[ SECRET POST #4114 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4114 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



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02.
[Tabatha Takes Over]


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03.
[Sherlock (BBC)]


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04.
[Traci Hines]


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05.
[Brooklyn 99]


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06.
[Louisa May Alcott, Eight Cousins where Charlie makes a bargain with Rose that he'll give up smoking if she gives up wearing earrings]


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07.
[Tabatha Takes Over/Tabatha Coffey]


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08.
[Paul Hollywood from The Great British Bake Off]


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09.
[Frozen/Moana]


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10.
[All for One, Portia Vallon]


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11.
[How I Met Your Mother]








Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 44 secrets from Secret Submission Post #589.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

funny because coco was entirely "okay" for me because the movie crippled its message from the premise on

[(Anonymous)]

haven't seen it, how does it do this?

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, to echo the above comment, how does it cripple its message?

[(Anonymous)]

because the point of contest is something entirely harmless, as demonstrated by how the main character in the end has his cake and eats it too.

the family is psychotic about his hobby. and his hobby is music! it is very evident that miguel's loves music, "becoming famous" is a secondary goal at best. his running away from his family to search out the one adult who he thinks understands him is not unreasonable (he also thinks he is part of his family, so he isn't even consciously turning his back on his family), because there is absolutely no sane reason for why he should be forbidden to play music, or hear music. imagine if he had to swear to never try and become famous, instead of having to flat out ban music from his life forever. if he had run away then it would be obvious someone refusing to give up their childish dreams.

but and i cannot stress this enough, he is expected to ban any and all ---music--- from his entire life, because one dude in his family once abandoned them to become a musician.

(though i will admit i wasn't particularly predisposed to the "family over everything" message anyway. i don't think anyone deserves special treatment just because of circumstance of birth)

[(Anonymous)]

You know, if Coco in anyway framed it that Miguel's family was 100% right and he was a no good mean mistreater for his reaction, I'd agree with you. But it isn't like that.

It's clearly shown throughout the movie that the family is being irrational. It's pretty clearly highlighted that Miguel's mother and grandmother in particular are being unnecessarily harsh. We're on Miguel's side of that struggle and we're not supposed to think he's being a brat, we're meant to be empathising with him. The whole point of the movie is that the lesson to be learned isn't only Miguel's, it is his family's.

The message may be 'family over everything', but with the addendum of 'as long as your family accepts you for who you truly are'. That's why Miguel gets his cake and eats it: because they all grow.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT, agree with everything you said.

Also, I'd like to point out that 'family over everything' is a theme that might just be a tad bit culturally weighted. So if it doesn't resonate with certain segments of the audience... well, tough cookie, but it is there for a reason.

[(Anonymous)]

That's not the premise crippling itself. That's the conflict of the film. You're essentially complaining that the problem the MC faces that kickstarts his journey is, you know, kind of a problem and makes the audience all empathetic with him. That's what it's supposed to do. If his only conflict was that he had to promise to eschew fame, it would be a totally different journey -- and Miguel would probably seem kinda unsympathetic at the outset. They did it this way so that he would endear himself to us enough that by the time he starts recklessly messing with traditions, we can still root for him.

It's like saying, "Isn't it terrible that Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters abuse her so much? There's no reason for it, she's such a nice girl! What if they were nice to her but she wanted to be a pirate?" It wouldn't be that story anymore, innit?

[(Anonymous)]

what you're saying would only make sense if in order to get the prince cinderella had needed to accept her abusive step sisters and give up on the prince. what a useless comparison.

which is exactly my point. miguel is supposed to learn a lesson in that movie but there is zero indication that he ever did anything wrong. his family was wrong. his family who aren't even in 90% of the movie and get no journey. (his dead family gets more than that, but they're not the ones that destroyed his belongings)

he barely messed with tradition either, not enough to justify the plot. he took the photo which meant that his great-grear-grandmother couldn't cross boundaries a single time. meanwhile his family were the ones who banned a family member from the ofrenda and even damned him to oblivion, breaking tradition far more severely. yet they're change is glossed over. miguel sings, coco starts talking again, i guess it's all cool now.

[(Anonymous)]

Uh no, that is a different issue. Miguel’s and Cinderella’s conflicts are different, hence the resolutions are also different. Cinderella’s family was evil and abusive. The resolution allowed her to escape their influence. Miguel’s family was overbearing and restrictive, but still loved him. The resolution was that they learned the error of their ways, and embraced his dreams.

It doesn’t change the fact that both stories need the conflict - journey - resolution formula to work and that you’re unhappy about how conflict-y the conflict is.

Seriously, you understand anything about the story at all? It wasn’t about the picture he took, he couldn’t have known the full consequences of that and neither did the audience. But he did other things intentionally: Miguel grave-robbed from a mausoleum on the most sacred day dedicated to the dead — that’s why he was punished. Then he had a chance to go back, but rejected it in order to seek the man he thought was his ancestor (remember, Imelda’s blessing would have been enough and had sent him back once successfully). All this reckless messing with traditions and endangering his own existence is the reason the character needed to have a motivation we could sympathize with.

[(Anonymous)]

The premise of the film isn't what you're saying it is.

Once again, the plot isn't "Miguel is a flawed hero who must grow before the story is over", "how dare this child shun his family and choose to play guitar when music is understandably banned completely."

He's not a tragic figure because he has one fatal flaw. He's a sympathetic character because everyone else knows more than he does.

The premise of this film is "Miguel is a gifted child in a difficult situation, contending with a family mystery he doesn't know the cause of, we shall join him as he finds out more, however along the way he may make some perfectly reasonable mistakes that are laden in dramatic irony because conflict is central to plot."

No, Miguel didn't mean to mess with tradition. He messed with his family's weird aversion - that we are supposed to see as weird and unfair - and yes - we do see his family grow from that, from their misconceptions.

It's almost impossible to bounce POV in a movie ostensibly made for kids, so his family's arc is needfully ellipsed, but's still there. That's the whole point of Miguel getting to play guitar at the end and still have his strong family connection.

You didn't understand this movie, not even a little bit, judging from these comments. You can find it 'meh' if you want, but it's actually a pretty different movie that you're finding 'meh'.