Is Encanto Catholic? (650 words)

Source: "Encanto Teaches Us to See God in Ourselves and Others"

No, but I wish it were!

Encanto is the best Disney canon movie since the mid-90s, and I had a lot of fun watching it. One of the movie’s strengths is its rich ensemble cast, a sprawling multi-generational Colombian family who have received a mixed blessing: Every person born into the family possesses a unique magical talent, and it’s assumed that this will carry on for generations so long as they “keep the miracle burning.” Only the protagonist, Mirabel, is born without a power.

The movie takes place in a Catholic community. As of 2017, Colombia was 73% Catholic and 14% Protestant; since Encanto takes place vaguely in the 20th century, I’m guessing that the proportion of Catholics was even larger at that time. Luisa mentions that she helps the community by building churches, and at least one scene prominently depicts a Catholic priest in uniform:

Un sacerdote catolico.

I think it would have been great if Encanto had taken place in an explicitly Christian universe! The characters pray for and receive miracles, but they never explicitly talk about the source of the miracles. Abuela says that the family must “earn the miracle / that somehow found us,” and Mirabel’s “I Want” song, “Waiting on a Miracle,” closes with a plea that sounds like a prayer: “Bless me now as you blessed us all those years ago—when you gave us a miracle!” Who is “you”? Mirabel must mean God, right? How strange that the characters never consider the cosmic significance of the magic that dominates their lives! What is God telling them, what does He want them to do? Encanto is already one of the most emotionally mature Disney movies, but it would be even more interesting if the filmmakers were willing to explore emotions such as resenting that God chose you for something you don't want, worrying that you've fallen short of God's standards, or wondering why God didn’t choose you at all.

(Bonus: In that same scene, you can see Mirabel clasp her hands together in prayer at 2:26—but her hands are obscured because the camera is behind her, and when we do see her from the front she immediately pulls her hands apart! Her hands aren't quite in the right position, but I still think it's what they were going for.)

Not praying, just thinking.

Of course, I can’t actually blame the filmmakers for playing down the religious implications, since the movie I want would have been much more controversial than the movie they actually made. I don't know whether many non-Christians would have been offended if they did this, but I think that some Christians would have been upset to learn that, for example, Bruno’s prophetic powers are a gift from God. (Take a moment to read about the fate of seers in Dante’s hell!) I’m glad that the movie at least acknowledges religion rather than scrubbing it out of the setting entirely, but I wish that our popular media were more comfortable engaging with religion and depicting religious worldviews. I especially like it when children’s movies take religion seriously, and (as unlikely as this is right now) I would be especially pleased if major animated studios set movies in the worlds of Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism, pre-colonial native religions, and other traditions outside of Christianity and Judaism. All of us have religion—either we are religious, or else our thoughts and values are shaped by (or built against) the religions that live alongside us. In a religiously pluralist society such as ours, the ideal is not for our popular media to be thoroughly secular, but for media to reflect the experiences and values of many different people.

***

Movies that take place within a religion or folk tradition: Spirited Away, Coco, The Color of Paradise, The Prince of Egypt, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Other movies and shows that take religion seriously (without supernatural elements): Spotlight, Doubt, Amadeus, Jane the Virgin.