It’s her part in the song is that’s beautiful.

Josué Cardona 7:22
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. That’s my that’s my favorite. But but the whole all of the songs were really good. Like, I think, yeah, I like it. Do like some even, like, even like, Lion King was my favorite Disney movie for a very long time. And like, I never really liked the the scar song. What’s the?

Lara Taylor 7:45
be prepared

Josué Cardona 7:46
Be prepared, like, like, every time be prepared to jump. I was like, no, like, I don’t. I don’t love be prepared. But this here’s like, every I think I think every like every time a song comes on, I’m, I’m happy that the song is on. Yeah.

Lara Taylor 8:03
And someone I was talking to this week mentioned that like, we don’t talk about Bruno is on the radio, which hasn’t happened other than like the Demi Lovato version of Let It Go. Disney songs the movie The verse movie versions haven’t been just on the radio.

Josué Cardona 8:22
Oh, you mean Oh, you mean like

Lara Taylor 8:26
on radio station you turn on in the car?

Josué Cardona 8:28
like the actual version?

Link Keller 8:30
that’s wild

Lara Taylor 8:31
Yeah, yeah, the song from the movie not like stuff that plays during the credits that’s done by popular singers. The actual version from the movie is on the radio. Wow, cool.

Josué Cardona 8:42
Wow.

Link Keller 8:43
Yeah, I had heard I don’t think a couple of the songs were hitting Top Billboard whatever numbers but I assumed that was just from like, Spotify plays and stuff like

Josué Cardona 8:53
yeah, people are requesting them

Link Keller 8:55
that’s so cool.

Josué Cardona 8:56
Yeah, yeah.

Link Keller 8:57
I can’t imagine being in the car and having we don’t talk about Bruno Come on, I would lose my mind I shouldn’t be driving.

Lara Taylor 9:06
I can picture your driving. And then like, what is going on and

Link Keller 9:12
down the windows and making like prolonged eye contact with other drivers trying to get that like sing back with me? You do the Felix part. I’ll be Pepa Come on.

Josué Cardona 9:22
It’s kind of weird. If you have no idea where that’s coming from if you were just talking about like getting fat and fish dying and losing your hair like what’s it what’s going on?

Lara Taylor 9:34
My friend did a video the the Tik tok filter that flashes when you blink it switches between male and female. And she nailed the entire we don’t talk about bruno song doing that. It was impressive. I don’t know how many takes it took her.

Link Keller 9:52
That is impressive.

Josué Cardona 9:54
That’s pretty cool. Okay, yeah, music. Very good.

Link Keller 9:57
Very good. Animation, beautiful. every character it looks fantastic I the scene in the beginning where Antonio is hiding under the bed because he’s nervous and Mirabel goes to comfort him and seeing the two of them under the bed like I cried. They were so, so cute.

Lara Taylor 10:21
She was so perfect with him.

Link Keller 10:23
Oh, yes. She’s She’s I love Mirabel. She’s very sweet.

Lara Taylor 10:31
Yeah, and really good at holding off all those kids in there questions.

Link Keller 10:37
and That’s why children don’t have coffee.

Josué Cardona 10:40
her Powers denial. Well,

Lara Taylor 10:42
it’s interesting. I saw something because I watched Encanto again last night. And I’ve been looking at things and sending articles to you guys. And my Facebook feed is now full of like Screen Rant articles and like Easter egg things about Encanto and one thing that popped up earlier today was Mirabel’s dress, and how all their powers are on the dress. And then it’s just like Mirabel’s face, like her glasses and curly hair on that on the dress. And so she had her dress from the beginning tells you she does not have powers.

Josué Cardona 11:20
I disagree with that.

Link Keller 11:21
Her power is wearing really sick specs.

Lara Taylor 11:25
Yes. Yeah. We can. We can we can argue.

Josué Cardona 11:29
But I can I can I believe I can refute that statement. I’m confident.

Lara Taylor 11:36
Absolutely. Yes.

Josué Cardona 11:38
Across the board. Yeah, because actually, there are butterflies on her on her.

Lara Taylor 11:44
You’re right, you’re right.

Link Keller 11:47
And that’s actually that was one of the details I didn’t notice like all of the different types of like what is embroidered on her shirt and dress. But I did notice that there were different types of like different stitches of embroidery, which I thought was such a cool detail. Like the butterfly that’s on her shoulder. The wings are like loops, so they have like a 3d effect. It’s beautiful. I love that like that’s stuff that you can do with real embroidery on clothing. And we don’t get to see that very often. So is really cool to see it represented.

Josué Cardona 12:20
Yeah.

Lara Taylor 12:21
And Dolores His clothes are, like stitched with sound waves. That’s really cool.

Link Keller 12:27
Pepa’s outfit has sun beams and raindrops and lightning bolts on it and she wears the big Sun earrings.

Josué Cardona 12:34
Yep, yep. Yeah, that’s attention to detail is it’s almost infuriating. it’s so good. it’s really good. Yes. All right. So so so where do you want to start?

Link Keller 12:49
Um, let’s let’s talk about these delicious characters. I guess actually, let’s do a brief plot outline for anybody who hasn’t seen it. Family Madrigal. They live in the Encanto which is this. Valley, I guess would be a way to describe it, where this small community lives and the family madrigal lives in Casita, their house, which is magical, and has a personality of its own, which I love when Disney movies do Non sentient characters. Another example would be the the ocean in Moana where it’s like it has character it exists within the world and it affects plot and has character and I love that. Anyways, the family madrigal, they all have magical powers. Except for sweet, Mirabel. And she, I don’t know, she, she, she believes that the rest of the family also believes that about her. And they treat her differently because of that, not necessarily badly, but they treat her differently. And so do other people in the community. And so something is happening with house and their family is in trouble and Mirabel decides that even though she doesn’t have powers, this is what she needs to do. She needs to protect and save her family goes on a little adventure to do that. And discovers truths about her family that really contextualize the way that they treat each other and the way that they treat her. It’s, it’s great. The family characters are fantastic. Each of them is is so unique. And even when they only have a couple of lines, they feel like real 3d fully realized characters these feel like real people. You could get to know and share a meal with fight with real people. And I love that. I, I spent I spent a little while. And I still haven’t really settled on it, but trying to figure out the birth order of the cousins. Because the so there’s Abuela, grandma, and then she has triplets. Yep. And then one of those triples is Bruno who’s not included in the family at the beginning of the movie, and then two daughters. And then each of those two daughters have three kids. So there are six cousins. And because the, because the, the triplets are all the same birth order. I got hung up on trying to figure out what’s the birth order of the cousins. Honestly, it’s not really meaningful in any way. But

Josué Cardona 16:00
on pepa’s side it’s, it’s it’s obvious, I think, well, we say

Lara Taylor 16:05
isabela’s the oldest because they’re trying to marry her off.

Link Keller 16:08
I think Isabella is the oldest oldest but I can’t tell if then it goes Luisa or then it goes Dolores

Lara Taylor 16:18
redstuff definitely.

