Coco teach us refreshingly different lessons than we’d expect from a Disney movie. Support ScreenPrism on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=7792695
It shows us that family and community can be more important than following our dreams. And death doesn’t have to be a scary thing we all ignore. Family love lives on between the living and the dead.
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Transcript provided by Youtube:
00:02
“We may have our differences, but nothing’s more important than family.”
00:03
Coco leaves us with some refreshingly different messages from what we’re used to seeing.
00:08
“Children got to be free, to lead their own lives.”
00:12
“This is the path I choose, father.”
00:14
We’re used to hearing a lot about following our hearts and chasing our dreams.
00:19
But Coco says that our individual ambitions are less important
00:22
than caring for our families and communities.
00:25
It teaches kids that death doesn’t have to be a scary thing that we all try to ignore.
00:29
In Coco, Death isn’t the end because family love lives on
00:33
even between the living and the dead.
00:35
So the movie is a really nice shift from the way a lot of us automatically think about
00:39
things.
00:40
If we take it to heart, we (both kids and adults) can have a healthier relationship
00:45
with death,
00:46
pass on good memories and traditions to future generations,
00:49
and — in doing so — we can live forever.
00:52
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00:58
In a lot of mainstream American society,
01:01
we tend to distract ourselves from the complex emotions surrounding death.
01:05
We try hard not to deal with them.
01:06
But the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos
01:09
lets people reflect on death together in a positive, communal way.
01:13
“Dia de los Muertos has begun!”
01:16
The holiday is framed as a way to celebrate family.
01:18
It emphasizes that you can have deep connections to ancestors you’ve never even met,
01:23
and active relationships with people you’ve known who have passed away.
01:27
By channeling this holiday, Coco can presumably reach kids
01:30
before they form an impression of death as inherently frightening.
01:35
When Miguel meets his dead ancestors, briefly we get some intimidating music,
01:39
Miguel is scared, the skeletons are scared of him as well.
01:43
“Do you mind?”
01:44
“No!”
01:45
but pretty quickly his skeletal ancestors become funny and lovable.
01:49
Coco is a sincere, moving portrait of unconditional love for family, both here and gone.
01:55
“Coco’s themes of family are rooted completely in the same themes of family
02:01
that are a part of Dia de Muertos.
02:03
With Dia de Muertos there’s an obligation to remember your loved ones
02:07
and to pass their stories to the next generation,
02:10
and ultimately to really ensure that their memory never fades.”
02:14
When Miguel enters the land of the dead, Miguel’s ancestors bond with him immediately,
02:18
as if they’ve known him his whole life.
02:20
And they have, because they’ve been watching him.
02:22
Spoiler coming up here.
02:23
We don’t learn until the end of the movie that Hector and Miguel are related,
02:27
but they’re drawn to each other so effortlessly and lovingly
02:30
that when we learn of their familial bond, it just makes sense.
02:33
Even if it seems miraculous that the two happened to find each other,
02:37
Miguel has picked up fragments of Hector’s memory from his family —
02:40
he discovered Hector’s photo on the ofrenda.
02:43
So Hector and Miguel form a beautiful, time-and-space defying friendship
02:47
because of these hidden threads of memory that tie them together.
02:50
The biggest example of unconditional family love centers on the title character, Mama
02:56
Coco.
02:57
Miguel’s great grandma Coco has dementia, and barely speaks.
03:00
She doesn’t seem to be the same person she once was,
03:03
she may not even really seem to be present,
03:05
but her family still loves her with all their hearts.
03:08
Miguel updates her on his life and speaks to her as if she understands,
03:12
even though she doesn’t remember him.
03:13
“I used to run like this, but now I run like this and it’s way faster!”
03:17
And while Coco isn’t an active part of these conversations,
03:20
her presence is still felt and appreciated.
03:22
She’s a symbol of the strong connections we can have with family even after their minds
03:27
are fading,
03:28
and even after they have left us altogether.
03:30
As the eldest member of the Rivera family, the last living person who remembers Hector,
03:35
Mama Coco is the bridge between the living and the dead.
03:38
She turns out to be the key to the story,
03:40
because Miguel needs to help her remember her father
03:43
to save Hector from the Final Death of being forgotten.
03:47
When Coco shares her memories of her father’s music,
03:49
this keeps Hector alive for future generations and binds the whole living family stronger.
03:54
And at the end when Coco finally passes over that bridge between the living and the dead,
03:59
she’s as much a part of the family as ever.
04:02
So it speaks volumes that the movie is named after Mama Coco.
04:05
The whole movie is a loving tribute to her spirit which lives on in her family’s memory.
04:11
Keeping a family strong means caring for our elders
04:13
and respecting them even when their minds are leaving them,
04:16
and when their bodies are gone.
04:18
The message that love doesn’t end when somebody dies is a great comfort to kids and all of
04:23
us
04:24
as we face losing loved ones.
