The Real Magic of "Encanto"

Generational Trauma, Shadow Work and Butterflies

First off, a personal note: I am  part of the second generation of descendants from Greek immigrants on both sides of my family tree, who came here early in the 20th Century. And yes, that family, like many, has some dysfunctional elements which have played a significant role in my journey as an adult woman, as a parent myself, and as a witch.

All of this being true, Disney's latest animated feature, "Encanto," resonated hard with me, and yes, I bawled like a baby by the time I was finished watching it. And each time that I have watched it since.

There has been a huge amount of discussion in the Latinx community (and disagreement) about the film's depiction of the Colombian experience, and the particular issues that Latinx immigrant families face as they seek a better life for themselves and their children.  The film is unusual in the Disney oeuvre in that the "villain" of the movie isn't an evil witch or a scheming uncle or stepmother. Sure, the climax of the film happens when Mirabel faces off with her Abuela, telling Abuela that it is HER fault that the magic of the Encanto is in peril. But Abuela is not really an evil agent so much as the unwitting architect of a raft of expectations and dysfunctionality that one might better name "intergenerational trauma," which is the true baddie of the story. Ultimately, a "new foundation" for the family is built and Abuela, indeed, all of the family members are redeemed.

At least one critic has dismissed this story as "trite." It is anything but. For those of  us who have lived within toxic family dynamics, this film is a watershed that allows us to feel seen, even loved, in complex ways that no other film has done before, but which resonate as absolutely true.

What the film "Encanto" understands, and successfully describes, is what happens when family dynamics are built not on love and acceptance, but on fear of loss. The magical Madrigal family lives in a beautiful Encanto -- a protected valley containing at its center a beautiful house that seems to predict and support the family's every need. And every member of the Madrigal family has a magical power -- a supernatural ability. Every member, that is, but Mirabel.

But this magical refuge isn't really what it seems. The valley and the house are a "miracle" that arose out of the moment when the group of migrants, including Abuela and her husband, was fleeing their home and seeking a new life. They are found by what we presume to be border guards, who kill Abuela's husband. In her grief, she prays for a miracle, and the prayer is answered in the form of the Encanto, whose magic emanates from the candle that Abuela carried that night. In other words, the Encanto is, at its core, a way to shield Abuela and her family from the trauma of that night and that horrible loss.

When we are introduced to the Encanto and its casita and its inhabitants, the magic seems like a boon. The house's magic supports the family's endeavors -- clocks appear to remind you to not be late, shoes find their way to your feet when you need them, groceries put themselves away. The gifts that each of the members of the family has are useful. Luisa and her super strength, Julieta and her ability to heal with food, Dolores and her ability to hear EVERYTHING. And all the members of the family use their gifts not just for the family, but for the whole community.

Mirabel, the lone person who does not have a gift, seems like a forlorn character, and is treated as someone to be pitied, someone who is somehow "less than" because she doesn't have a gift. The Encanto has rejected her, it seems, rendering her a second class citizen in the family structure. So when she sees cracks in the casita, she is dismissed. She cannot possibly understand the magic of the Encanto -- after all, she doesn't have a magical ability.

But the cracks are not just in the walls of the casita. Luisa's super strength, we learn, is starting to fail, and is actually a source of deep stress for her, making her feel like she can never let up, never break, never make a mistake. Many, many women watching the film have expressed a strong identification with Luisa and the stress she is under. And Isabella's gift of "perfection," which is the gift that Mirabel resents most of all, apparently has been more of a limitation than a blessing. The expectation that Isabella will always be "perfect" and do whatever the family (and especially Abuela) wants, has kept her potential limited, even pushed her to look at marrying someone she does not love (however perfect he may appear.) She can grow all kinds of plants, but until she's pushed to it by her argument with Mirabel, she only ever grows perfect, pretty roses in perfect, girly shades of pink.

All of the gifts the family Madrigal possess end up being a prison of one sort or another. Pepa, whose emotions control the weather, is never allowed to feel her real feelings lest she cause hurricanes or ruin "perfect" events with storm clouds. Dolores is plagued with secrets she does not want to have to keep, because she hears everything whether she wants to or not. Her brother Camilo as a shape-shifter becomes whoever other people need him to be at any given moment, and therefore has no idea who he himself is. Mirabel's mother Julieta, who can heal anything by feeding someone her cooking, is constantly worried about everyone else's hurts, and her accident prone husband most of all. One can even see how young Antonio's gift of speaking to animals, only just discovered, could quickly turn from boon to bane, as the animals he attracts are constantly underfoot, constantly talking to him. While their relentless need for attention might be endlessly entertaining to a young boy, at what point might he just want to be alone with his own thoughts?

And no sooner does he acquire the gift, but Abuela is already demanding he make himself useful for the community. As young as he is, he apparently isn't supposed to just enjoy his newfound gift -- it must be put to work. The expectations that every person in the family is placed under are inescapable. Even the spouses have their roles to play as foils to their partners, who exist to serve the gifts their partners possess. Pepa's husband must be the happy-go-lucky guy who keeps his wife on an even keel. And Julieta's husband, Mirabel's father, provides a continuous stream of mishaps and injuries that keep the need for her healing arepas nearly constant.

In fact the whole town is dependent on the magic of the Madrigals. Even the tiniest needs of the townspeople apparently fall to the magical Madrigals to perform -- everything from fixing your house to managing errant donkeys. People can't even hang their hats on the wall by themselves -- they must be magically assisted.