Link Keller 16:23
I don’t know that it necessarily matters. But I was like I gotta know I gotta know.

Josué Cardona 16:27
I was curious.

Link Keller 16:28
Because Mirabel is Is the baby in in her family. But Antonio is the baby he’s the youngest. And so he definitely gets treated more as the baby by everybody. But she gets treated as the baby most especially by her sisters. base base based on the one neighbor guy telling her like oh, the the last gift party was yours. That means that Camilo is also older than her. So it’s again, it doesn’t really matter I just kept just kept thinking about it. I just wanted to know.

Lara Taylor 17:06
Also, the only thing you can’t figure out is Luisa and Dolores

Link Keller 17:10
hmm, yeah. And Camilo, right he he could he could be older than Luisa I don’t think so. But he could be I think I think they’re probably sandwich together but anyways, a fun detail. Is the surface pressure Luisa song or she’s singing about that? I’m watching people on on social media. Argue about like, oh, yeah, that’s like, I’m the oldest sibling and that’s how I feel. And then people being like, well, I’m the youngest sibling and that’s how I feel it’s like she’s the middle she’s the middle sibling which is a very on brand for middle siblings Yeah, cracks me up I really like I I think I like Luisa is excluding main character, Mirabel? I think Luisa is my favorite of the cousins. I really like her arc of like, actually opening up about feeling all this pressure to be strong and to do everything that is asked of her, and how it’s like freaking her the fuck out. And she’s like, maybe if I wasn’t like, constantly trying so hard, like I could have like a moment of relaxation, a moment of joy. Like wouldn’t that be unimaginable for me? Haha,

Lara Taylor 18:36
I’m fine, but I’m fine.

Link Keller 18:37
I’m fine. I’m fine. And I’m not gonna slow down. I slowed down for a second and then I felt so guilty about slowing down that I like tripled it Yeah. I she

Josué Cardona 18:49
puts on such a show that when Mirabel is trying to find out if anybody knows. The Dolores is like, Luisa probably knows because she her eye was twitching. Like she doesn’t even like she’s

Lara Taylor 19:04
she doesn’t even blink.

Josué Cardona 19:05
She’s a brick wall. Like there’s nothing. But that is a sign that she was probably nervous. And I could hear her eye twitching all night. And so like that, that’s how that’s how, like, guarded she is right and how and how she’s trying to show that strength to to an extreme. Where something that subtle is a huge sign. No, yeah. It’s not easy.

Lara Taylor 19:36
And then when the dam breaks,

Josué Cardona 19:38
yeah,

Lara Taylor 19:39
it breaks.

Josué Cardona 19:40
Yeah,

Lara Taylor 19:41
yeah, she’s crying all over the place and storming off to her room.

Josué Cardona 19:47
Yeah, and I mean, and that whole song right like the when, when she’s talking about the weight of things. They are huge, right? Like they are gigantic. Like we’ve already seen her carrying donkeys and kicking a house over. And like moving boulders, but in Cali, right, but here, it’s like mountains are literally on top of her. Like she’s like, that’s when she’s telling Mirabel how she feels. She’s representing all that stuff. It’s like, just monuments. That’s how much weight she’s carrying. whew, helluva song.

Link Keller 20:25
Yeah,

Josué Cardona 20:26
yeah. very relatable character.

Link Keller 20:33
Yes,

Josué Cardona 20:34
yeah, no,

Link Keller 20:35
I Camilo didn’t get very much screen time but I do love the little details that he got.

Josué Cardona 20:42
First of all, okay, so this this blew my mind when somebody told me. Camilo is a chameleon

Lara Taylor 20:53
I love it.

Link Keller 20:54
Wow. Wowwee.

Josué Cardona 20:56
blew My mind. And I had already seen the movie three times. Someone told me

Link Keller 21:00
what is the word for chameleon in Spanish?

Josué Cardona 21:06
I’m not sure

Lara Taylor 21:11
lizard?

Josué Cardona 21:11
uh oh, Google

Josué Cardona 21:12
I’m not sure.

Link Keller 21:25
camaleón. I press the little sound button on Google. So I that was me trying hard to pronounce it right?

Josué Cardona 21:33
Yeah. camaleón. Yeah, yeah.

Link Keller 21:35
So yes, I think that that holds. Yeah, Camilo is the chameleon.

Josué Cardona 21:41
I think he that’s what he has embroidered on his clothes. Also, just like chameleons, like It’s not, it’s not. I’m telling you the level of detail in this movie is

Lara Taylor 21:50
ridiculous.

Josué Cardona 21:51
I know. It’s infuriating.

Lara Taylor 21:54
Like Disney typically does a lot of detail and like little easter eggs and stuff in movies. But yeah, this has a lot. a lot a lot

Josué Cardona 22:03
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With the chameleons like damn Yeah.

Link Keller 22:09
So yeah, I like

Josué Cardona 22:10
very much like this. This is a probably a good moment to mention, like everything you talked about in the movie, or when you talked about the movie, like, it’s also it’s set in Colombia. So in the country of Colombia, so like, this is a Hispanic family, right? As a Hispanic country, I get all that that is the, the setting and the tone and the culture that is being shown and, and represented. But it’s still a Disney movie, which made in the United States. And so like, it wasn’t made in Spanish and then translated to English. So like the Camilo chameleon thing is like, it makes sense because we’re still starting from English and then moving from there. Just um, I think there are things like, like I, I feel like Dos Oruguitas was written in Spanish and then translated to English. They’re small things like that, but for the most part, it’s English and then translate it to Spanish that’s why I think it’s okay. It’s an English it’s chameleon. That’s what it’s yeah. Okay, so So yeah, what else about Camilo

Link Keller 23:25
so Camilo’s power is he can transform into other people. And

Josué Cardona 23:31
shapeshifting

Link Keller 23:31
shape he’s a shapeshifter, which has a non binary person. you know that’s a favorite superpower. But I love the way when they when they when when Mirabel introduces him, she says a line about he wants to make you laugh. He’s like he’s a jokester. He is the he’s the little shit of the family. He gets away with lies, will troublemaker I love that. In the context of the family, he is useful. His power is useful when he transforms into an adult and that is set up where Abuela asks him to be I can’t remember the name of the other guy, but she says we need another of him and so he matches the dude and they hold up the banner so that they’re the same height. Yeah. And I think that’s really interesting. He’s like, he’s a kid teen somewhere in there. And his power is useful but only when he transforms into an adult and when the powers start to falter when casita is cracking up, he his head transforms into a baby and it’s it’s such a little detail of being like he’s he’s losing his usefulness because he can’t transform big and adult and mature anymore and instead he is transforming smaller and less sure himself and more concerned about like, Oh no, what’s going to happen to the family and and I love that little detail. Just plus it’s funny, he’s got a stupid little baby head.

Josué Cardona 25:04
When, when we first meet him the, like, we see his powers. There’s this woman who’s taking care of a baby. And he, he comes to help her. And he so he takes the baby, and like, starts rocking it. So the mom can rest and then the mom lays down but and he like he turns into the mom.

