Day 32: Un Poco Loco
November 1, 2022
Dear Disney,
Today is Dio de los Muertos and what better way to cap off the 31 Days of Halloween and begin the 30 days of Thanks is with the great 2017 Pixar film Coco.
We have spent the last 31 days reviews movies, shorts, and specials that we felt encapsulated what Disney Halloween is all about, but these letters are not just movie reviews. As we go into the month of November, we want to show our 30 days of Thanks and how Disney has helped us realize how to present those thanks through films watched and memories made.
For Darling, one of the things that she is thankful for is family and the movie Coco was one of the first Disney films that she felt really showed what she things as Family. Darling is a first generation Filipino-American and when she watched Coco for the first time, the familiar struggles and implications really touched something inside of her. She says that she enjoys watching Pixar movies, but every time she watches one, she always cries, and Coco is no exception.
I think that people thing of family Disney movies they think Encanto, but without Coco, Encanto may have had a harder time being created. Frequently, Disney and Pixar movies require a hero and a villain. In Coco, although there is a villain, the real overcoming obstacles is not a
”Big Bad” but rather the internal struggles of interpersonal communication between family members.
Growing up, Darling was pressured into going into a medical field. Her parents were in medicine, her aunts and uncles were in medicine. It was expected for her to follow in her family’s footsteps. Similar to Miguel, the main protagonist of the movie. All of his family were shoemakers, from his great-great-grandmother to his current mother and all of his aunts and uncles. However, Miguel’s heart was not in shoemaking, it was in music. In Miguel’s family, music, all music was forbidden. HIs great-great-grandmother loved a musician who left her and her daughter and never returned. Because of the love that his great-great-grandmother had for his great-great-grandfather, the loss hurt more than anything else. Because of that hurt of one-person, multiple generations were forced to except that. Miguel could not. Darling relates to Miguel. As I stated, Darling was supposed to enter the medical field, but, instead, she followed her heart and became a librarian. She feels Miguel’s story and her story were similar enough that she found catharsis within the movie.
Even without the parallel stories between Darling and Miguel, both Darling and I love Coco. The art direction, beautiful; the music, amazing; and the setting and characters of Latin America, perfection. Darling’s favorite song is “Un Poco Loco” and my favorite song is “La LLorona”. When we watch this movie, we must sing-along: to everything.
Tomorrow will be another day of thanks, come back and share with us your thanks.
Sincerely,
Jim Dear and Darling
