If I see anybody ship Mirabel with a member of her family one more time I’m going to throw fucking hands with somebody
Other than that have a happy new years!
Update: After I made this tumblr just started feeding me a bunch of stuff from the tag madrigalcest. There are so many accounts of proshippers shipping mirabel/julieta, camilo/antonio, pepa/camilo and it’s honestly fucking gross. Get some help.
I still can’t believe that after seven months of discourse about this movie, so many people in this fandom fail to understand nuance of any kind, despite the fact that the entire plot is nuanced.
So:
Isabela and Mirabel were both wrong. Mirabel never made an effort to understand Isabela, and Isabela was straight up cruel to Mirabel at times.
Abuela Alma was the antagonist, but she wasn’t the villain- and yes there is a difference. I made a post about it when the movie came out, but she is an antagonist by definition, meaning she gets in the way of the protagonist’s goals, but she wasn’t downright evil, which is what a villain is.
The family loves Mirabel and Bruno- but they were also wrong in how they talked to and about them. Believe it or not, both can be true at once.
Mirabel’s attitude towards Alma towards the end wasn’t unrealistic, and the thing is, we don’t know if she actually forgave Alma, she did understand where she was coming from, but not once did the words, “Abuela, I forgive you” leave her mouth, and that’s okay! Because healing does take time, but Abuela wasn’t unforgivable, and Mirabel not completely cutting her off is not a bad ending wtf?!
I think a key thing in a lot of these discussions is that generational trauma is a bitch, but it’s not an excuse, and it’s important to be able to recognize it to be able to break it.
The Encanto Neurodivergent Discourse: A Retrospective (Kinda)
So I was thinking back on the Encanto neurodivergent discourse that occurred after the movie came out, and I realized that there was a huge misunderstanding between the two sides that caused the main part of the discourse. So I decided to do a small retrospective type thing on this discourse, my opinions, and where each side went wrong/misunderstood the other’s argument.
So, first let’s start with the elephant in the room: Bruno. If you’ve seen some of my posts on this topic, you know where I stood/stand. Of course, my opinions have slightly altered to become more neutral (or at least softer) on this particular point, but I would still like to explain and unpack where each side went wrong here.
In my personal experience, the reason that multiple neurodivergent people believe/believed that Bruno is neurodivergent isn’t because of his superstitions, but because of multiple of his other mannerisms, as well as how it ties to one of the themes of the movie, or at least what he represents in terms of the main theme. I originally thought to myself, “oh my god, this bitch be autistic,” not when he started doing the rituals, but actually when he was first introduced and how he spoke to Mirabel. He stared at her for a few seconds before abruptly saying “bye,” and brushing past her. I (and others) have actually done this in real life, sometimes mid conversation.
His speaking mannerisms are also very familiar, with the way he rambles and how his phrases things, as well as how his sentence structures flow. And when he was explaining stuff about his visions, we realize that many of the visions mentioned in “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” were likely just regular predictions, showing that he is likely very blunt. The wedding incident, as he explained, was mainly just him not at all reading the room or knowing how to properly comfort his sister. This is common for people with things like autism, and likely other neurodivergent things that affect socializing. It’s less about the rituals, and more about the socialization style.
Now onto to talking about how OCD works and why Bruno’s rituals are seen as parts of OCD. I myself have OCD (very mild in terms of most rituals, but very intense in terms of intrusive thoughts, so highly stressful) and a good understanding of the disorder, so I believe I can add my two cents in a credible manner.
OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) is a neurological condition in which an individual will experience unwanted, excessing, persistent, recurring thoughts that will cause the person to engage in repetitive behaviors in order to diminish the amount/intensity of the thoughts.
The reason people felt that Bruno likely had OCD was not really because of the rituals themselves, but how often Bruno did them and when.
