MovieChat Forums > Coco (2017) Discussion > awful toxic abuelita character

awful toxic abuelita character


Don't get me wrong. I like the movie and I love it's themes. It's just that I didn't like the Abuelita character at all. Especially when she broke Miguel's guitar just because he has a passion for music. And near the end of the movie, she didn't even apologize to Miguel which made me so mad.

Which is exactly why I'm sick of certain animated movies that have toxic male/female character who have no repercussions for their behavior nor do they show any regret. Just wanted to get it off my chest.

(edited)

Ok to be fair, though, her behavior actually made sense within the context of the movie. I was only talking about the fact that we've been getting those character archetypes for quite some time.

reply

I cannot stand her, she's unbearable. I hate his whole family, they're horrible

reply

This is much more complicated though than that Elena simply was a jerk.
Yes, it is really a heart-breaking scene when she destroys the guitar.
And it's clear that even Miguel's father who otherwise agreed that becoming a musician would be bad for his son thought that it was too much.
But that is how much Imelda poisoned Elena's mind with her fear that any Rivera who became a musician would disappear from the family.
Which is clearly so unacceptable in Mexico, that Miguel had to learn a lesson about the importance of family as if he had done something wrong.
And as I come from Sweden, I know that this makes little to no sense from a modern Occidental perspective.
But from a Latin American perspective, what Elena did would be seen as harsh but understandable when you consider the circumstances.
And as weird as this sounds, Elena destroying the guitar was also a necessary step in Miguel's journey to save Hector from the final death.
Because if Miguel still had had his old guitar, he wouldn't have taken Hector's guitar in Ernesto's mausoleum and gone to the land of the dead.
Which he just had to do to learn the truth and be able to refresh Coco's memory, so she could talk about her father before she passed away.
So if you look at the moment when Elena destroyed the guitar within the context of Mexican culture in general and this story in particular?
Then it's clear that Miguel had every right to be upset and angry, but he shouldn't have said that he didn't want to be a part of his family.
And it was like Elena had to destroy his guitar, so he could save Hector and make the Riveras heal and stop being dysfunctional at last.
And that is the end of this wall of text, but it truly is a much more complex story than that Elena simply was a jerk for no good reason...

reply

You do have some fair points in this, I'll give you that. I'm not saying the character herself was a villain. No, no. I was talking about her aggressive insensitive behavior.

reply

I agree, she is hardly that likable before her heart melts when Miguel sings and plays the guitar for Coco.
But she's a victim of a generational trauma just like the rest of the family.
And we can tell already in some early scenes that she loves Miguel even if she can't understand him.
And it made her want him to conform and stay in the family so badly, that it made her push him away.
Miguel could have been lost to them forever when he ran away when he was only twelve years old.
And it all would have been because they didn't know the truth about what happened to Hector.
So in the end, Elena was actually a tragic figure...

reply

You were right to call out her toxic antics honestly.

reply

Yeah, she was easy to resent, but it's not a cut-and-dried case of villainy.

One the one hand, the "No Music" rule was clearly someone making a stupid rule because they love being obeyed.

On the other hand, they're aren't a rich family, everyone has to work and pull their weight in the family business, there's no room in that house for a kid who thinks making shoes is beneath him.

reply

It is wrong though to say that Imelda started the "no music" rule just because she loved to be obeyed.
She believed that music had made her husband abandon her and their little daughter.
Of course, that was a bit silly.
But she didn't know that Hector was murdered and believed that he hadn't cared about his family.
Which was really awful to her since he was the love of her life despite how angry she became with him.
And as Miguel explained, she believed that shoes had brought the family together and music had divided it.
So by the time that the movie started, they had become highly dysfunctional and needed help.
Of course, nobody except for Miguel seemed to be unhappy with the status quo as far as we can tell.
But it was hardly healthy that they gasped with horror if you simply talked about musicians in front of them.
Or that Miguel couldn't even blow into a bottle without making his grandmother go ballistic...

This is more understandable though when you realize that they thought that there was a curse on their family:
They believed that if any of them became a musician like Hector, he would be lost and never return just like him.
But they didn't seem to get that they almost made a self-fulfilling prophecy occur.
Miguel would have found a way to be a musician elsewhere and leave his toxic family if things hadn't changed...
Which brings me to my second point:
It is hardly fair to expect every Rivera to join the family business and never want to try a different career path.
And I don't remember Miguel saying that shoe-making was "beneath him".
But it was clear to him already when he was twelve years old, that it wasn't what he wanted to do with his life.
He was truly a musical prodigy and his talents and his interests lied elsewhere...

reply

And as for her never apologizing, that seems to be realistic for a story about Latin America.
Lots of people have expressed disbelief in that Abuela Alma in "Encanto" apologized.

reply

they have? didn't know that.

reply

It is indeed apparently a cultural thing.
But I can only take other people's words for it since I'm not Latin American.

reply