Encanto (2022) :: Shattering the special woman stereotypes
SPOILER ALERT: This post contains major spoilers.
RATING: 
I watched Encanto with my two daughters, aged 10 and 15. The new Disney/Pixar animation made me cry during at least a quarter of the movie. When we left, I felt like I was leaving a therapy session, and a good one at that.
The reason why this movie resonated so much was obvious to me, but reading online I did not find a single review talking about what I think is the main focus of the movie: the precise and careful shattering of the special woman stereotypes, in all of their dangerous shapes. Each one of the Madrigal women has a special power, and each of these powers represent different roles that women are usually forced into. Don't worry, I will get into it deeply in the following paragraphs.
Then the movie shows us Luisa, her sister. Luisa is the strong one, having super human strength. And, because of that, she is anxious and tired... and I saw myself in her. And got even angrier at the movie, because I thought it was unfair that Disney/Pixar created an amazing character of the "strong woman" only to show her as tired, stressed out, overloaded. Not good.
But, the next one is Isabela, another sister, this one pretty, perfect, always happy, never have a bad hair day, her power is to create beautiful flowers. Her issue is that she will be married to someone because that is what she is supposed to do, not because she loves him. At this point, I had the insight.
The reason why I was angry at the movie is exactly the point that the movie wants to make: the special woman stereotypes. Each character is one of these myths, and I was, up to this point, defending mine: "the strong woman" one. This stereotype is usually associated to Motherhood, the warrior, the multi-tasker. It is the woman that can handle everything, that provides support to everyone, juggling career, home and family. The unspoken price is anxiety and never being able to just relax and enjoy life. The character is shown with male characteristics, muscles, a reference to the woman that is "practically a man".
From that point on, I could see clearly. Isabela represents the Beauty Myth, the toxic femininity, where the role of women is to make the world pretty. To make this even more explicit, Isabela lives in a completely pink room. Her price is the constant fear of not doing what she is supposed to, including marrying a man that her family chose for her.
Next is Abuela (grandma) that does not have powers per se, but is the creator (receiver?) of the magic candle that created not only the powers but the whole village where they live. She represents the Caring stereotype and in this case she cares not only for her family but for everyone in the village, and she defines the rules and what is right and moral. It is very symbolic that she does all of that without the company of a husband, a very common situation in Latin American countries where many houses do not have a father figure due to violence, the father leaving or the high percentage of poor men in prison. This stereotype entraps women in caring roles, where this "natural talent" for caring for others makes them responsible for being the primary care provided of children, the elderly and volunteer work in the community.
Julieta, Maribel's mother, has the power of healing people with her food. She inherits the Caring role of Abuela, and adds the Good Cook and Healer to it. As with the Caring role, the Good Cook stereotype makes women "naturally" responsible for all the domestic chores and family health decisions, including missing work when someone is sick, or going to doctors visits.
Aunt Pepa's power is "controlling" the weather with her mood. I use double quotes here because she seems not be able to control her powers at all. She represents the "Emotionally Unstable" woman. In several moments of the movie she has to be "calmed down" or is criticized because of her feelings. She represents the Hysteria associated with women (yes, the word hysteria means uterus in Greek...) that treats women as unpredictable beings that cannot control themselves. The price she pays is having her feelings constantly invalidated and being treated as a child. In women's everyday life this is used to silence us, disrespect our opinions and justify the fact that women should not be in positions of power.
Cousin Dolores has perfect hearing, but she cannot keep secrets. She represents the gossiping woman stereotype. Of all the female characters she is the least developed and her main dilemma is to fall in love with Izabela's boyfriend. It is a good thing that the movie does not go deep into this plot, avoiding the love theme that is usually the main focus of movies with a female lead.
There are also three men with powers: Bruno, Camilo and Antonio. Yes, we will talk about Bruno, but later. Antonio and Camilo may represent other stereotyped minorities (a non-binary person and a black boy) but because this is not the focus of this post and their characters are not developed in the rest of the movie, I invite you to add what you think their powers may represent in the comments.
Finally, Mirabel. Mirabel has no powers. She is the average, regular, not special woman. She is obviously smart (as we know because she wears glasses... sigh) and has a huge heart (according to her mom). But she is the main character and the plot is basically she helping the other Madrigal women understand the stereotypes that they are subjected to in amazing examples of sorority [alliance between women].
When Mirabel starts questioning the house integrity (read: the patriarchy model), the other women start "loosing their powers". Luisa starts feeling weak (or showing her weakness and not being able to help everyone). Isabela breaks her perfect femininity mold and her flowers loose the pink tones and turn into a rainbow, an image usually associated with the LGBTQ+ community.
Abuela criticizes Mirabel, saying that she is "ruining everything" and Mirabel answers that "I will never be enough for you". This is the point where I couldn't stop crying. Because Maribel is defending a message that we women, and specially latinas, are not used to hear: that we don't need to be special, perfect, princesses. That we are enough.
This if for me the most interesting part of the movie: her conflict with the grandmother. It was maybe meant to be with her mother, but given the terrible history that Disney has with mothers in their movies (or step mothers, or not having mothers at all) I think it is brilliant that they skipped a generation and place Mirabel's inadequacy feelings in her grandma. The idea that it is usually women, specially mothers and grandmothers, that reproduce the sexist stereotypes and raise boys and girls into a sexist framework is a very powerful concept.
We women make crude comments when their friends gain weight. We say to our daughters how they should dress and behave "properly". We give boys permission to be violent because "boys will be boys". We gossip and compete with each other. Mirabel's great power is sorority: listening and understanding other women's feelings and struggles.
Now we need to talk about Bruno because Bruno represents the patriarchy. To make my point, remember that Bruno lives in a man-cave, with rats and TV, away from the family, in a traditional latino "macho" model. Even though the whole movie is a in-depth discussion about sexism and patriarchy, we don't talk about Bruno because we will not allow him to be the main voice in a feminist movie. Obviously the patriarchy is the one the blame, but this movie goes a step further showing that we have the power to propagate or stop this cycle.
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THE MOVIE X-RAY RATING SCALE
GLOSSARY
Sorority: a political, social and cultural alliance between women, who, because they understand empirically the implications of belonging to the female sex in a patriarchal society, would share specific experiences with each other.
OTHER INTERESTING IDEAS
1: It is particularly interesting and powerful how the house is rebuilt with the help of the community. The idea is that all people that benefited from the women's powers during the years are responsible for helping them rebuild and fix their lives.
2: There is another powerful female character in the movie: La Casita (the house - house is female in Spanish). The house is responsible for most of the domestic chores like cleaning. Much like the thousands (maybe millions?) of latinas that work as maids, this is an invisible, voiceless character. Disney is already famous for using animals and magic to hide domestic work (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty...) and here they do it again. Although the Madrigal women are now liberated from their stereotypes, La Casita is still there, serving, invisible and mute. This is an important point that is not addressed in the movie: feminism must be for all and solving only middle class women's issues is not enough.
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