Encanto’s main protagonist may have dodged the official crown of a Disney royalty, but she surely is a “princess” in her own special way. The Madrigal family is endowed with superhuman powers, except for Mirabel, the optimistic, glass-wearing heroine of the 2021 animated Disney film. She may not be the “perfect” granddaughter in the eyes of her abuela, the town’s founding matriarch, but her bespectacled character makes her the first unconventional, glass-wearing protagonist of Disney, thanks to a 12-year-old Disney fan who wrote the animation giant back in 2019 to feature a character that wears spectacles.
SPOILER ALERT: This write-up might contain relevant scenes from the movie.
It is not often that we see an eyeglass-wearing Disney lead character, although there are a couple of supporting characters that do, namely Doc (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), Sadness (Inside Out), Merlin the Wizard (The Sword in the Stone), Milo Thatch (Atlantis), Mr. Smee (Peter Pan), Geppetto (Pinocchio), John Darling (Peter Pan) and Scoorge McDuck (Ducktales), among others. In the story, Mirabel is portrayed as the only Madrigal who has no magical gift which made her the underdog and the outcast within the magical family, and resulted into her wanting to fit in. It is a known fact that glass-wearers to this age still carry the weight of stereotypes and bullying, especially among the younger generation. Mirabel’s yearning to belong is expressed as an “unspoken, invisible pain” in the moving ballad, Waiting on a Miracle, depicting how unmet unrealistic societal expectations can drag people down and even put pressure on the other members of the family, as shown driving Mirabel’s sister, Luisa, to the brink of mental breakdown in Surface Pressure.
Mirabel’s glasses may also signify an analogy to how she alone could clearly see the invisible cracks in their magical home, the casita, which if not addressed could cause it to crumble to the ground, signaling its ultimate demise and, symbolically, the apparent downfall of the family. After all, Mirabel’s name was derived from the Spanish word, “mira,” which means sight, illustrating her gift of hindsight on the impending crisis.
Overall, at the heart of Encanto is magical realism depicting an abstract villain in the form of intergenerational trauma, a nod to Gabriel García Márquez’s yellow butterflies and classic retelling of Colombia’s dark past, and not to mention, showcasing the country’s rich biodiversity through Antonio’s gift. On another note, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical genius struck gold with the movie’s score since his stint as playwright and lyricist of the Broadway hit musical, Hamilton.
