"We may have our differences, but nothing's more important than family."
Coco leaves us with some refreshingly different messages from what we’re used to seeing.
"Children got to be free, to lead their own lives."
"This is the path I choose, father."
We're used to hearing a lot about following our hearts and chasing our dreams.
But Coco says that our individual ambitions are less important
than caring for our families and communities.
It teaches kids that death doesn’t have to be a scary thing that we all try to ignore.
In Coco, Death isn’t the end because family love lives on
even between the living and the dead.
So the movie is a really nice shift from the way a lot of us automatically think about
things.
If we take it to heart, we (both kids and adults) can have a healthier relationship
with death,
pass on good memories and traditions to future generations,
and -- in doing so -- we can live forever.
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In a lot of mainstream American society,
we tend to distract ourselves from the complex emotions surrounding death.
We try hard not to deal with them.
But the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos
lets people reflect on death together in a positive, communal way.
"Dia de los Muertos has begun!"
The holiday is framed as a way to celebrate family.
It emphasizes that you can have deep connections to ancestors you’ve never even met,
and active relationships with people you've known who have passed away.
By channeling this holiday, Coco can presumably reach kids
before they form an impression of death as inherently frightening.
When Miguel meets his dead ancestors, briefly we get some intimidating music,
Miguel is scared, the skeletons are scared of him as well.
"Do you mind?"
"No!"
but pretty quickly his skeletal ancestors become funny and lovable.
Coco is a sincere, moving portrait of unconditional love for family, both here and gone.
"Coco's themes of family are rooted completely in the same themes of family
that are a part of Dia de Muertos.
With Dia de Muertos there's an obligation to remember your loved ones
and to pass their stories to the next generation,
and ultimately to really ensure that their memory never fades."
When Miguel enters the land of the dead, Miguel's ancestors bond with him immediately,
as if they’ve known him his whole life.
And they have, because they've been watching him.
Spoiler coming up here.
We don't learn until the end of the movie that Hector and Miguel are related,
but they’re drawn to each other so effortlessly and lovingly
that when we learn of their familial bond, it just makes sense.
Even if it seems miraculous that the two happened to find each other,
Miguel has picked up fragments of Hector’s memory from his family --
he discovered Hector’s photo on the ofrenda.
So Hector and Miguel form a beautiful, time-and-space defying friendship
because of these hidden threads of memory that tie them together.
The biggest example of unconditional family love centers on the title character, Mama
Coco.
Miguel’s great grandma Coco has dementia, and barely speaks.
She doesn't seem to be the same person she once was,
she may not even really seem to be present,
but her family still loves her with all their hearts.
Miguel updates her on his life and speaks to her as if she understands,
even though she doesn’t remember him.
"I used to run like this, but now I run like this and it's way faster!"
And while Coco isn’t an active part of these conversations,
her presence is still felt and appreciated.
She’s a symbol of the strong connections we can have with family even after their minds
are fading,
and even after they have left us altogether.
As the eldest member of the Rivera family, the last living person who remembers Hector,
Mama Coco is the bridge between the living and the dead.
She turns out to be the key to the story,
because Miguel needs to help her remember her father
to save Hector from the Final Death of being forgotten.
When Coco shares her memories of her father’s music,
this keeps Hector alive for future generations and binds the whole living family stronger.
And at the end when Coco finally passes over that bridge between the living and the dead,
she’s as much a part of the family as ever.
So it speaks volumes that the movie is named after Mama Coco.
The whole movie is a loving tribute to her spirit which lives on in her family’s memory.
Keeping a family strong means caring for our elders
and respecting them even when their minds are leaving them,
and when their bodies are gone.
The message that love doesn’t end when somebody dies is a great comfort to kids and all of
us
as we face losing loved ones.
Coco also shows us that it’s up to the living to keep the dead from disappearing.
It’s our responsibility to put our ancestors’ pictures on the ofrenda
and actively remember the dead.
Coco makes the concept, “They’ll live on in our memories,” literal.
If someone's no longer remembered by any living people,
they undergo "The Final Death" and disappear permanently,
It’s a little dark to think about the “final death” of being forgotten,
but it also gives us some control.
By remembering our family, we prevent them from ever going away.
And if we want to live forever, we teach our kids to remember in the same way.
The film uses de la Cruz to explore questions of legacy,
how we want to be remembered,
and the love of the public world versus family.
Ernesto’s legacy is vain, superficial and fake.
Sure, he’s got lots of adoring fans who leave him offerings,
But his connection to the living is shallow.
He just wants to be worshipped like a god,
whereas the other ancestors care about a two-way connection,
keeping up an active relationship,
they follow what's going on in their living relatives' lives.
At the end of the movie, when de la Cruz is exposed for Hector’s murder
and his reputation is ruined,
he’s quickly rejected and forgotten by his fans.
So this kind of superficial admiration from a distance is fragile and can be suddenly
erased.
Being remembered by your family and loved ones is a more valuable resource,
because they truly know you and pass on real memories of you.
Even if they may be mad at you for things you do wrong, your family won’t forget you,
because they can't.
When Miguel’s family won't let him become a musician,
our American, individualist mindset leads us to assume this will be a story
about his parents learning to accept his true calling.
“None of them understands me.
I’m supposed to play music!”
We’ve seen it a lot before -- think Mulan,
"The greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter."
The Little Mermaid, Zootopia,
"You don't try anything new, you don't ever fail."
"I like trying actually."
Aladdin, Pocahontas, Tarzan, Brave, and Moana.
But Miguel realizes that his self-actualization isn’t what he values most.
He sees that de la Cruz became a murderer to pursue his self-interest.
“Seizing your moment,” can mean being terribly opportunistic,
to the point of hurting others.
Hector once chose to leave his family to pursue music,
and the resulting pain he caused traveled through generations.
So instead of the typical American story of the parents realizing
they were wrong not to accept their child for who he is,
we get the reverse.
We get the story of Miguel understanding that keeping his family together
is more important than any individual dream he might have.
When de la Cruz attempts to kill Miguel, Miguel is falling through the air --
and his dog Dante, who comes to represent his personal spirit animal tries to save him.
But Dante can’t save Miguel, and instead it’s the family’s much bigger spirit animal
who catches Miguel and saves his life.
So the symbolism is that the spirit of our family
is bigger and stronger than any individual spirit within the family.
"Family should always be united, and they should always care for each other no matter
what,
and love each other no matter what.
That's what I see in Miguel.
Even though he gets mad at them,
deep inside he still loves them and cares about them just like I do."
In the end,, Miguel doesn’t have to give up playing music,
because for him, and his family, music isn’t selfish the way it was for de la Cruz.
"I'm going to be a musician!"
Music is a way to express a deep familial love.
De la Cruz commodified the song “Remember Me” and turned it into a cheap plea to fans.
"Remember me / though I had to say goodbye / remember me."
But Hector wrote the song not for the world, but for Coco,
to help his daughter keep his memory alive even when they couldn’t be together.
Deep down for Miguel, music was never a rebellious self-assertion.
So it turned out that music mattered to Miguel this whole time
because it was a part of his shared family identity
that has been forgotten and neglected,
something he has the urge to renew before he even knows why.
So music becomes a key way for the living and the dead to connect even more deeply.
Coco teaches us not only that death is a part of life,
but also that by loving and embracing our deceased ancestors,
we can strengthen and revive our living family.
Family comforts us in the face of death,
"Here, have some more."
"No, gracias."
"[Gasp]"
"I mean...Si?"
It represents the legacy that really matters,
and it's the only thing that gives us a chance of being immortal.
"We don't know where we are..."
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