Lara Taylor 25:24
So the baby doesn’t know the difference.

Josué Cardona 25:26
The baby doesn’t know the difference. Right? And I think I think it it also goes with the theme that is kind of seen throughout where it’s like, there’s no room for like, we have to be perfect, right? Like there’s no room for like mistakes and things like that. So it’s like, you have the ability to stand in when even like, at least it’ll seem like this woman, she may be tired and stuff. Like we can’t have that. So like, you can be there and continue the the like, give some continuity, sort of like the baby, the baby can’t suffer, right? Like the baby can’t be without its mom for a second so that you’re gonna step in and do that. Please, thank you.

Link Keller 26:13
Yeah

Josué Cardona 26:14
he doesn’t he doesn’t get a song. Right. We don’t see him a lot he gets. He’s got a lot of fun moments

Lara Taylor 26:19
he got the short end of the stick out of all the characters I think.

Josué Cardona 26:22
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you know, yeah, like the,

Lara Taylor 26:28
but he has one of my favorite lines,

Josué Cardona 26:30
which one?

Link Keller 26:32
seven foot frame, rats along his back

Josué Cardona 26:36
That’s true.

Link Keller 26:37
that’s the best line in the whole movie

Lara Taylor 26:38
not that one, the one: what is it? Not a house.

Link Keller 26:45
What? I can’t say we don’t have a house. What is this? Not a house? Yeah, I love that. He’s, he’s He’s a little shit. He’s, he is allowed to be kind of a silly jerk, because his power allows him to transform into somebody else. And so it’s like, he has this like little narrow space of, he’s able to actually be himself.

Lara Taylor 27:14
And if you’re looking at family systems, you need the Joker to be able to deflect away

Link Keller 27:20
absolutely

Lara Taylor 27:21
all the horrible things going on in a family and all the secrets in the hard stuff.

Link Keller 27:27
absolutely

Josué Cardona 27:28
And he’s also though, I mean, he’s the only one who can reflect. Right? Like, he turns into the people. He’s like, Oh, this is what you sound like, right? Like, literally, like show up. Right? And like when he imitates people like he turns into them, right? He can show them what they what they look like.

Lara Taylor 27:50
Or not just what they look like but what people perceive people look like like when he turns into Bruno.

Josué Cardona 27:56
That’s a whole that’s a whole Yeah, the whole thing till we get to bruno.

Lara Taylor 28:02
Don’t worry, we’re gonna talk about Bruno.

Josué Cardona 28:04
Yeah.

Link Keller 28:06
Yes, oh man.

Josué Cardona 28:09
Okay, who’s next?

Link Keller 28:11
Let’s talk about isabela. isabel? isabela. The perfect golden child.

Josué Cardona 28:17
Absolutely.

Lara Taylor 28:18
holding everything together.

Link Keller 28:21
So many expectations placed upon her.

Josué Cardona 28:26
yeah Yeah,

Link Keller 28:27
she’s to the point where she she feels it is her duty to marry a dude, she’s not really into because that’s what the family needs. That’s what the town needs is for this marriage to happen. And she’s like, Okay, well, that’s the expectation. So by God I will raise to meet it. And then her song. What else can I do is so beautiful and seeing her have this breakthrough moment of being able to express to Mirabel, who in some ways she kind of resents because Mirabel doesn’t have power. She doesn’t have all of the same kinds of pressures that Isabela does. And so getting to express is like, what could I do if I like you Mirabel did not have all of these expectations placed upon me if I was allowed to just experiment and try things and see what happens. Like oh, what what a moment of getting to have insight into somebody who tries so hard to be what is expected of her and to do it well and beautifully and gracefully. And her just being like it’s fucking awful.

Josué Cardona 29:46
Yeah. There’s in the song, right like you just asked like, what would happen if like, I didn’t have to meet all these expectations, and and the song explicitly says she could grow. She could rise, right? It’s like, she can’t because because she’s expected to be something else so she can’t actually grow. And, and her power. Like separate? No, you’re gonna say something about that.

Link Keller 30:17
it’s I think that’s such a really important aspect in this movie is having that idea of if if you are not if you are perfect, you are not growing.

Josué Cardona 30:32
Yeah.

Link Keller 30:32
And so the value is in making mistakes and trying things that you’re not going to be good at maybe. And that is where you grow and you become a better person and you fall more in love with yourself.

Josué Cardona 30:47
Yeah.

Link Keller 30:48
And and holding yourself to perfect standards. Stunts you.

Josué Cardona 30:54
Yep.

Link Keller 30:54
Even Even if your family is like you’re doing great. This is exactly what we want your you’re meeting the expectation we have for you and therefore we are socially rewarding that internally she’s suffering because she can’t grow.

Josué Cardona 31:10
Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, they like we talked about Camilo possibly, you know, like, oh, he can fill in these these roles, right? That might be necessary. Luisa is super strong. And she is not only like holding things up, but like, she’s the one she’s the fixer, right like she is she is so strong. She’s able to fix anything that’s broken the moment anything is out of place, she can put it back in place. Isabela’s power is to basically make things beautiful, right? Like she adds flowers everything right? It’s like perfection, like

Lara Taylor 31:42
and how dare she makes succulents and sharp things.

Josué Cardona 31:47
But But like, there’s, there’s a, there’s a there’s a theme, right, like anything like we need to we need to fix things immediately. We need to make things look a certain way. Right? There’s this. There’s this

Lara Taylor 31:58
perceptions, like, other people’s view, what are people gonna think about us? Yeah,

Josué Cardona 32:05
yeah. I think it’s an illusion, right? It’s like it’s a huge. It’s all feeding into creating something. The, like you said the perception, right. But I’ve seen it as an illusion. I think I actually think that the, or at least the way I think about it now that the word Encanto you can translate it to enchantment. And enchantment is like a type of enchantment can be like an illusion, right? Like this magical version of something. And if you if you when you watch the movie, or you’ll hear Abuela say often, they sometimes they talk about the miracle and the miracles, like the gifts and the candle and stuff like that. But other times she’s talking about the Encanto. And, and when I when I hear her talk about that she’s like, Oh, no, we need to do this for the Encanto we need to and it’s like, we need to distance to happen to keep the appearance of perfection. We have to do this to keep the illusion up. We need to do this to keep this magical thinking. Going. Right? It’s It’s It’s all a lie. And and and all of that is feeding into, like, keeping that up. And so it’s so funny to watch the movie and hear her actually say, no no no that you’d have to get married. That’ll be so good for the Encanto it’s like, oh, yeah, yep. But yeah, but again, take it out. Yeah, but it’s like, oh, this is good for the lie, you know? Oh, that would be fantastic for the lie. Please continue. You know, let’s let’s add something to the lie. okay that’s not the that’s not the movie I saw the first time but it’s definitely

Lara Taylor 33:52
you’re like, Oh, she’s just talking about it really good for the community and they’ll be happy. Yeah.

