Multigenerational Families and Encanto

*Possible spoilers for the movie*

Disney has put out another movie that tugs at the heart strings of the public by the name Encanto. I had decided that I would wait for its run in the theaters to pass and wait for it to be put up on Disney+ instead. Well, the wait was over the 24th of December but with all the festivity I kept off until the night of Christmas where I could brew some tea and just sit and be in the movie.

I had seen the trailers and spoiled some of the songs for myself but overall I was pleasantly surprised by how real the movie and the Madrigals family dynamic felt. The movie circles around the fictious Madrigal family and their special gifts they recieve from this miracle that graces their family. While the gifts are important to the film, the gifts weren't relatable. Nobody I know has the ability to grow flowers or control the weather via emotion. These are great for the movie and the character but not something I would personally understand. What was relatable to me at least was the family and how they all interacted with each other.

I grew up in a very big, all in your face, everybody knowing everything about each other, never any privacy type of family. Close knit, and pratically all over each other. While I had the house to just me and my parents. My grandparents lived across the street and family just thirty minutes away in the different boroughs of New York. Everybody had a hand in raising me and within that a lot of hands were in the pot of my childhood. I imagine with the Madrigals consisting of the head of the family Abuela, her three children, two having husbands and her six grandchildren, I bet all the grandchildren were influenced by not just their parents but by aunts, uncles, Abuela and their cousins/siblings.

While having the big family is a joy and theres love from every corner, it can be hard. The movie emphasises this in the big catalysit moment between Abuela and her granddaughter Mirabel. Pointing out the flaws in how the grandchildren and their parents are being used for their special gifts and being disregarded for their wants, needs, worries, or feelings. This is a big problem commonly see within mutligenerational families. I've seen it within my own firsthand. What you can provide for others is put above what you're feeling. Putting the gift before the individual and the pressures of calling attention to the issue and resovling it.

Often times the younger children are being raised by the eldest children instead of the parents or the eldest has the most responsiblity in the house so they become the third parent. Or how the middle child has to be perfect to uphold some type of standard that they're given. The youngest gets to be whatever they want, since the eldest and the middle have responsibilities that they don't have. This could be seen in the movie and seen in real life within lots of households.

I watched the movie and gawked at how much I related. My cousin who watched it with me a few days later also remarked that she too saw this same dynamic in our family as well. It was a sad moment that we realized how even though she and I both loved the movie, we related to it a little too much. When I talked to my friends who are also part of big families we collectively laughed at how much of the movie was our day to day lives, minus the miracle given gifts.

Overall, the movie is stellar. The music is so catchy, that nowadays I find myself listening to the soundtrack and just vibin' with it while cleaning out the dishwasher. All these things are important, but the most important part is how many people are watching the movie and relating it to their own personal lives. That's where the movie really shines and that's why Encanto is such a great film.

You can follow Cat on her instagram at https://www.instagram.com/catcalabro/?hl=en This where she posts lil tid bits of her life and a few kitty pics of her adorable two cats.