Most people would perform good luck rituals if they saw a sign that something bad was going to happen. For example, breaking a mirror is bad luck, so it would be reasonable to do something that would ward off that bad luck. You could also do such rituals if you needed extra good luck for something, like an important test. I myself do this sometimes (I’m not superstitious, but I’m also kinda superstitious), and it has nothing to do with my OCD.
But Bruno doesn’t seem to just do it when bad luck comes around, or when he needs good luck. He seems to do it a lot more excessively than most people, and it seems that he believes that there is always bad luck in the air. He seems to be doing these rituals repetitively.
And I honestly think that, because his rituals originate from his culture, it makes for better representation. You see, OCD rituals typically aren’t completely random. While things like counting tiles can be “random” rituals, the most likely way OCD will manifest is tied to the nature of some of the intrusive thoughts, as well as some of the individual’s other fears. Their rituals will then often be tied to something familiar or even something comforting. While this is not always the case, it can be. For example, say someone has OCD, and a majority of their intrusive thoughts revolve around germs. This may cause them to persistently clean their hands, and they will do this repetitively, even when they have no reasonable reason to believe that they are “contaminated.”
In Bruno’s case, his thoughts most likely seem to be that he is bad luck, causes bad luck, or bad luck is at every turn. These thoughts are likely constant and persistent, so he feels a consistent need to ward off bad luck. This is why he will perform rituals known to cause good luck and ward off bad luck, just like washing your hands will make germs go away. That’s why I think he has OCD.
It also adds to his theme in the movie, which a lot of neurodivergent people can relate to: being an outcast in the family, the one who acts strangely, the one who seems to be “embarrassing” to the family, the one that no one talks about (or they talk too much about). I have family members who can relate to this, because though we have multiple autistic folks in the extended family tree, not many in said tree seem to fully understand what it is like to be on the spectrum or generally neurodivergent. I see multiple of my family members who are like Bruno in that specific way, and it kinda made me cry.
So it makes a lot of sense why people would view him that way.
But here’s where things went wrong. First, many neurodivergent people got so excited about the prospect of having good representation, they got a bit carried away, and, from what I’ve heard, started saying that the movie was about neurodivergent representation, or they completely ignored the Colombian representation. This was obviously very irritating to many Colombians, as this movie was very significant in terms of Colombian representation, and to ignore that was insulting.
When some Colombians started telling people that these rituals were actually a part of Colombian culture, a small, yet significant miscommunication/error occurred. Some of the more (I’m assuming) neurotypical Colombians seemed to assume that those headcanoning Bruno as neurodivergent were basing it solely on his rituals. From that assumption rose a (pretty reasonable) assumption that others saw Colombian superstitions as a whole as solely an OCD ritual rather than a cultural one.
However, though these superstitions originated from Colombia (and I’m assuming other Latin American countries?), they are not unfamiliar to other countries and cultures. Even the least-Latino people I know were familiar with knocking on wood, crossing your fingers, or throwing salt over your shoulder for good luck. Many of them did it themselves. So I’m pretty sure that most people making the headcanons didn’t see the rituals as “exotic” or “strange”, but it is perfectly reasonable to assume that they did.
A lot of non-Latino and non-Colombian folks were not completely familiar with Colombian culture or some little details they added to the film, and people who aren’t familiar with certain cultures tend to do that, which is frustrating. And there were definitely quite a lot of people in the fanbase who were constantly ignoring and brushing aside the Colombian aspects of the film.
But instead of trying to clear this matter up and explain why many neurodivergent people saw Bruno’s rituals as OCD rituals, most people immediately jumped to a defensive position, and became dismissive of their concerns over how people were portraying Colombian culture and even ignoring very valid points on how people were brushing over the importance of cultural representation in the film, because whether you like it or not, I will say that the primary representation in the film was cultural.
So many Colombians ended up feeling frustrated, because instead of having a proper conversation about how to interpret this part of Bruno’s character and see why people are perceiving him that way, many Colombian voices and concerns were drowned out, ignored, or even dismissed. Some people even dismissed Colombian culture entirely, and I remember seeing a few people basically say that those rituals weren’t actually a part of Colombian culture, which is a horrible thing to do/say.
