In the last few years, Disney and Pixar have shown a few stories showing the effects that
fear and anger can leave on a family. Between the release of Coco in 2017 and both Encanto
and Turning Red this year, audiences have been granted some relatable films discussing
generational trauma. Today, we want to go over these films and compare their content.
I’m Brad with WickedBinge and this is how Turning Red, Encanto and Coco explore Generational Trauma.
First off, what is generational trauma? According to health.com, it’s exactly as it sounds:
it’s a trauma that doesn’t just affect one person, but instead has an impact on the next
generation and the next. That explains the overall plot of these three films perfectly.
First off, all three movies have a Powerful Matriarch.
In Coco, we have Abuelita in the land of the living, and Mama Imelda in the world of the
dead. Abuelita set the scene in the first few minutes, driving into the audience how
important it was to live without music. Later Mama Imelda, as the one that initially set the rule,
was stern and initially unyielding. Both women pushed the life of a shoemaker onto their children
and grandchildren. While it was commendable for Mama Imelda to make a living from the work and
provide for her daughter on her own, Abuelita had little to no excuse for not allowing the family
to seek other career paths. Even if Miguel’s interest didn’t lie with becoming a musician,
there was a high chance that Abuelita would never have let him be anything
but a shoemaker if she could help it, just for the sake of tradition.
When it came to Encanto, the important task at hand was preserving the miracle.
Abuela Alma pressured her entire family to put all their focus into helping the community.
She piled on chore after chore and never once thought to check-in to see if the load was too
heavy a burden to bear. When it came to Isabela, Alma pushed her granddaughter
to be focused on marrying Mariano and bringing more life into the family, not paying any mind
to Isabela’s clear nervousness when Dolores mentioned just how many kids Mariano wanted.
Alma was also oblivious to the load Luisa was forced to carry, assuming that as the
strongest member of the Madrigal family, she would be able to handle anything.
Like in Coco, we could count two women as matriarchs in Turning Red: Ming for her household
and Wu for the whole family. While Wu wasn’t given as much screen time as her daughter, we still
have to acknowledge that she was the one who was calling the shots between Ming and the Aunties.
With Ming, Mei was facing a constant battle between what she truly wanted for herself
and what she had to do to please her mother. Much like Mirabel,
Mei fought to keep up appearances that she was doing her part, as the family expected.
She never took much time for herself outside of any hours dedicated to studying.
Instead, Mei spent her downtime cleaning and maintaining the temple in her family’s care.
While having pride in your culture and family is a great thing,
it’s not exactly normal for an eighth-grade girl to gush over how much dust her new
feather-duster picks up. Mei was expected to put her parents- mainly her mother- first in her life,
and it led to Mei neglecting her own interests and passions for fear of being disapproved of.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, Mei was then never told about the family’s connection with
the red panda. She wasn’t given any heads up on the change she would eventually experience
and when it all started, Mei was left feeling like she let her mother down.
Second, the movies all have the Protagonist Face the Matriarch.
In Coco, Miguel finally lashed out at his family,
running away from them in order to seek out Ernesto. When he faced Mama Imelda,
she explained why she made the choices she had and expressed that while it was
difficult for her to give up music, she did what she thought was best for her daughter.
Miguel’s insistence that Imelda shouldn’t make him choose between his passion for music
and his family caused Imelda to rethink her longstanding vendetta.
Yes, she does show contempt upon seeing Hector again, but when Miguel had pleaded with Imelda
to see things his way, there was a moment of clarity that was shown in Imelda’s expression.
Later on, after Miguel returned to the land of the living, he still had to confront Abuelita
as he attempted to get Mama Coco to remember Hector. Miguel wasn’t as straightforward with
his Abuelita as he had been with Imelda, but the method was still effective. Showing how
music could help Mama Coco, rather than hurting her as everyone had feared for decades, was an
excellent way to not only help Hector but to show that Miguel’s love of music was a good thing.
When it comes to Mirabel and the scene where she’s finally lashing out at Alma,
fans admitted to being on the edge of their seats,
with many fully expecting for Alma to strike Mirabel in a fit of anger.
