On the surface, Coco presents as a sweet coming-of-age film that follows the main character, Miguel, as he challenges his family and their multi-generational ban on music as he finds himself stuck in the Land of the Dead during Día de los Muertos. As this story progresses, Miguel and his newfound companion, Héctor, aim to find a photograph of Héctor to display on an ofrenda to prevent him from being forgotten. Throughout the twists and turns of the film, Miguel learns valuable lessons about family, love, and surprisingly, murder.
Though deemed a ‘children’s film’, Coco dares to explore the darker underbelly of the enigma that is the U.S.-Mexico border. While presenting a heartwarming story of discovery for children, Coco tells a different story to adult viewers as it speaks boldly on some of the hottest issues surrounding The Border.
The most blatant ‘adult’ border in the film is represented by the bridge of cempasúchiles that serves as the connection between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead. As deceased individuals make their way over to the Land of the Living for Día de los Muertos, they must first go through a ‘soul scan’. The ‘soul scan’ scans individuals to ensure there is a photo of them up in an ofrenda in the Land of the Living. This photograph serves as their pass into the Land of the Living and thus, souls without photo representations are denied access to the bridge. This is shown to viewers when Héctor attempts to cross without a photograph and is subsequently physically stopped by ‘security’. This nod at U.S. Immigration and its system of entry is blatant and without a need for interpretation from viewers. Much like Coco, it is common that the U.S. Immigration System requires any immigrants requesting entrance to have at least one documented relative living permanently in the United States.
A more complex topic portrayed in Coco is one that Disney-Pixar has since further explored in another Latin film of theirs, Encanto. This topic being intergenerational and familial trauma. Due to the complex and unique experience that surrounds Latine families, trauma and how we react to it are distinctive and often misunderstood. In Coco, Papá Héctor’s disappearance caused a severe trauma-response from Mamá Imelda (the banning of all music for the family). This results in trauma being woven into familial traditions that serve to affect multiple generations to come. This is a much more intense representation of something that is, sadly, very common in Latine families, especially so in families that have or have tried to immigrate to the United States. The disappearance of Papá Héctor represents one of the biggest fears most first-generation Latin children possess, losing a family member to ICE. This loss of a family member directly caused the family dynamic to shift in response. This type of trauma is common and often results in a response similar to Mamá Imelda’s in which families tend to change their future decision-making to avoid re-living these events.
Upon its release, Coco received backlash from many Mexican viewers as they felt that the ICE agent representation was entirely too positive in the film. While yes, this film is aimed at children, it did fail to show one of the most blatant ideas taught to Mexican children. Don’t trust officers. The police aren’t your friends and ICE never means well. These are lessons that, unfortunately, are ones we had to learn in our infancy and carry our entire lives. To see the parody version of these threats be portrayed so lightly leaves a sour taste in the mouths of Mexican adults and children alike.
Though flawed, the representation offered by Coco at the very least served as an open door for communication and critique of the border in its present state. The sympathy and humanization of the border and the necessity to cross it offers a conversation often avoided by Americans due to the discomfort it causes. In its entirety, Coco serves as a palatable introduction to Mexican-American border issues for white Americans and, hopefully, presents a persuasive argument to these viewers.
— Eli Cadena, Class of 2023