How I interpreted Bruno's role in the Madrigal family.
Encanto touched on a lot of the roles given to children in dysfunctional families, and the ones that have been mostly acknowledged by those who watched it were the Golden Child (Isabela), the Scapegoat (Mirabel), and the Hero (Luisa).
Many analysts interpreted Bruno as another Scapegoat, which isn't wrong, but something rubbed me differently about why he was treated worse and why Mirabel was treated worse as such.
Mirabel was the family scapegoat due to having no "gift", which is obviously meant to represent no clear talents or abilities in a child, so they automatically treated her worse because she wasn't seen as useful or helpful. She was seen as someone that didn't have anything to offer to the family at all; someone who didn't fit in.
Bruno was the family scapegoat because he had a "gift", representing a clear talent and ability in a child, but it was a gift that was seen by those around him with more obvious downsides than others. He was seen as someone who had something to offer the family, but what he offered wasn't seen as something that was good.
They're both Scapegoats, but for different reasons. Bruno is the child who was ostracized because even though he has a talent, it wasn't seen as a good or useful one, and Mirabel was the child who was ostracized because she doesn't have a clear talent to even be considered as good or useful in the first place.
Many relate to Mirabel because they feel the same as she was, without any big talents or abilities to offer and are perhaps more than a little lost in who they are.
Those who relate to Bruno (such as myself to an immense degree), on the other hand, relate to him because they feel that, just like him, they recognize themselves as having clear talents and abilities, but not ones that are necessarily seen as good enough or praised as much as others.
They're belittled as the Scapegoat because of what talent they have, not because they don't have a talent.
Bruno's talent is still wonderful, too! He's an oracle, a warning for oncoming storms and the one who can notify people to prepare themselves for things that they otherwise would have gone into completely off-guard and unaware. His talent, like many others, is only belittled because of the personal opinions of the people recieving from it. Bruno is a truly good, morally wholesome character, one of the best, in fact! Somewhere else, he could have been ended up as the Golden Child (not that being the Golden Child is a good thing, it's still a dysfunctional family role).
That's one of the biggest reasons Bruno is a really important character to me and countless others. It's good representation of an often-overlooked group of people.
There are the kids who can relate to Luisa who feel like they have to be strong enough, the kids who relate to Camilo who haven't truly discovered who they are yet, the kids who relate to Mirabel who are worried they don't have anything that makes them special, the kids who relate to Dolores who feel like they are stuck in the middle of all the family drama, the kids who relate to Isabela who feel like they have to be the perfect unproblematic child, and probably more!
But Bruno Madrigal is the character for the kids who are made to feel like their talents and passions aren't good enough by those who won't make the effort to understand their worth, and that is hard representation to find.
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