Unlike Miguel and Mei who only really needed to stand their ground for their own sakes,
Mirabel wound up defending her sisters and Bruno as well as herself. She could
no longer handle being mistreated or thrown off to the side simply because she wasn’t
given a gift like the rest of the family. Certainly, it wasn’t fair for Mirabel to
be excluded because of something she was unable to have any control over.
The confrontation between Alma and Mirabel came in two parts, with the second interaction being
far calmer and more understanding than the initial argument. After nearly losing Mirabel when Casita
collapsed, Alma was able to admit that she had acted poorly in her desperate attempts to protect
everyone and keep the miracle alive. Upon hearing what truly happened all those years before,
Mirabel and Alma were able to better understand one another and clear the air.
Mei’s experience was similar to both Miguel's and Mirabel's in some aspects. Like Miguel,
Mei was torn to decide between what made her mother proud and what she genuinely wanted to
do with her time. She only had herself to defend, being the only one in the film shown to struggle
with the blessing/curse her family endured at the time. And like Miguel, Mei ultimately had more
than one person to convince of her choice: her mother Ming and her grandmother Wu.
But like Mirabel, Mei didn’t just have a single conversation with her mother. In fact,
we could say that Mei split up this conflict into three occasions. The first being when she refused
to complete the ritual, the second when she fought her mother at the concert, and the third when Ming
once again begged Mei to come with her to the other side, asking that Mei complete the ritual
alongside her and the other women in the family. With each interaction, Mei gained more confidence
and Ming gained a better understanding of why her daughter wanted to take a different path from her.
Finally, all three movies have an ending that shows A New Path.
By the end of Coco, we see that Miguel used his music to help Mama Coco and inspired Abuelita.
She was able to loosen her hold on the family and we see that since the events of the year prior,
multiple members of Miguel’s family took up playing an instrument of some sort.
Miguel didn’t only change his family’s mind when it came to music, however.
He also managed to convince Imelda to give Hector another chance at being a part of the family,
now that it was revealed why he never returned home in the first place.
With all the worry that Miguel’s love of playing the guitar would drive a wedge in the family,
it was his actions and determination that wound upbringing a lot to light,
bringing them all closer. Coco was even able to finally see her father again in the afterlife.
The Madrigals didn’t have any assurance that the miracle would return after the Casita fell.
As the town came together to help them all rebuild, the family had to adjust to a lot
of different things all at once. They no longer had their gifts to make their lives easier,
which meant that they had to look to Mirabel for leadership on how to thrive without magic.
They had to adjust to Bruno being outside of the walls, with the odd uncle helping through
his odd personalities. They had to adjust to the idea of finally accepting aid from the village
rather than being the ones who provided all of the protection and assistance.
When all was said and done and the magic returned, the family had managed to learn a
lot about what it meant to help and accept help from others. They gained a new appreciation for
Mirabel and the dynamic they had grown used to had completely shifted to offer something new.
With Mei, there were less obvious changes. By the end of the movie,
Ming, Wu and the Aunties had decided without much question
that while their red panda sides had been useful, they wanted them suppressed again.
Mei had to learn how to live the rest of her life with these new powers she was still adjusting to,
but she wasn’t shown to be the only one that grew from the experience.
Her mother was slowly learning to accept Mei’s friends as allies rather than as bad influences.
Mei was being given more freedom in the form of how much of the red panda she would manifest
and being given time away from the temple. Mei’s father was shown to be more active in helping with
the tourists and was hinted to be more vocal and involved with the things happening around them.
It may not have been the most dramatic change, but it fit the film.
Each of these protagonists was given a circumstance in which they were raised
to believe that things were set in stone and that another option was unthinkable. To go
outside the box meant to rock the boat and be the focus of frustration or anger. Of course,
none of these characters had wanted to leave their families behind or be seen as disappointments,
leaving them with difficult choices.
Many fans left these films wondering the same thing Miguel, Mirabel and Mei had:
Is it worth it to fight for what you want
if it means growing distant from what was once comfortable to settle for?
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our thoughts.
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and binge more of our videos. But most importantly, stay wicked.