Josué Cardona 33:57
Oh, no, no, that’s okay, so that’s Isabela

Link Keller 34:05
we talk about Dolores who is so cute. And her power is hearing she has super hearing which I imagine must be a fucking nightmare. But she I love that she is she’s so quiet. And she has such an expressive face. And she makes a little oop! noises so cute!

Lara Taylor 34:30
big eyes.

Link Keller 34:32
And we’ve you know, we find out that she got a prophecy from Bruno. That’s Asterix I will come back to that. Bruno told her that you know, her dream man was gonna be out of her reach and it is revealed that she chose someone else that she she likes. forgetting his name

Lara Taylor 34:58
Mariano

Link Keller 34:58
Mariano. He’s great too. He gets like two lines but he’s he draws draws attention when he’s on screen. But finding out that she cares for the guy who is supposed to be getting married to Isabela, and and Isabela is not even really into him. And I can’t imagine that Dolores doesn’t know that simply because she can hear everybody including Luisa’s eye twitches, she’s, I mean, she must she must have heard Isabela’s like heavy sigh as she walks out of the room, like Yeah, sure, Abuela I’ll get betrothed to this dude. She’s like, Oh, she doesn’t even like him. I like him. But then you can’t. You can’t argue with Abuela, you can’t go against Abuela so she doesn’t say anything. And let’s use that as a gearshift to talk about Abuela who is a fascinating character. Because she serves as an antagonist to Mirabel but she’s absolutely not the villain and anybody who says so is a fucking liar.

Josué Cardona 36:21
Or they just don’t, don’t get it.

Link Keller 36:24
No, the villain is colonisation. colonizers are the villain.

Josué Cardona 36:32
It’s, I’ve, you’re the second person I’ve heard say. colonization, why colonization,

Link Keller 36:40
because the colonizers show up and burn down their city. And literally chased them out of town.

Lara Taylor 36:48
they kill Abeulo

Link Keller 36:48
They are refugees, functionally fleeing. And then she watches her husband get fuckin stabbed, right in front of her.

Lara Taylor 36:58
That was a probably the darkest, like death scene that I’ve seen since like, Frollo in Hunchback of Notre Dame. Like, yeah, for real?

Josué Cardona 37:09
Yeah. Again, I’m just asking about the colonization because when I see that I don’t, they don’t seem different in the sense that like that they’re not they don’t seem like like a like an external force or country or

Lara Taylor 37:26
you’re thinking It’s more Colombian?

Josué Cardona 37:28
Yeah. It’s just like, it’s violence, right? It’s like It’s like violence in the country. And they’re and they are escaping. There. They’re just trying to find they’re just trying to find safety and security. Right. So they’re trying to escape.

Link Keller 37:43
I could be wrong about this, but I feel like the horses sort of denote european?

Josué Cardona 37:51
Look, I don’t know. There were horses in south america

Lara Taylor 37:56
I mean, in that part, yes. Yes.

Josué Cardona 38:00
I’m pretty Yeah, I’m pretty sure I get again, I’m I may be wrong, but it’s

Link Keller 38:04
a I admit, I could I could also be wrong, but yeah, that was what I when I saw the dudes on horse. shadowy figures on horses. I was like colonizers.

Josué Cardona 38:13
Yeah, yeah. No, never. I never thought of it that way. I’ve always, I always thought it was just, like, read like the like the the analogous situation is possibly alluding to history within Colombia itself. But but then the the tragedy, right, is that this group of people that and other refugees, they’re escaping violence, and it’s not necessarily like, because they seem they seemed like just people on horses, like setting stuff on fire. And it you know, like, we’re taking over kind of stuff. It’s like, yeah, so at the very least, there was definitely violence that they’re that they’re escaping from. Yeah, but I didn’t feel like it was again so like, yeah, like, Abuela, I don’t see that she is right, that the bad guy, right. She’s, she’s trying to protect her family, from what from like, from this violence. She’s trying to make sure that she can protect them.

Link Keller 39:09
and she did, she successfully did that? I mean, obviously, her husband died and that’s fucking heartbreaking. But she sort of unclear if it was her power, but she raised the walls of this valley, to protect them, and built a big house to protect her three children. And like she she did, she did protect them and and the fact that because of this trauma of watching her husband get slaughtered in front of her that she wasn’t able to ever get out of that. That moment of feeling like my purpose is 100% full stop, protect the family. And everything I do is protect the family. And, and because, like you visually they they show this in the movie by in the beginning when she is describing the miracle is a much softer, sweeter version where she, she, her husband dies, and she looks sad, but she’s holding the baby

Lara Taylor 40:14
he just kinda disappears,

Link Keller 40:16
disappears. And then the the mountains rise. And then when Mirabel is actually talking to her and we get to actually see it through Abuela’s eyes, and we see how devastated she is. And I tear up every frickin time watching her cry face, it’s so heartbreaking. But we get to actually see is like she she has this story that is been sanitized to tell to the children, but in her heart, it is still that huge, devastating moment that she has not been able to recover from. And part of that, I feel is because she has been telling the sanitized version is because she’s been focusing more on the miracle aspect. And not focusing on like, it happened because we we were in this terrible traumatic moment. And, and actually sitting in processing, like how awful that was, and how hard it must have been to be raising triplets by yourself, even within a magical house that can like clean itself and do all this cool shit is like how lonely that must have felt. And how I can absolutely like, relate to the idea of being like, you know what, I just I can’t deal with that. I can’t process that trauma. So instead, I’m gonna keep focusing on the thing that I know I can do protect the family, protect the family, and how while that is totally understandable. You can see how that can cause harm to other people. And I think that that is the the juiciest nugget in this movie is getting to actually have those moments where you get to see the way that your parents and your grandparents, they are people who have experienced a lifelong thing, things that you might know about. You might know some of you might know the sanitized version of the story, you don’t really know what’s going on inside of them, and how that deeply affects who they are and the choices they make and the way that they treat other people. And once you sort of come to that realization, it’s very much that moment of like, oh shit, parents are like humans, like they make mistakes, and they’re not perfect. And how much that can like totally rock your world is like a preteen or a teenager. And then it takes a little while to sort of extrapolate that it’s not just your parents, it’s every person that you’ve ever met. It’s like, oh, fuck, it’s complicated up in here. Ooh.

Link Keller 40:58
Oh, add one tiny thing to what you’re saying. Which is that? She is she’s definitely protecting her family. As a way of avoiding, right? What happened to them to her to happen to them?

Link Keller 43:11
Absolutely.

Josué Cardona 43:12
Idea of avoidance, right? When she when the when the, when the mountain breaks. She’s, she’s actually for the first time able to even physically go back to the place where the thing happened. Right. She’s been avoiding it. How? She literally created a barrier, right? Yeah, from it. And then when she goes there, she’s like, this is the first time I haven’t been here since it happened. Right? And while she’s physically doing that, right, she’s physically in the same place where it happened. Also, emotionally and mentally. This is the first time that she’s been back there. Which is why then we get that that version of the story, which is the the like, the unsanitized version, or the I like the sanitized version. I like I like the saying of that. Right. It’s the or maybe it’s the enchanted version of it. Right? It’s the fairy tale version

Lara Taylor 44:06
the less Disney-fied version.