The aggressive backlash to the points on cultural representation caused a responsive backlash from particularly frustrated Colombian voices. Though the loudest voices were likely the minority, they still had a strong negative impact. The loudest and most extreme voices essentially began dismissing neurodivergent voices, and even made some very ableist comments. This particular backlash (at least in many of the circles I was in) eventually began drowning out neurodivergent voices who were more willing to explain their stance, which caused its own wave of frustration, etc.
That was the main issue with that particular discourse.
Now for Dolores, that is a whole other story. From what I could find, the main (and lowkey only?) reason that people believed Dolores is neurodivergent is because of her “hm!” that she makes throughout the movie. Some say that this is a tic, others that this is a stim. I think some of us jumped to that conclusion way too quickly. Multiple Colombians explained that that is actually a cultural thing, something that many people do quite often. And they are likely right that this is not a sign of Dolores being neurodivergent. First off, she only makes this noise during very specific moments. If you replaced the sound with “huh!” or even “oh well!”, it wouldn’t feel that out of place.
It is a response to situations, and specifically when she ends certain statements. So it is less random than a tic. She also never really uses it as a self soothing mechanism or a way to express certain emotions, which is what stims are mainly for. So we can likely rule out stimming. So it is perfectly reasonable for many Colombian folks to be frustrated about this, because it takes one trait and turns it into something else rather than a cultural element.
I think the reason some people may have jumped to the conclusion that it was a stim is because it is actually a very soothing sound that actually became a minor stim for me after I heard it. I don’t quite “copy” some people’s stims, but I may see/hear one, think it looks calming, do the thing, and then it becomes something that evolves into a stim. This is likely the reason that people thought that Dolores is neurodivergent: because they have/like that particular potential stim (or tic).
Doesn’t really make it any better though, and it is probably pretty annoying to those who know that it’s most likely not a stim or tic in Dolores’ case. Especially since some neurodivergent folks were dismissing Colombian culture in the Bruno discourse, and it gets really frustrating and annoying after a while (or even the second it happens). Having every aspect of one’s culture be labelled as something else is uncomfortable, especially when (I assume) many of the people making these headcanons were White Americans who know nothing about Colombia or even Latin America.
So that is where the neurodivergent side of the discourse were the most in the wrong.
For little things like Neurodivergent Mirabel headcanons? Eh, they seem to be more obscure and are truly just headcanons. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone try to actively prove that she or any other characters are neurodivergent, it’s more just a basic neurodivergent headcanon like any other.
I won’t even get into what went wrong with the “Lesbian Isabella” discourse (especially since I didn’t really pay attention to that one, and this post is about the neurodivergent discourse), but all I’ll say on that is that Colombian lesbians should probably be the ones to decide whether or not we should write Lesbian Isabella stuff. I personally think it can be harmless to portray a character as queer whether they are actually queer or not in canon, but for cases like Encanto, which takes place in a specific country with a specific culture, I think we should always consider what it is like to be queer in that specific country and culture. Not every queer community across the world is going to be the same, and we need to respect that. A queer Colombian will have a very different experience from a, for example, queer American.
This can honestly apply to all the discourse. The main reason I like the idea of Bruno being neurodivergent is because, as I said in a poem I wrote here on Tumblr, I have an autistic Colombian American older cousin, and her heritage affects her experience with that part of her identity. Most autistic portrayals we see in the media are from a White (and non-Hispanic) lens, and most of the time, they’re not even that good! So for a Colombian person to be seen in that way is amazing. But that type of representation is mainly for those whose intersectionality is never represented. We need to show and respect that intersectionality as much as possible, and should be careful with how we portray someone with that type of intersectional experience.
But enough on that. If you’re reading this part, thank you for reading this giant post analyzing and explaining this specific subject. I hope you enjoyed, and please add your thoughts in the replies and reblogs!
