Why Disney Set Encanto In Colombia, According To Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda explains why Disney chose to set Encanto in Colombia. The Disney Animation Studios film directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard originally released in theaters in November, scoring positive reviews but underperforming at the box office. Once the film made its Disney+ debut on December 24, however, it became a sensation, generating the studio’s most enthusiastic fan response since 2013’s Frozen.

A big part of that popularity has been the reaction to the movie’s representation of Latinx, more specifically Colombian, culture, part of a more conscious effort on Disney’s part to diversify their animated features. The film features an all-Latinx voice cast and allows the setting to inform both the visual and thematic choices, even to the extent of incorporating more challenging topics, such as intergenerational trauma, that a family-friendly project might typically shy away from. The treatment of Encanto‘s Colombia setting has been praised for pulling influences specifically from that country, rather than treating all of Latin America as a single, homogenized unit.

But, according to Miranda’s recent appearance on a Songwriters Hall of Fame panel (via Deadline), Encanto started its life as a broadly Latin-themed Disney musical, which he was excited to be involved in. The filmmakers ended up choosing Colombia, he reveals, both for its diversity and because it is the “home of magical realism,” a style of fiction that depicts the world realistically while also incorporating fantasy elements. The Encanto team went to Colombia in 2018, Miranda says, which explains how they were able to achieve the cultural fidelity the film has been praised for. Check out his full comments below:

When they make a movie, it becomes a lot of people’s first glimpse at that culture, for better or worse. And so they take it really seriously. And so I, you know, I had a good experience on (Moana) and I said, ‘If you’re making a Latin-themed, Disney musical, like, I’ve been waiting all my life for the call.’ And so we chose Colombia because of the incredible diversity, because it’s the home of magical realism. And we went down there in 2018 and just went to major cities and really small towns and just soaked up music everywhere we went. It was kind of the most fun field trip ever.

Miranda’s association of magical realism with Colombia is understandable – while writers from multiple Latinx traditions have employed the unique style, Colombian author and Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez is arguably the most prominent. Drawing on the tradition certainly worked for Disney, as Encanto fans love the movie in part for its realistic depiction of familial and sibling relationships, which is compellingly enhanced by the Madrigal family’s magical gifts. The emphasis on diversity was also an important choice, as the depiction of a variety of skin tones anticipated colorist criticisms leveled against live-action films like In the Heights.

Miranda’s trip through Colombia clearly also helped his composing process, as Encanto‘s soundtrack has been enormously successful, topping the Billboard 200 and sending every original song onto the US singles chart. The Oscar-nominated “Dos Oruguitas” passed a Disney milestone by becoming the first in one of their animated films to remain in Spanish internationally, meaning it was left untranslated in every version of Encanto worldwide. Prior to release, the film’s voice cast expressed hope that it would be looked back on as a landmark of diversity in American animation, and it certainly seems to be trending in that direction.

Source: Deadline

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