Remember Me
Our family trees tell some interesting stories. Some of those stories we cherish, others we try to forget.
In mine, I love the one of my great grandmother, who was abandoned as a infant, then taken in by another family. I dislike the one of my great-great grandfather on the other side of the family who we believe stole horses from Native Americans.
For the Rivera family in the Disney Pixar instant classic Coco, the one member they want to forget is el músico, the mysterious and purposefully forgotten father of the title character, Mama Coco.
As only Disney can do, we are led to believe that this man is in fact the true taratabuelo (great-great grandfather in Spanish) of the film’s protagonist, the young Miguel Rivera.
That great-great grandfather is Ernesto de la Cruz, the charming mariachi and actor who was a Mexican superstar of the 1940’s.
Ernesto de la Cruz is in fact so famous, he is lauded even in death. En el otro lado (the other side), or, the Land of the Dead, Ernesto has a grand party every Día de los Muertos. It is there where Miguel meets his supposed great-great grandfather.
It is also where the two go from quickly believing they are family to quickly learning the truth: that Ernesto de la Cruz is still a narcissist, and a murderer.
Though he is not a father, Ernesto de La Cruz is indeed a Scary Daddy. For starters, he’s only concerned about his reputation, even in death. Second, he was a selfish thief in life, and he had no hesitation taking the art (and life) of another person, Miguel’s true great-great grandfather, Héctor Rivera.
And third, he put his fame before everything else, which, in the end was not enough to even sustain his memory.
This is often the curse of fame, it only survives by how much the famous wish to feed it.
Through Ernesto de la Cruz, this week’s Scary Daddy, we see that family and honoring the tree from which we come, is far better than the Sisyphean task of maintaining a false public reputation.
After all, when we pass, will our families remember us, or someone else?
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Photo from Pixar from WhatCulture.com