I was really sus to watch Encanto. I had glimpsed a few ads on the interweb, and I figured it was gonna be some weird, new-agey, everyone-finds-the-power-they-need-deep-within-themselves (like we've never heard that one before), movie that I really wouldn't like, but then I actually watched it and it was so different from what I expected. The absolute definition of a pleasant surprise.
2. The Villain
My second favorite thing about Encanto was the "villain" and the fact that there was no villain. The only real "villain" of Encanto, was the pain within their family.
Idk if this was actually what they were trying to convey, but what I envisioned watching the movie was that when Casita started cracking, it was like a visual representation of how everyone in the family was carrying and burying so much pain for the sake of Abuela and the rest of the family, and trying to pretend that everything was fine, even though they were dying inside. To me the Casita was like a physical manifestation of the family. They were all trying so hard to pretend that everything was okay, but they were still falling apart because so much pretending really does take a toll, ("watch as she buckles and bends but never breaks"). You can see the house beginning to crack as the family is put under more and more pressure, and you can see how the cracks start to heal, like say during What More Can I Do when Isabella realizes that she doesn't have to be exactly what her family wants all the time and she's allowed to be her own unique person. And then how the house finally collapses under all the anger and discord, but they're able to rebuild it once they reunite. The fact that the Madrigal's biggest enemy was the ways that they had hurt each other and couldn't be totally united because of it, was very huge to me, and probably other people like me who deal with very loving, caring families who have still managed to hurt them.
3. The Plot
The whole point of this movie was that the Madrigal's had been given a very special gift and they were supposed to use that gift to help others; but if they didn't truly love and care for each other and admit their mistakes and help each other and support each other, they couldn't utilize their gift to its full potential.
I loved that instead of one character having to unlock their true potential and prove the family wrong and save them all (definitely what I thought was gonna happen), the climax of the story was Abuela (who did the most damage to the family) and mostly everyone else having to admit that they made mistakes and they were hurt and they weren't always perfect, and then they all forgave each other and started healing and loving each other and trying their best to grow together and work together as an imperfect family who loved each other no matter what. That is such a cute and wholesome premise for a kids movie. A character being able to say 'yes, even though I love my family I still hurt them because I'm human, but I apologized and they forgave me and they still love me because we're a family' or 'yes, my family hurt me and I'm still healing from it and I may be for awhile, but I still love them to death because they're not perfect and neither am I' is something that hits so close to home and I am SO here for it.
4. The Family Bond
One of the things that hit me in the gut about this movie was that this family LOVES each other. So often there's always so much beef and anger and trauma and pettiness and just general rudeness displayed within families in the media, or its just the few surviving members of the family loving each other. And while I get that thats pretty common in our culture sadly, why does it have to be in every movie too? What about happy healthy family representation too?
Encanto made me so happy because it showcased a large, multi-generational family with almost all of its members (rip Abuelo), living in one house together, and they were HAPPY to be around each other. They LOVED each other. They had their spats and arguments and problems like all families, but they still loved being around each other. Family members were all comfortable being around each other and in each other's spaces, and even the estranged family member longed to still be part of family dinner. Even though Abuela was very disapproval of the family at large, they still tried so hard to please her because they loved her and wanted her to be happy.
The way the family treated Mirabel also stuck out to me. I figured that since she didn't have a gift, we would quickly find out that her family were total rude asshats to her, but like...no? They weren't? She had her times when she felt like she was missing out, like she couldn't be as helpful as everyone else, or during her song Waiting on a Miracle, but like...duh. If I was the only person in my family without superpowers I would be mad miserable, but Mirabel wasn't. She struggled with those feelings, but she also seemed very happy likewise, and determined to be just as useful as the rest of the family. And she harbored no resent or anger toward her family because they were gifted and she wasn't (and lemme tell you, mad props to her honestly). Even in one of her first scenes we see her happily and enthusiastically introducing the rest of the family and their abilities, and you can see that she's just bursting with pride for them and for being a part of the same family. Obviously some of the family (*cough*Abuela*cough*Isabella*cough*) didn't always treat her well, but aside from them, none of the family ever once intentionally treated her like she was an outcast or inferior to them. She was always obviously and unmistakably a part of the family. (My brain almost wants to draw a parallel between the Madrigal's with Mirabel and families with siblings or members with special needs or disabilities, but honestly thats a whole different post).