And then there is Bruno. (We don't talk about Bruno, no, no....) Any family that has ever had a "black sheep" will feel for Bruno.  His gift of prophecy is scary to people, because seeing the truth about your future isn't always easy to take. And because people want to blame other people when bad things happen, he becomes an easy target for the fears of the townspeople and of his own family. And when his visions reveal that the Encanto might not be the rock solid safe haven that Abuela needs it to be, he is rejected.

And yet Bruno does not leave. Such is the pull of family. Bruno stays hidden within the walls of the house, plastering up the hidden cracks that have apparently been happening (unbeknownst to the Madrigals) for years. He loves his family so much, that he is willing to continue working on their behalf, even though he is unacknowledged, unseen. He literally has disappeared as far as the family is concerned, with even the sound of his name banished from their lips.

The interesting thing is that all of the Madrigals, at bottom, are doing the same thing as Bruno. All of them are self-negating to keep up the illusion that everything is okay. It is only when Mirabel stops going along with the pretense, and starts asking questions about what is really going on -- with the house, with her sisters, with Bruno -- that the truth is finally revealed: The Encanto is no longer capable of protecting the family Madrigal from harm. The burden of maintaining the Encanto is actually harming them all at this point. The whole thing is ready to collapse under the weight of unspoken expectations of perfection, obedience and diligence, all of which originate with Abuela's need to keep her family safe.

And once you realize this, you realize that when the casita refused to create a door for Mirabel, it was not an act of rejection. It was an act of recognition -- that Mirabel might be the only member of the family Madrigal with enough awareness and courage to not only seek for and realize the truth, but stand unapologetically in that truth. Mirabel might never have sought that truth if she had been given a door and a magical gift. Her outsider status confers on her the ability to see the Encanto for what it is -- an elaborate hamster wheel of expectation and judgement that does not fulfill its purpose anymore.

Abuela didn't mean to do all this when her prayer created the Encanto. She was desperate and felt alone and was terrified for what might happen to her three children. Abuela prayed the Encanto into existence to be a safe place. It was built on her fears of losing her family, her grief at the loss of her husband. And she insisted on its careful maintenance, because Abuela saw the Encanto as the only way to protect future generations of the family. But now that the immediate danger to the family is passed, the continued effort to keep up the Encanto doesn't serve anyone anymore. That's the problem with the thought processes and emotional constructs we create to cope with trauma -- we often hold on to them long after they have outlived their usefulness. And we drag our descendants with us into the cycle of pain in order to keep these processes and constructs intact. We give them names like "tradition" or "values" and treat their maintenance by the family as more important than the family members themselves.

If you look closely, you'll see lots of butterfly symbolism all over the film. This is no accident. The butterfly represents freedom and transformation completed. It is a recognition that too much safety stifles growth and change and fulfillment. The cocoon starts off being a place where a caterpillar may safely transform itself. But in the end, it becomes a prison that the butterfly must ultimately leave so that it can fly. Butterflies are not free until they destroy the cocoon and leave.

The Encanto must be shattered. Abuela must face her grief and her pain. The Madrigals must learn to accept that they can't and shouldn't do everything for everyone else all the time. In fact, they might do well to accept help from others now and again. And every member of the family must come to see themselves as beloved, and enough, just as they are.

All of this comes because of the curiosity, the bravery, the refusal to accept things as they are, that are Mirabel's actual gifts, which no one had to give her. Those of us who have done shadow work, who have lived in toxic family environments fueled by intergenerational trauma, see ourselves in Mirabel. We feel like outsiders in our own families because we are not blithely participating in the family dynamic. We ask questions, and get hushed for our impertinence. When MIrabel finds the courage to challenge the status quo, crashing the family's pretenses to the ground, we see a moment we know as difficult and brutal but necessary and ultimately healing. When Mirabel rebuilds the foundation of the casita, we know what that work really looks like in the real world. Many of us are doing it as best we can.

Because it's a Disney movie, the heroine succeeds handily, and yes, that's not realistic. Breaking the cycle of family trauma is rough work. It takes time. A lot of time. It's emotionally grueling and while those of us who are magically inclined can and do use those tools to help, magic doesn't just make it all go away. Other tools -- therapy and family counseling, self-care, long honest conversations and endless patience -- are also part of the process.

Usually the driving force for this work is the realization that this cannot continue, and we cannot continue to pass the impacts of the family trauma drama on to our kids. We need to do something to break the chain or we will have to watch with helpless resignation as all the things that harmed us go on to work new injuries on our children.

And it doesn't always succeed. Sometimes we end up like Bruno -- checked out of our family life, but still physically present, quietly trying to patch up the cracks in the family, knowing all along that the whole enterprise is doomed. Sometimes the only way to break the cycle is to leave the family, either partially by setting firm boundaries and moving some distance away, or totally by actually estranging oneself from the family. While estrangement is an extreme solution and feels like a tragedy, and extracts a terrible emotional price, it can also provide much needed freedom and growth for the estranged family member.

Most of the critics missed this -- that Encanto held within it the story of those who break intergenerational cycles of trauma. That Mirabel is a not just the plucky heroine of a Disney movie, but an keenly effective shadow worker. But for those of us who break chains and cast off family curses, we see you, Mirabel. We see you.