Josué Cardona 44:07
Yeah. Yeah. Because because, again, I’ll refer to it before as as, as a lie or as an illusion. Right? But it is very much like

Lara Taylor 44:16
it’s the truth it’s just not

Josué Cardona 44:18
it’s, it’s the it’s the it’s the flowery.

Lara Taylor 44:20
the surface truth

Josué Cardona 44:21
Yeah, it’s a nice, you know, it’s the it’s the enchanted version of the truth. But once once the the enchantment is broken, and she comes face to face with being in that same place and being able to talk about it. That’s when we get Dos Oruguitas which is not the song that I thought it was at the beginning also, because at first I was like, Oh, it’s a love story. It’s like it’s a it’s a proper the lesser but I think that dos oruguitas is actually two stories. that are being told it the for the first part is and I mean, the visuals are there. It’s just It’s just when we first when she starts when the song starts, she’s we see her young with her husband. And we see the yellow butterfly like near him. And then the song like halfway through I think this is my perspective, I think then it it switches and the two, the two caterpillars and then two butterflies in the song. But the two caterpillars in the song are actually abuela and and Mirabel. Right, who both have they’re the butterflies in the song, right? Like they’re, they’re the ones that are breaking out of their cocoons, they are the ones that are unstuck. Like the whole beginning of the song is about being stuck, like you said before. Link, right, like, everybody’s stagnant and nobody’s growing and nobody’s changing. The song is like, showing a version of that in nature, right? And it’s talking about to caterpillar is who refuse to, like trying to avoid or resist getting into their cocoons. But then, like, once they’re there, like they don’t, didn’t want to break out of the cocoons, right? And it’s like, no, like,

Link Keller 46:19
you gotta

Josué Cardona 46:20
break out or they’re just gonna happen that, that’s, that’s life. That’s, that’s, that’s what happens, you have to break out of that. And, and so, I, you know, fuckin beautiful song like, and the way it’s the way it works in that whole scene, but, like, having that happen in that moment, right? It’s like, okay, we’re breaking out of this. And I think, I think you can, you can use that metaphor in so many different ways. Breaking out of like, the cycle of that trauma, breaking out of the denial of the truth breaking out of like, the, the avoidance, you know, just breaking out of that, just being willing to grow and change, right. Even their relationship changes that that right there. Because they’ve been at odds, you know, Abuela and Mirabel until until that moment. Yeah. And I agree, right? Like, there’s, there’s so many times when a movie, like, we’ve talked about this many times that Oh, like the villains are often the most interesting characters. Because they, because they have the most interesting backstories and, and great movies will show will have like a villain that you can almost empathize with. And that like you can understand, you can almost see yourself in that situation, right? Like, I can, I can see having come to that conclusion or decided to do that, because something happened to me or the world did this to me. Right. And, and this show doesn’t present a villain, right? It presents. a God damn authentic family. Right? Sure. Everybody’s got super powers and all that. But still, it is it is just a family. And it’s a family dynamic. That is, that is it’s everywhere, right? It’s always present. And, like in even even in this in this movie. Sure. Mirabel. And Abuela are the only ones that are like, at each other at some point. Right? And it seems like everybody else’s relationship is fine. Right? Like the matriarch of the family, like everybody’s, okay, they’re suffering on the inside, but like, they’re not fighting, right. There’s resentment and all that, you know, typical family stuff, but they’re not like clashing so much. We don’t see we don’t, you know, we don’t really see anybody fighting with with Abuela, and, you know, maybe like, Don’t Don’t tell her because we don’t want to upset her and things like that. And, you know, a lot of respect. But that’s that, that. That’s got to be the most relatable situation, right? People in your family? You don’t? There’s different relationships, and

Link Keller 49:03
you don’t talk back to them, you don’t question them. You don’t say no to them. You do what they ask of you. Because there’s a good reason for it. And it’s what we’ve always done.

Josué Cardona 49:14
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But then, but why though?

Lara Taylor 49:17
I just I, I just had a conversation about in a consultation group about parents and dealing with parents of young clients. And, like, Abuela is not the villain, right? Her trauma is the villain, right? The dynamics of the family, that’s the villain. But through most of the movie, she’s the person that I just I just the parent, I just want to shake just listen to your child. Just listen. Listen to your grandchild. She loves your kids, your kids, your grandkids they love you just just listen to them for a moment. Slow down. Have a conversation. And then she has this moment with Mirabel, and we get. We get what I would love for every parent, or grandparent family member to do and have like this realization about their own stuff and what they’ve brought to the table. And let’s have that conversation. And I’ve seen a lot of commentary online about how this, this movie shows the ideal that we are able to do that so many people don’t get that moment. And I think a lot of people relate to these characters and don’t get to have that resolution in that way.

Link Keller 50:40
In a movie about magic Abuela saying, I’m sorry, is probably the most unbelievable part

Lara Taylor 50:46
the real encanto

Link Keller 50:49
heartbreaking. Um, yeah, so

Josué Cardona 50:53
So this is, this is where I think. And I definitely first started thinking this way because of a tik tok that you sent me, Link, from J. S tubes, J tubes. And where she talked about how Mirabel does, like have an ability, right? And, and I’ve run with that, and like, come up with I get red string wall theory, like, I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff on that. But what you’re saying, Lara, I think, I think the reason why it it happens in the movie in this way, is because Mirabel is like the anti Abuela, like, literally, I do believe that that I do believe it’s actually a power and I think I think I think the movie presents it actually Telegraphs it multiple times. Right?

Lara Taylor 51:47
i buy it

Josué Cardona 51:47
Is that Mirabel is actually able to like her thing is to break down barriers, right?

Lara Taylor 51:53
She gets everybody to talk everybody.

Josué Cardona 51:55
Well, there’s right that version of it

Link Keller 51:56
not just talk but be more like

Lara Taylor 51:59
authentic

Josué Cardona 52:00
open

Link Keller 52:00
open and transparent about like the reality and not the sanitized version is like we get to see, you know, Luisa like how I feel is I am being crushed by huge boulders and the house casita it like that is a weight upon my back. And, and, yeah. mmm love that.

Josué Cardona 52:23
So so, like, you know, I can’t again, this is just the way I see it. Mirabel is like breaking cocoons open. She’s She’s breaking chrysalis, right? She’s breaking everybody out of the shells. And she’s able to, there’s that version of it, right where she’s, she just talks to people, I think the one we don’t talk about bruno is the is the most obvious one, right? Because Pepa was like, we don’t talk about bruno. But they just go into a song and dance. Right?

