A Leftist Reading of Disney's Encanto
Image; captured on Disney+
The moment I saw Encanto, I couldn't get enough of it. I have been singing the songs Surface Pressure, and We Don't Talk About Bruno on loop so much that I think my partner is finally getting sick of them. I have rewatched this movie actively three times, and another four times, I have put it in the background while I'm working. I probably have memorized half the lines in this film about a family with magical gifts living in a secluded Columbian community.
I love much of what this movie tries to do thematically. The central plot about protagonist Mirabel Madrigal bucking the unrealistic expectations of her family, specifically those of her demanding Abuela Alma, resonates strongly with me. It's a breath of fresh air for a major film to come out against the perfectionism and burnout plaguing much of modern society.
However, there is more to take from Encanto than just the interpersonal dynamics of the main characters. This film has a very leftist subtext buried underneath the tiles and floorboards of the Madrigals' casita. It can be read with a leftist, dare I say, a socialist lens that most "mainstream" films cannot.
So let's have some fun and talk about how this movie is an example of an accidental leftist work.
This entire article might have you scratching your head. Encanto isn't leftist. It's a kid movie about magical powers and singing.
And yes, the creators didn't intend to make a film with socialist principles. Disney is a capitalist entity that has been quite aggressive with maintaining its dominance in the pop culture space — when you have free time, google Disney and IP law to see what I mean. The executives behind this film just wanted to make money, and they were using Encanto to tap into new markets in the Latin American space.
However, a creator's (and financer's) intentions are only half the equation. Under the "Death of the Author" theory of interpretation, art is about the meaning the viewer brings to it. Director Ridley Scott didn't set out to make a feminist work with Alien (Sigourney Weaver's character was allegedly written as a man initially), but that's what happened. Director Tommy Wiseau wasn't trying to make a beloved camp masterpiece with The Room, but his out-of-touch misogynistic outlook led to something quite funny to the public. Often a work takes on a completely separate meaning from the author's intentions, and we can see a similar thing happening with Encanto.
For one, the people in Encanto live in a non-capitalist society. Abuela's "encanto" or miracle raised mountains around the valley they live in, effectively cutting them off from the larger world. As far as we can tell, there is no money in this society, and that's probably because "class" was not an issue the creators of this film wanted to complicate their narrative. It would be tough for us to see the Madrigals as down-to-Earth, working-class folks if they were also profiting off their Godlike powers.
That decision, however, left us with a story where money and work are entirely different from our world. The Madrigals are actively encouraged to give their gifts freely to the community. "We swear to always help those around us and earn the miracle that somehow found us," Abuela belts out in the opening musical number, The Family Madrigal. Townsfolk feel comfortable requesting work from the family, which we see when Luisa, who has super strength, is asked to do routine tasks like moving churches and recovering lost donkeys (routine for her, anyway).
The mundaneness of these powers owes much to the genre of "magical realism," a style that involves the matter-of-fact introduction of fantastical elements. We are not supposed to question the strangeness of the Madrigals powers because, in this universe, they simply exist. That's how magical realism as a genre works.
However, the strangeness of the Madrigal's generosity has more to do with the values of our culture. The residents of Encanto seem to exist in a mutual aid economy where people work cooperatively to achieve their community's needs. This system of reciprocity is so far removed from our capitalist society that it feels far more alien than the ability to move mountains. For many, it's easier to imagine a community where people have superpowers than one where capitalism doesn't exist, and in Encanto, we have both.
Now there is arguably a sleight hierarchy around these powers. The Madrigals seem to have the most prominent house in the valley, and the entire community comes together in celebration whenever a family member obtains a new power, but they are not portrayed as powering-hungry or tyrannical. Where in other properties (and real-life), this might be the makings of a magical aristocracy, in Encanto, the townspeople have a lot of agency. A scene that highlights this well is how the Guzman family calls off their son's marriage proposal to Isabela after one disastrous dinner. That would not happen if the Madrigals had unquestioning control in the valley.
Yet even the control the Madrigals do have, especially that of Abuela Alma is interrogated in the film. While Alma does insist on her family unselfishly leading a life of service, she still holds a lot of unhealthy values from her old life, specifically those of perfectionism and hustling. In capitalism, for most people, your value is tied directly to the labor you can produce. If someone cannot produce enough, we often let "those people" die (see homelessness, poverty, starvation, etc.). This is why our society focuses so much on always working (e.g., hustle culture) and on the products of our labor being perfect, because failure to produce successful goods and services can lead to death.
Alma carries a lot of this anxiety. Even though the Madrigals live in an idyllic society where all their wants are provided for by literal magic, she still wants her children to be continuously producing for the community. "Work and dedication" are her driving values, and the film clarifies that this obsession is unhealthy.
In the song Surface Pressure, Luisa sings about how the continuous pressure to constantly perform is causing her to burn out. The line: "Under the surface
I'm pretty sure I'm worthless if I can't be of service," highlights how strung out she is. The film ends with allowing her to rest more, suggesting to the viewer that maybe the culture of constantly working and always hustling is unhealthy. People should be allowed to rest.
Perfectionism is tackled in not one but two separate plotlines. One revolves around Mirabel's "perfect" sister Isabela who discovers in the song What Else Can I Do? that it's okay not to be perfect. The other is from Mirabel's aunt Pepa, whose emotions control the weather. At the end of the film, she learns that she doesn't have to suppress her feelings all the time in pursuit of this perfectionism, happily dancing in the rain. These storylines, among many others, indicate to the viewer that it's okay to be different and produce things outside the norm.
And here's the thing: if you take this logic to its natural conclusion, these are some radical positions. Again, many people cannot rest or put away their perfectionism because not producing successful products and services in the marketplace can lead to your death. The ability to let people rest would involve some big, structural changes in the way resources are distributed in our society, so they don't feel like they need to work all the time to survive. Rich people would have to lose much of their control and resources and be brought down to everyone else's level through policies too complex to go into detail here.
Disney is, by no means, directly advocating for that approach with this film. They are a conservative identity that actively campaigns for policies such as wage theft, sweatshops, and more. But by creating a film that stresses community and rejects our current work norms, this conservative company made a product that is accidentally very leftist.
Something that highlights this reality comes from my favorite scene in Encanto near the movie's end. The casita has been destroyed, and the family Madrigal is now powerless. Their interpersonal dynamics may have been resolved, but they don't know where they will live. Mirabel starts singing about rebuilding the house, and it's here that the entire community enters the scene with the line: "Lay down your load…We are only down the road…We have no gifts, but we are many."
Typically films in America center on what our protagonist will do for the world (see the Hero's Journey). Luke brings peace to the galaxy. Neo stops Zion from being destroyed. It would have changed little in the narrative to have the family rebuild this house on their own, under Mirabel's direction, highlighting how her leadership has saved this family unit. But by bringing the community into the equation, they are stressing the importance of community as a value. The Madrigals provided for their community in the past, and now they are being provided for in return.
We need more films that push for these kinds of narratives because we need more stories rejecting our current capitalistic concepts of work and atomization. Although I am not holding my breath for Disney to deliver these narratives regularly, I think Encanto serves as a brilliant inspiration for future writers and creators to draw from.
We might not have gifts, but we can imagine a world beyond this one, and that's just as magical.