5. Isabela
Just need to take a hot sec to talk about Isabela's song because it was a rollercoaster of thoughts in my head. At very first when I saw the cactus I thought 'oh shit, she gonna kill Mirabel so bad for making her grow a cactus' and then when she picked it up I was like 'lol wat?' And then when she started singing I was like 'oh crap, here we go.' Definitely for a hot sec I thought that Isabela was going to become a villain. I thought she would have her sassy, feminist-y, Elsa-esque dance number where she threw off the expectations of her family and realized that she was so much more powerful than them and than they thought she was, and she was going to get all sassy and angry and start laying ruin to them because she was so much more than they thought she was. But THEN! SHOCK of all SHOCKS! Instead of using that super toxic feminist trope that you must be angry at everyone for everything, we got a super cute and sweet sister song. I was so pleasantly surprised that instead of an 'I have been FORCED into making FLOWERS which are UGLY and I am a REBEL' song from Isabela, we got a 'dang, everybody always wanted me to make perfect flowers, but these other colors and plants are also pretty and express me much better, and I would love to make things that I also think are beautiful, just in a different way.' And like, the way that she sang and danced with Mirabel and they goofed off together (MOST realistic sister vibes in Encanto were them being snarky and hating each other all movie, and then bursting out into elaborate song and dance and having an absolute bomb time together with flowers and colorful explosions) put new life into me. This song pretended to be rebellious and wild, but was actually so cute and wholesome (just like older sisters but hey).
6. Luisa
I'm actually going to make a whole post for Luisa because I have so much to say about her, so look out for that. I'll put a link here when I post it.
Whelp, that's it for now y'all! In conclusion, watch Encanto, tell your family you love them, laugh, cry, create a bucket-wearing alter-ego who spackles walls, whatever it is you do. I'll probably have more Encanto thoughts someday and if I do, I'll add them onto this post. Congrats Disney, you actually impressed me.
What she’s actually thinking: At the end of Encanto when Bruno is reunited with his sisters, Pepa rushes him and lifts him up in a hug, which clearly shows she missed him and wanted him back home. This is initially surprising given how strict she is about discussing Bruno and how she spoke of him to Mirabel, but what if that’s all just been a front to keep herself from feeling the loss.
Pepa has likely been pressured her whole life to contain her negative emotions for the sake of the village and in the face of such a sudden and unexplained loss of her brother, she needed to keep her feelings on the issue in check, so the best way to avoid feeling the loss is to just not feel anything. And then, in addition to Pepa forbidding any mention of Bruno, this is reinforced by Abuela who at the time and especially after Mirabel didn’t get a gift, was most concerned with maintaining appearances. This could have led to the removal of the portraits in the stairway up to his tower and anything else he left in the house, because even seeing these little reminders can trigger the feelings of the loss.
And then!!! After all these years!!! To see Bruno come home and be accepted by Abuela, just to have this moment of relief that he is here!! And it’s ok!! And she doesn’t have to hold back or worry about the emotional/magical kick back because everyone’s powers were off in that moment, her brother is home and she really missed him and she doesn’t have to pretend otherwise anymore.
1. After Bruno made the comment to Pepa on her wedding day, because he ruined the perfect clear skies Abuela sent him away and didn’t let him watch his sisters wedding.
2. After Bruno decided to leave the family and chose to stay in the room adjacent to the kitchen, Casita opened up the crack in the family picture so he could watch and have meals with his family.