Lara Taylor 52:50
And tells the whole story of her wedding day

Josué Cardona 52:52
was the whole thing, right? And then so So, Abuela’s power is to create barriers and protecting, like create the cocoon, right? So when these two things come together, again, relisten Dos Oruguitas in English. And like, it’s just, it’s just that like, it talks about breaking down walls and barriers and breaking out of cocoons. Like that’s all that is. But there are moments in the movie where you see Meribel like, she, when she’s in in Bruno’s cave, like she, she stomps her foot and like, just breaks. You know, like a piece of the mountain. The cracks, like come out of like, where she’s at, right? Like, she’s literally she’s breaking things down. And I think that the door, like, that’s the like when she gets her power, the first thing that she does is destroy something that all of those rooms are designed to protect, and keep everybody safe. But they are like,

Link Keller 53:41
and keep in them in the house. right? Afraid. It’s like they have a whole town They could build more houses. I don’t. You could live next door to Abuela. It’s like no, no, no, you have a room there with all of your needs and wants and it’s reflective of you and it’s beautiful. And never leave never leave me.

Josué Cardona 54:00
Yeah, exactly.

Lara Taylor 54:01
Never, never leave her but also be separated. So you can’t really talk about anything without abuela hearing.

Josué Cardona 54:08
It’s also like a unique, right, it’s like it’s perfect. It’s made for you. It’s a cocoon. Of course, she touches the cocoon, and it just just

Link Keller 54:15
dissolves

Josué Cardona 54:15
all breaks apart. Yeah, so like at the end of the movie when she touches the door, like the whole house is transformed. All of the doors have disappeared from inside

Lara Taylor 54:24
of the house and and one door for all the whole family

Josué Cardona 54:27
including the ones that don’t have powers like even even I forgot her father’s name

Lara Taylor 54:34
the men that married into the fam

Link Keller 54:35
Félix and Agustín,

Josué Cardona 54:37
Agustín and, and Félix right, even they appear on the on the door because like they’re part of the family because all that other stuff like it’s still kept everybody separated, right? It’s like just the idea that they have, you know, they have a gift and you don’t and you know, it’s like all of these different ways of othering and creating division. And even I mean at the end um, we don’t we don’t see any thing has happened but like, what are the details of this, but even once Casita, like gets all the magic again, like even the rest of the town lights up, like the magic goes through everything and even the rest of the houses change. I like to think that everybody has power at the end of the movie throughout the whole throughout the whole town. But yeah, but it’s like, the Mirabel is the the anti Abuela right, like she’s breaking people. She’s breaking cocoons. while Abuela is building them? And, yeah, I mean, I was a, when I was an intern, counseling intern, I remember, a clinical supervisor once told me like you. All we can do for some of these kids is like help them survive their parents. It’s something that always stuck with me. And, and, you know, in a way, it’s like, you were saying, like, you want to shake some parents, right? Because they’re making it harder, right? Like they’re creating this this problem. And really, the only way to to help the family is if that particular person is willing to work on their stuff. And if they’re not

Lara Taylor 56:12
I tell clients all the time, that it’s not fair. Yeah, but it is the truth that the people who want to do better and are in therapy and want to things to change, have to do all the work and the person who’s causing the distress. Doesn’t. They don’t they don’t have to do anything.

Josué Cardona 56:32
yeah yeah. And so each of these, each of the members of the family there, they’re just trying to deal with it right, in their own way. They’re there that nobody can change Abuela’s mind. Not until Mirabel comes around. Right. And that’s it. She even says at the end, right? She’s like, because she’s doing the only thing that she knew how right I was like, reflected, you know, reactive, right is like, okay, so I know what I don’t want. So let’s, let’s not do any of that. So this is what we’re going to do from now on, she doesn’t know any other way. She’s not allowing any any. Again, even not necessarily consciously, you know, but but a part of her knows that they’re suffering. And we actually we know that we know it explicitly when when Mirabel is outside the window. And Abuela’s talking to, to, you know, to Pedro, and she’s like, if the family just knew how vulnerable everything like you can hear, she’s afraid. She’s very afraid. And so she won’t admit that. And but at the end of the movie, she says, I asked my Pedro for, for a miracle. Yeah. For help. And and he sent me you, right? Yeah. They said, You built all these cocoons, and you didn’t know what to do after that, like, you thought you were doing the best you could, right, which at a time, it was right, like in the immediate after. Like, it makes sense.

Link Keller 57:57
It’s contextual, right? It was absolutely the right thing to do in the beginning.

Josué Cardona 58:03
Or it made sense at the time

Link Keller 58:04
it was reactive, but it did protect her family. And the problem is, is that the world keeps changing. And so the thing that worked, that was necessary in that moment, isn’t always going to work and always be necessary later. And being able to be flexible, in that way. Is something parents got to learn. And it’s fucking hard. But it is so vital.

Josué Cardona 58:31
And usually the kid that comes around and is is is the Mirabel, right? The one who’s like gonna shake things up and do things differently. They don’t usually get like that kind of fairytale happy ending. At the end. It’s usually

Link Keller 58:45
it’s usually the Bruno treatment.

Josué Cardona 58:48
Yes, let’s talk about let’s talk about Bruno

Link Keller 58:51
Let’s talk about Bruno! Okay, but

Josué Cardona 58:54
okay. This is so important. And I like the way this flowed. I like the way this flowed, because and Bruno is a perfect example of this. All of these people have gifts. And instead of using them to really help each other out, right, they’re using them to just uphold this this

Lara Taylor 59:17
image,

Josué Cardona 59:18
the image the the the illusion

Link Keller 59:20
maintains the structure that abuela Yeah, it says this is how it’s supposed to be. And so everybody’s power. Everybody’s personhood serves to protect and maintain that.

Josué Cardona 59:31
Exactly in it doesn’t have to but it’s being used in that way. And and so of course Bruno’s is the is the the best way to explain this, because he can see the future. And every time he tells someone about the future, nobody, nobody, nobody thinks, Oh, that’s good information. Like I can, I

Link Keller 59:56
thank you

Josué Cardona 59:57
thank you, right. Everybody’s

Lara Taylor 59:59
like Thank you, My fish died.

Josué Cardona 1:00:01
Right? It’s like, oh, my fish is gonna die damn then like

Lara Taylor 1:00:05
Bruno’s fault.

Josué Cardona 1:00:06
No, but right, it’s again, instead of saying, Oh, I can, I can take this time now to like, let me take advantage of these last few hours that I have with my fish or maybe, maybe they’re sick, or something, I can do something. Yeah, it’s like, or just like, oh, let me thank you for giving me the chance to prepare. And, you know, do this a little different. No, it’s like, it’s your fault. It would never happen, right? It’s your fault on fat. It’s your fault. I lost my hair. It’s your fault. Bla bla, bla, bla stuff. And so anything that he said, people, people took it to mean something else. So it’s, it’s, it’s again, it’s like the most obvious version of how you have one thing, but everybody sees it as, or it’s being used in a completely different way. And nobody, apparently nobody was able to, like, just reframe things, you know, and like, maybe, maybe it’s, it’s good, until the point where we discover that everything that he said was was misconstrued, not even because even the wedding, right, where in the song, it says, Oh, he came over and ruined my wedding day because he said it was gonna rain. And at the end, like the moment he has a voice of his own, and people are willing to, to listen to him, the first thing he explained is like, I didn’t mean to ruin your wedding. Like, that’s not even. I didn’t even that wasn’t even a vision. Like I didn’t even I didn’t even say what you think I said, and then everybody creates this. Again, like, Camilo’s perfect line right over there. He’s just and even shows him physically, right. Like, he’s this monster, and he just hates the family. And he didn’t do anything good for anybody. And, and Bruno himself says, I, my, my power didn’t serve anybody. They didn’t serve the family. So there was no place for me.

