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It seems like each family member is silently struggling with mental health issues as well.īut isn’t this the story of almost every migrant family? The idea that we are so grateful for “making it” to our new homes that we should do everything in our power to build the best life possible, regardless of how we are doing?
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Yet as we put these characterizations together, it becomes clear that the family as a whole has its own dynamic: a dysfunctional one, as each member silently struggles with their gifts to the point of exhaustion. Viewers get to know specific members of the Madrigal family through their solo numbers such as Lousia’s “Surface Pressure” or Isabela’s “ What Else Can I Do?” Reverberations of trauma and displacement As an Assyrian (Indigenous to Iraq) with experiences of displacement and migration, it seems to me these negative reviews missed key aspects of the film. The film has received critical acclaim and won the Oscar for best animated feature at the March 27 Academy Awards.īut commentators have also made scathing criticisms too, especially in relation to the lack of a villain or worse, the vilification of the matriarch character, Abuela.įrom my perspective as a scholar who researches displacement and migration, what stands out in Encanto is how each generation of the Madrigals experienced trauma and how it shapes their lives and choices. Disney’s Encanto depicts a multigenerational story about a grandmother and her family endowed with magic gifts, who were forced to flee their village for a safer place in Colombia.