By: Daniel Salcedo Rubio
The way media and mass communication outlets present marginalized groups can easily create bias in their audiences. When I was a kid, I grew up with incredibly problematic representations of gay characters in the media: they either were ridiculed, presented as inappropriate, or with behaviour issues — of course I grew up with internalized homophobia. If such portrayals caused me to hate and deny my own identity, just imagine what it does to those outside of these communities. For reasons like this, appropriate representation should be an obligation for any outlet.
I’m writing this article on November 1st. Tomorrow will be the Day of the Dead, and it’s now my personal tradition to watch Coco on this cultural holiday. You’ve probably heard of the Disney-Pixar movie; it came out back in 2017 and is part of Disney’s cultural diversity set of movies, like Moana and Encanto. These movies all share a common theme: they include people from the cultures they’re trying to represent to make an accurate portrayal of said cultures. Before moving forward, I want to acknowledge that while I love these movies, there are still some problematic aspects to them. These movies aren’t perfect and are subject to bias from the creators. Whether it’s missing key aspects of these cultures, the use of stereotypes and clichés (or in the case of Coco, greed from Disney for trying to trademark “Día de los Muertos.” Fuck you for that one, Mickey). But let’s not focus on the negatives right now, let’s see what they’ve done right. I’ll focus on Coco as it’s the movie that represents my culture and thus is my area of knowledge.
When I first watched Coco, I wasn’t in Mexico; I had been away from my home country for months. I had reached that point where joyful memories of Día de los Muertos turned painful to remember because I wasn’t able to take part in the celebration. I could only see the photos my mom would send me of our family ofrenda (an altar for those who have passed away), or crave a pan de muerto (bread of the dead, a type of sweet bread with roots in the Día de los Muertos tradition). If you have moved to a new country, you’ve probably felt something similar: you feel disconnected from the country you used to call home and you just can’t seem to entirely fit into where you are now. That was until November 2017, when Coco was released. I, of course, took all of my friends to the cinema so they could experience a bit of my culture. Coco did not make me reconnect with my culture, my friends’ reactions to it did. They were so excited to learn more about the tradition of Día de los Muertos after the movie, they bombarded me with questions:
Do you really put food in the altars? What type of flower is that? Yup, we always put some pan de muerto for my abuelito and you can see cempasúchil everywhere around this time of the year. Even the main street in Mexico City gets decorated with it.
What are those colourful animals in the land of the dead? Those are alebrijes, they are imaginary creatures with body parts of many animals. It’s pretty common to make them in art classes or to find them being sold somewhere in the city.
Why is the grandmother always attacking everyone with her sandals? La chancla is a traditional weapon used by the matriarchs of our families to induce fear in the heart of those who dare disobey them (of course this was a joke, we don’t condone physical violence).
How excited and happy they were with the movie made me entirely forget the extremely problematic comments I had been dealing with in France. Some of the residents in my building would make random comments like “Hey! Pablo Escobar!” or “El Narco!” (the drug lord) whenever they saw me. I don’t want to excuse these people for their comments, but I understand that they were only a product of stereotypes in western and eurocentric media. They didn’t know any better because that was what the popular media was representing my culture as. Series like Narcos, Pablo Escobar, or La reina del Sur might show an exaggerated version of a painful reality, but when this is all people consume, it becomes a false generalization of entire identities. The people who lived in my building associated me with Narcos not because I’m a drug lord or have any relationship with drugs, but because that’s probably all they knew about my country and about my culture.
Representation can do wonders to help us overcome conscious or subconscious limitations imposed by problematic stereotypes or beliefs. Another great example is the recently released Netflix series, Heartstopper. Older people in the audience, myself included, can only imagine how helpful it would’ve been to have a series like this when we were kids. To have healthy portrayals of same-sex relationships, and to have LGBTQIAS2+ characters being portrayed without the shackles of harmful stereotypes. If I had had a series like Heartstopper when I was a kid, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have hated myself for so long. I would have accepted my sexuality and enjoyed my teenage years.
This is the power of representation and we as a society have both the right and obligation to ensure appropriate representation in the media. Representation can demonize a whole community and give an ugly, untrue picture to someone if it only focuses on harmful stereotypes. Or, it can change perspectives and belief systems entirely for the better. Proper representation has the power to help us better understand cultures and the people within them.