Link Keller 1:01:56
So I think that’s all of the stuff that people say in the we don’t talk about Bruno song. I don’t think any of those were actual prophecies. I think that was just anytime Bruno talks to you is an opportunity for you to blame him for things that are going wrong. Dead. You shouldn’t keep a goldfish in a tiny bowl. That’s why your fish died is because you are keeping it in a habitat that’s does not suit it okay.

Josué Cardona 1:02:29
Like he’s gonna die if you don’t feed him. He said he was gonna die and he died.

Link Keller 1:02:32
so I stopped feeding feed him. Yeah, no, I I see Bruno as being much so much the scapegoat of the family, that the purpose he served to the family and to abuelo was to be the shit catcher. When things go wrong, it’s because of bruno. It’s because he’s not meeting our expectations or because he had a vision that isn’t what I wanted to hear. It’s his fault. We’re gonna put everything on him. And we see that in in real family dynamics all the time. We have the next generation Isabella’s the golden child. But usually, if you’ve got a golden child, that means somebody else gotta be the scapegoat. And so him removing himself from the situation. So he can’t be used in that way anymore. But still, like not wanting to actually leave and still wanting to be present with his family. Oh, breaks my heart. Sweet baby.

Josué Cardona 1:03:38
I think another possible version or that that I can imagine? It can be read as is that before Mirabel. Bruno was the the one who is like shining a light that you’re the one who is truthful, the one who can like he could see things as they really were. And he wasn’t lying. He wasn’t covering things up. He could literally his visions were like, word of truth, not just the future. Right. But like they were of truth.

Link Keller 1:04:13
Yeah.

Josué Cardona 1:04:13
And, and there’s no room for that in this family. Like we do not we do not talk about, ironically. Right. Like we don’t talk about Bruno now. But before like Bruno was talking about stuff that we just don’t talk about.

Lara Taylor 1:04:27
We don’t talk about what Bruno talks about.

Josué Cardona 1:04:29
We want to talk about we don’t just say no, you cannot point out these faults. You cannot point these things out because we we we’re going to fix them as soon as they come up and we’re going to pretend like they’re not here. So you can’t, stop it. You can’t say can’t talk about it. There’s a whole that there’s a lot of that in families too. You know, and like you cannot we’re not honest here. We can’t we don’t talk about that stuff. Yeah. So many layers. this movie

Link Keller 1:05:01
I wish we got more time with Pepa and Julieta and Bruno. Because I I think that their their relationships to each other must that must be so interesting because he hid from them his his triplets, his womb mates, and he hid from them for years.

Josué Cardona 1:05:26
That’s the part that makes me choke up the most out of it is when the three of them hug

Link Keller 1:05:31
Yes, me too. Oh, yeah. I and this is this is just my headcanon or whatever you want to call it. But that Julieta with her power to heal people. She is the most valuable of the triplets.

Josué Cardona 1:05:48
Fixer.

Link Keller 1:05:48
She’s the fixer. She is not just useful for the family. She’s useful for the whole Encanto everybody can come and get healed. Pepa is not not useful. could be but because it’s I think it’s not as it is not as focused is this as a positive, helpful beneficial thing for the whole town for the whole family. I imagine that Abuela doesn’t treat Pepa the same way that she treats Julieta. And Bruno is a scapegoat. And so I’m like, I want I want to know, before the grandkids showed up, I want to know, I want to know what that family dynamic was like.

Josué Cardona 1:06:34
Yeah. Well, I I think that Pepa has a lot of the same pressures that Luisa has. Because I think that Pepa’s has role is to again, everybody’s hiding the truth. Everybody’s changing things to make. To have the the Encanto right, the enchanted The the illusion. So she can like it doesn’t rain here. There’s no cloudy days. It’s Pepa’s has responsibility that every day is sunny and bright. And I I’m pretty sure that there’s a if I remember correctly, it’s Abuela who calls out Pepa and is like you got clouds like stop it. Like there’s no

Link Keller 1:07:18
put your power away. It is not currently serving the family. So yeah, take out a piece of you in and hide it away.

Josué Cardona 1:07:26
But it’s like we don’t we don’t have cloudy days

Lara Taylor 1:07:27
over the over the crops they need to water or whatever. You can’t have a rainy day everywhere, right? Yeah,

Josué Cardona 1:07:33
exactly. Exactly. So I think we’re

Lara Taylor 1:07:35
or Isabela can make things grow.

Josué Cardona 1:07:36
Yeah. Again, like you have all the ingredients to create a fantasy, right? You control the weather, you control the you fix things, you fix people, blah, blah, blah, right? Like all of these places, the pieces are there. To again serve abuela’s fantasy.

Lara Taylor 1:07:57
One thing I find interesting is that why can’t I remember her name? Mirabel’s mother is someone who seems to be the most well adjusted of all the people in the family in the family. Like, she even stands up to Abuela like you’re too hard on her

Link Keller 1:08:14
so that is what feeds into my whole like, she was the favored child of the triplets because she was the most useful. I’m doing air quotes, the most useful. And so she is the only one who can push back against abuela only a little bit, only a little bit. But she can she can she can stand up for her daughter a little bit. And I think that that that, that aspect, that kind of intergenerational like, Hey, can you can you like, can you be nice to my kid, mom, like, come on. It’s like, I have seen that in real life where people are like, trying to, I’m trying to get my mom to see where I’m at. So she can understand why I’m doing this with my kid. And it’s like, bashing my head against a wall. And I can only push so hard because I know where the line is and where she will shut down and it will no longer be productive for me to try and have this conversation with her. But then realizing like that, that in a way is enabling if you if you only push back so much and then you stop. And things don’t actually change. It’s like you’re just feeding into that. But you’re able to give yourself a little bit of an emotional like Well, I tried. I relish it right there. Yep. I want to briefly touch on applying a queer reading to Bruno, which is not there’s nothing in the movie that shows this. It’s just the way that people will treat gay family members and ostracize them. And then not just, you’re no longer welcome is like we do not talk about you. You You are not just like dead to us like, you’re gone. You’re vaporized. We will not talk about this at all. Definitely. I think that that’s an interesting framing of looking at the way that the family treats Bruno. And the process of trying to reintegrate him back into the family. Just fun little side thought there.

Josué Cardona 1:10:40
Yeah, I think there’s always got layers. I think it’s incredibly

Lara Taylor 1:10:47
layers makes you cry like onion.