04:25
Coco also shows us that it’s up to the living to keep the dead from disappearing.
04:29
It’s our responsibility to put our ancestors’ pictures on the ofrenda
04:33
and actively remember the dead.
04:35
Coco makes the concept, “They’ll live on in our memories,” literal.
04:38
If someone’s no longer remembered by any living people,
04:41
they undergo “The Final Death” and disappear permanently,
04:44
It’s a little dark to think about the “final death” of being forgotten,
04:47
but it also gives us some control.
04:50
By remembering our family, we prevent them from ever going away.
04:53
And if we want to live forever, we teach our kids to remember in the same way.
04:57
The film uses de la Cruz to explore questions of legacy,
05:00
how we want to be remembered,
05:02
and the love of the public world versus family.
05:05
Ernesto’s legacy is vain, superficial and fake.
05:08
Sure, he’s got lots of adoring fans who leave him offerings,
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But his connection to the living is shallow.
05:13
He just wants to be worshipped like a god,
05:15
whereas the other ancestors care about a two-way connection,
05:19
keeping up an active relationship,
05:20
they follow what’s going on in their living relatives’ lives.
05:23
At the end of the movie, when de la Cruz is exposed for Hector’s murder
05:27
and his reputation is ruined,
05:28
he’s quickly rejected and forgotten by his fans.
05:31
So this kind of superficial admiration from a distance is fragile and can be suddenly
05:36
erased.
05:37
Being remembered by your family and loved ones is a more valuable resource,
05:41
because they truly know you and pass on real memories of you.
05:44
Even if they may be mad at you for things you do wrong, your family won’t forget you,
05:48
because they can’t.
05:50
When Miguel’s family won’t let him become a musician,
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our American, individualist mindset leads us to assume this will be a story
05:57
about his parents learning to accept his true calling.
06:00
“None of them understands me.
06:02
I’m supposed to play music!”
06:05
We’ve seen it a lot before — think Mulan,
06:07
“The greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter.”
06:14
The Little Mermaid, Zootopia,
06:15
“You don’t try anything new, you don’t ever fail.”
06:18
“I like trying actually.”
06:20
Aladdin, Pocahontas, Tarzan, Brave, and Moana.
06:23
But Miguel realizes that his self-actualization isn’t what he values most.
06:27
He sees that de la Cruz became a murderer to pursue his self-interest.
06:31
“Seizing your moment,” can mean being terribly opportunistic,
06:35
to the point of hurting others.
06:37
Hector once chose to leave his family to pursue music,
06:40
and the resulting pain he caused traveled through generations.
06:44
So instead of the typical American story of the parents realizing
06:47
they were wrong not to accept their child for who he is,
06:51
we get the reverse.
06:52
We get the story of Miguel understanding that keeping his family together
06:55
is more important than any individual dream he might have.
06:59
When de la Cruz attempts to kill Miguel, Miguel is falling through the air —
07:02
and his dog Dante, who comes to represent his personal spirit animal tries to save him.
07:07
But Dante can’t save Miguel, and instead it’s the family’s much bigger spirit animal
07:12
who catches Miguel and saves his life.
07:14
So the symbolism is that the spirit of our family
07:17
is bigger and stronger than any individual spirit within the family.
07:21
“Family should always be united, and they should always care for each other no matter
07:26
what,
07:27
and love each other no matter what.
07:29
That’s what I see in Miguel.
07:30
Even though he gets mad at them,
07:33
deep inside he still loves them and cares about them just like I do.”
07:36
In the end,, Miguel doesn’t have to give up playing music,
07:39
because for him, and his family, music isn’t selfish the way it was for de la Cruz.
07:43
“I’m going to be a musician!”
07:46
Music is a way to express a deep familial love.
07:49
De la Cruz commodified the song “Remember Me” and turned it into a cheap plea to fans.
07:53
“Remember me / though I had to say goodbye / remember me.”
08:01
But Hector wrote the song not for the world, but for Coco,
08:04
to help his daughter keep his memory alive even when they couldn’t be together.
08:08
Deep down for Miguel, music was never a rebellious self-assertion.
08:12
So it turned out that music mattered to Miguel this whole time
08:15
because it was a part of his shared family identity
08:17
that has been forgotten and neglected,
08:20
something he has the urge to renew before he even knows why.
08:23
So music becomes a key way for the living and the dead to connect even more deeply.
08:28
Coco teaches us not only that death is a part of life,
08:31
but also that by loving and embracing our deceased ancestors,
08:35
we can strengthen and revive our living family.
08:38
Family comforts us in the face of death,
08:39
“Here, have some more.”
08:42
“No, gracias.”
08:43
“[Gasp]”
08:44
“I mean…Si?”
08:45
It represents the legacy that really matters,
08:47
and it’s the only thing that gives us a chance of being immortal.
08:51
“We don’t know where we are…”
09:01
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09:02
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This post was previously published on Youtube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video