In the Pics section, film critic Floortje Smit casts her eye on contemporary visual culture.
We need to talk about Bruno.
Bruno?
Yes, Bruno, the black sheep of the Madrigal family in encanto. He is the uncle of main character Mirabel, a man who is hiding in the magical house where the new Disney movie is set and the subject of the song We Don’t Talk About Bruno.
A monster hit. Streamed over 29 million times last week, surpassing the Frozen-hit Let It Go and just like an earwig. The reason for this has been extensively analyzed in the American media. For example, there is that bass line, which constantly misleads the listener, according to the cultural website slate, the different types of vocals and the way the C ingeniously follows the plot.
That is of course clever of composer and writer Lin-Manuel Miranda. But it’s not the main reason why tiktokers are currently flocking to the song – the reason it’s so high on the charts. One user after another of the app dresses up as the Madrigal family member he or she most resembles and playbacks (part of) the song. Or another song from the movie encanto, which is becoming more popular by the day.
So many different people can identify with the characters too – especially those who aren’t considered classically beautiful. The main character has glasses, freckles, curls. There’s a girl with big ears and one with big muscles. There is a palette of skin tones. A photo of a cute 2-year-old Brazilian boy with dark curls looking at his ‘mirror image’ Antonio went viral with the hashtag #representationmatters. The only one in the film who is really Disney princess pretty is the sister who later turns out to be suffering from her perfectionism.
And therein lies the real secret of encanto’s success: the diversity goes further than just appearances. The characters represent different roles you can assume within a family – that of a problem solver, that of unfailing success story, that of the ignored misfit.
The tiktokers, often children of migrants, talk about their experiences; according to CNN psychiatrists are now using the film in their practice. A journalist from The New York Times took her Colombian father with her to the cinema and he told more about his past than he had ever done.
That is what We Don’t Talk About Bruno really does: make the things that are not talked about open for discussion.