Josué Cardona 1:10:49
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Got, um, I think it’s relatable on like, every character and get in multiple ways. And I mean, we even interpreted some things like just slightly differently. And yeah, it’s like you can the idea of Bruno, absolutely. You don’t you don’t have to. The version that that resonates with you doesn’t have to be the version where you were you, you know, you could see the future. Just be whatever reason, right. And in his case, again, the way the way I see it is that he he said things that people didn’t want to hear are things that we weren’t allowed to talk about, and that could be anything

Link Keller 1:11:34
He served as proof that there were other ways of looking at things other ways of existing, and abuela could not abide and therefore the rest of the family had to fall in line. Yeah, yeah. Bruno,

Josué Cardona 1:11:53
no. All right, any any other closing thoughts?

Link Keller 1:12:01
I really love the part where when Mirabel starts you know, going from the opening song introducing the family how great everybody is how magical and wonderful they are. And then at Antonio’s gift, and they take a family photo without her

Lara Taylor 1:12:22
and the two dads the dads like Agustín and Félix, they don’t have powers in they’re in it

Link Keller 1:12:30
they’re in the picture too it’s so rude I got so mad,

Lara Taylor 1:12:33
and Mirabel’s just aww.

Link Keller 1:12:34
Like she starts singing and the dish breaks the timing of of the song when she says I’m not fine. The like the timing changes. And it’s like this small shift, but God gets me in the fucking fields is so emotional. And it’s like it’s

Josué Cardona 1:12:54
show it’s also like time slows. Also Yeah, but it’s

Link Keller 1:12:57
showing how it’s like she her song is distinct from the family’s song but it still matches up she is still a part of that family. But the timings not quite right. I love that. I wish I wish I knew more about like music theory so I could describe it better but God it was so good. I love that part every time Yeah, also the scene where Mirabel puts together the the pieces of the prophecy and her dad walks in. And she’s like, I think I’m the problem and the face that she makes is so funny and cute and I fucking love it!!

Josué Cardona 1:13:39
is me??

Link Keller 1:13:43
so good. So good. That’s that’s probably my favorite part of the whole movie is her going me?

Lara Taylor 1:13:49
and then her father’s just like Don’t Don’t tell abuela

Link Keller 1:13:52
we’re just gonna stick a pin in this

Josué Cardona 1:13:56
one hide this right now. mostly because he’s afraid of Abuela Ah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Link Keller 1:14:04
Yeah, we didn’t talk too much about the dads but they are enablers. I think you have to be an enabler to marry into the family.

Josué Cardona 1:14:17
I don’t know Félix is so much though

Link Keller 1:14:19
he is though. the part the part where the breakfast scene and the animals are sitting in Abuela’s chair and she makes like a stink face. And Antonio goes like oh, I told him to keep the chair warm for you. You can see his dad Félix giving them the thumbs up of like yeah, good framing that like Abuela loves that like good job. You’re doing it you’re doing great kid. It’s exactly what I would have said is like oh, yeah, no, that’s that’s that’s a that is a learned behavior.

Josué Cardona 1:14:51
Yeah.

Link Keller 1:14:55
Great movie.

Josué Cardona 1:14:57
Yeah.

Lara Taylor 1:14:59
It’s a wonderful movie, lots of tears,

Josué Cardona 1:15:02
how often have your clients brought it up? Last couple months?

Lara Taylor 1:15:07
Not so much when it first came out in theaters when I had first seen it, and then more. So now that it’s on Disney plus

Josué Cardona 1:15:14
Pandemic’ll do that. Yeah.

Lara Taylor 1:15:16
Yeah, I had a very in depth conversation in the past week. That was really cool about different characters.

Josué Cardona 1:15:24
Yeah.

Lara Taylor 1:15:24
And who people relate to so. Little bits of like, I have a lot of young, high school and college students who are very like, feeling the pressure to get into a good school, get good grades. And so they relate a lot to the Luisa’s of the world. And, and honestly, some Mirabels. So

Josué Cardona 1:15:55
yeah. I’m sure lots of Bruno’s too. Yeah. Yeah. Just

Lara Taylor 1:16:04
there’s a meme that’s going around this. Like, it’s got the inside out characters. It’s like, point to your emotion. And then it has the family photo from Encanto point to your family role.

Link Keller 1:16:20
Oh, my God, that’s perfect.

Josué Cardona 1:16:21
that’s Excellent. Yep. Yep. That is really good

Link Keller 1:16:24
we’re getting rid of Myers Briggs. This is the new new categorization.

Lara Taylor 1:16:28
For real real.

Josué Cardona 1:16:30
That’s your new intake process. Oh, yeah. Just two pictures

Lara Taylor 1:16:34
Who’s your Encanto character?

Josué Cardona 1:16:36
Yeah. So good. Yeah. So we’ve had discussion our homework is to create a library entry for it. We have to that’s the whole point. Do get it we got to make this helpful for for more people. I think there’s so much here that is helpful to talk about, again, just things that we’re seeing on screen that are a hell of a conversation starters. Very helpful stuff. I think just such a great movie. If you want to hear more discussion about this, check out our Disney podcast, the happiest pod on Earth. Where there’s a two hour discussion of the movie with very little overlap about from what just happened in this conversation.

Lara Taylor 1:17:28
I also hear that hero nation is going to have an Encanto episode

Josué Cardona 1:17:34
uh yeah check it out

Lara Taylor 1:17:37
there was a conversation in the Facebook group about this and Gian Ramos was like it’s an anime. We can do it on Otaku Ryoho.

Josué Cardona 1:17:47
I am on the I am on the happiest pod on Earth episode two. So happy to come on all the rest you know go to happiest pod on earth to hear my reactions to seeing in different languages and talking about the choice of words across versions and it gets it gets

Lara Taylor 1:18:07
there’s another tik tok about that too.

Josué Cardona 1:18:10
Yeah, yeah, there’s a there’s a lot there’s a lot of discussion on that. And for for more Geek Therapy, visit geek therapy.org check the show notes for all of our community spaces. REmember to geek out and do good and we’ll be back soon

Link Keller 1:18:31
mmBYEeee

Josué Cardona 1:18:33
Geek Therapy is a 501 C three nonprofit organization dedicated to making the world a better place through geek culture. To learn more about our mission and become a supporter, visit geek therapy.org

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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Characters / Media

Encanto
Moana
Frozen
The Lion King
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Inside Out

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Themes / Topics

Conversation Topics:

* Change
* Catharsis
* Cultural representation
* Death
* Difficult emotions
* Family Dynamics
* Feeling alone
* Finding Oneself/Identity Development
* Inter-generational Trauma
* Honesty/Lies
* Problem Solving
* Standing up for others
* Strong female role models
* Standing up for oneself

Relatable Experience:

* Avoidance
* Acceptance
* Crushing Expectations
* Death
* Growth
* New Life Event (New Rules)
* Perfectionism
* Scapegoat
* Trauma