Generational Trauma in Coco
The dead live
Movie: Coco (2017) - Animation
Screenwriters: Lee Unkrich, Jason Katch, Matthew Aldrich
Directors: Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina
Starring in voice: Anthony Gonzalez (as Miguel), Alanna Ubach (as Imelda), Renee Victor (as Abuelita), Natalia Cordova-Buckley (as Frida Kahlo YAY!), Benjamin Bratt (as Ernesto de la Cruz), Gael Garcia Bernal (as Hector) and more…
Mijitos,
Do you know that the veil between the living and dead is a very thin veil?
One day, years ago, a healer woman told me that dying was like going to London. She said, the “dead” person is still there—they are just far away. You can still talk to them. And, the ghosts of the dead can sometimes live within us.
I didn’t know if I could believe her at the time, but now I know, it is true mijita. Energy is energy. Spirits are spirits. When a body passes away, the energy and spirit of that soul lives on—in some manner or form. It can be in a tortured way, or it can be in peace. And it is up to us, who live in this 3rd dimension, to assist the dead in finding their peace and their resting place. That is, if the dead and the past are haunting us. For many people, this is the case. To be consumed by the past is like being haunted by ghosts. It is time to let the past be past, and take one bold step into the mother-lovin’ future. We can honor our ancestors and their struggles, and make a clean, fresh, new way.
In the animated movie Coco, the young hero Miguel longs to play music, but it is forbidden in his family. It is forbidden because in family lore, his great-great grandfather Hector, a talented musician, abandoned his family. Miguel is curious about his family’s past and drawn toward music. He begins to make a God out of a famous musician named Ernesto de la Cruz, who was Hector’s successful best friend. On the Day of the Dead—a traditional Mexican holiday—Miguel transports into the afterlife to visit his ancestors and uncover the truth of Hector and Ernesto de la Cruz so he can solidify his own path forward. He does not wish to be held back by a family who forbids him his talent and expression, and perhaps Ernesto has some answers.
All families carry myths and stories, and often we discover that these stories are not the truth. Miguel discovers this on his journey to the Land of the Dead. In three-dimensional terms, Miguel’s story is like the journey of shamans, yogis, sages, artists, and “black sheep” of families. Some sons and daughters are born with a torch. These torch-bearers can feel the trauma of the family’s painful past, and they know that someone needs to go deep and unlock truth and healing in order for the family to make a step forward—out of the past and into the present. The “black sheep” of a family—the one who goes against the grain, who does battle with the wounds of the psyche (personal, familial, and collective)—is one who decides that she or he will determine her or his own future, and not be relegated to the fabric of tapestry that is designed through blood-ties alone.
Even in the eastern scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna is the warrior who must grapple with family dynamics and war, in order to find the truth of aliveness through yoga, or union.
While Miguel is relatable as a young boy who wishes to play music, he also highlights the path of the artist or outcast—the “wayward son” or daughter—who loves his family but also knows deep inside him that he is his own person. Guess what? these artists and pioneers say. We can have both familial love and our own unique identities!
Miguel’s family, while loving and colorful, conforms to a manner of groupthink that suppresses one’s individual identity. Many of us desire to honor our families and our family legacy, and we may think this means following the same path as family members. In this film, Miguel’s family makes shoes, and they want him to make shoes as well. Miguel thinks and feels differently, however. He has other dreams for himself, and the family suppresses his voice and wishes for him to put family first rather than his own longings and desires. He is forced into a kind of groupthink that says love is giving up what you love.
I have to bring up the story of Jesus here, because cultural identities are often woven through our myths, legends, and stories. Like Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, the story of Jesus is similar to that of Miguel. Jesus is a prodigy in a particular way. As he begins to preach and prophesy, and share spiritual messages, he disrupts the order of his family and their expectations of him. Remember the moment in the gospel of Matthew, when someone comes to Jesus in the temple, where he is preaching, and says, “Your mother and brothers are outside—they want a word with you.” Jesus says, “Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Jesus’s point is that we all must make our own paths forward. Some people will follow the same track, sense of identity, and belief patterning of those in their bloodlines, and others will find a new track, their own unique path. Those of us who choose our own way must do battle with the demons and shadows and ghosts of family history (and ourselves) and carry it for a time, and release it, and demonstrate that we can love people without being owned or controlled by them. This is what Miguel, in essence, is doing in Coco. He does not need to yell or scream at his family, or put anyone down, or say their path is inferior. He simply needs to be himself and honor what is inside him, and keep doing that.
The way Miguel makes progress is through courage. He goes into the past (the land of the dead) and sorts through the details and the truth, through understanding the fabric that has made up his family’s ethos. Amidst the smoke and mirrors, the intense emotions, the grudges and the shame, he finds the truth of love as a liberating force. And when he comes back into this third dimension again (we are never meant to stay in the land of the dead), Miguel can offer his heart and his truth in a new way, a way that is life-giving and inspiring. He does that by honoring what is inside him, and showing that things are not so extreme as either/or. He demonstrates the truth of love is yes, and. This includes taking a step of forgiveness to untie the knots of family lore.
It is a song, and the inner child in all of us, that brings Miguel’s family back to their sacred home. Our minds—our patterns, our beliefs, our life-cycles—take us on wild rides of the imagination. Yet when we go into our deepest heart and access our deepest truth, we find our inner child. We find joy. What does that child want? What does that child know? In what ways can we protect that white dove of innocence inside us, and lay new fabric for the next generation?
This journey is what allows Miguel to highlight the inner child in his great-grandmother, Coco. She shows that there are some things about her father worth remembering. She shows that there is a past we can keep alive—the past of love. She and Miguel teach the family that the truth of the heart rests in a song.
I happen to know a little bit about the magic of grandmothers. My grandmother is 88 and still her zesty self. She is a treasure that I am so grateful to have and to know.
May it be, mijitas, muchachos—
Ms. Wonderful
*The movie Coco is streaming on major platforms now, and great for the whole family.