I’ve seen this post, and my first thought was that it sounded completely fabricated to generate likes and shares. It sounds like the perfect villain vs hero story. I’ve seen the behind the scenes documentaries about making recent Disney films, and that entire team is very positive and collaborative. There’s no one evil in the corner saying “no muscles!”
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I haven’t seen the post, but I agree, I don’t think there was any real “fight” to get Luisa to look how she did, but, truthfully, I would’ve preferred her not be as muscular as she was. Athletic, totally works, even a “fat thor” approach. But a body builder appearance didn’t play nearly as well as all the other characters did for me.
No, not because “DURRR SHE WOMAN! NEED BE TINY!” It’s actually because I feel it was a lazy design choice. Just like I hate it when I see Superman drawn like he’s a Mr. Universe body builder. Their powers are supernatural and therefore should not be directly tied to their physical appearance.
NONE of the other characters’ powers were linked to their physical appearance nor their underlying personality types. Dolores didn’t have huge ears and Isabela wasn’t wearing anything “bold” until her arc finished. But even without magic and from the introduction, Luisa looked like she could bench press a bus.
And to me, that just says “we didn’t know what to do with her.”
If all the characters had the same physical appearances as their underlying personality or their powers, it would’ve made more sense, but only Luisa’s appearance aligned with her powers (and arguably her underlying insecurities).
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Oh gosh, my kids get out of bed asking to turn on Encanto and when I tell them no tv before school they have Alexa play the soundtrack. At this point I’m concerned I will never get to stop talking about Bruno.
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That’s a fair criticism. It seems like Luisa is resonating with some people though, both her personality and her looks, so maybe it’s an “all’s well that ends well” situation. But now you mention it, it was an odd choice.
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In my family, I AM Luisa (except I’m the oldest and I can barely curl a ham sandwich, let alone a dumb bell). So she definitely resonated with me, which is why I was a little disappointed they went the way they did.
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Okay so it turns out the original quote was from Dylan Ekren’s social media, and someone has extrapolated and run away with it. And he’s not exactly some pioneering feminist hero - most of his illustrations seem to be semi nudes with front wedgies.
I’ll confess that I’m not as delighted by Luisa’s popularity as many people. She’s been shared by a lot of folks on the mommy circuit - “this is me because I sacrifice everything for my family” when really it’s just ironing underwear and shoelaces that nobody wanted ironed anyway.
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But …luisa DIDN’T sacrifice for the family? That was Isabela. Are they that confused?
Lusia is the one that is always on Damage Control.
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FTFY
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i mean…you’re not wrong…
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DD27 was like “okay save the miracle but dammit find out who keeps letting the donkeys out!!”
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I don’t think this is a LMM thing. I think Disney kicked this off with Frozen. That had the same sort of musical theater singing dialogue. This might just be the direction they want to go with their modern musical movies.
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I think it’s less ironing underwear and shoelaces and more feeling a really heavy weight of responsibility. “Crushing weight of expectation” if you will.
Edited to add: and this feeling is, of course, not limited to moms.
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I actually was really annoyed by the opening song.
Almost turned the movie off because of it. It was completely uninspired and sounded like a toddler’s sing-songy explanation of what they were doing with a little bit of flourish added. I mean… in one part alone they repeated the same word several times, and then rhymed “up” with “up”.
LMM is better than that, c’mon now.
The rest of it was better though.
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I agree. The only rhyming I enjoy in the opening song is that done in Spanish.
And abuela’s part annoys me when she uses “keep the miracle burning” twice in a row.
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This part bothers my husband too, but I maintain they rhyme round with sound too so it’s ok. 
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The difference is those are 2 different words. 
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Same breath as the up thing though!
oh definitely. It’s just bad song writing all around.
Like I said, LMM is better than this. This was likely forced in last minute by a focus group or something. because the line “so many people, how do you keep them all straight?”…. There’s 9 people, and you don’t need to know all of them out of the gate. Hardly overwhelming.
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Ok, I’ll give you this. Especially since it’s a small town and everybody knows everybody in small towns. And these kids were born there—no one is new.
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I assume you’re talking about this line:
So, let’s turn the sound up, you know why?
I think it’s time for a grandkid round up
Rhyming “sound up” with “round up” is classic LMM rhyme scheme, typical of rap and hip hop, as opposed to classic rhyme scheme where you’re just looking at the final word. Another technique he uses is to stack multiple rhyming words in the second line rather than saving them for a later line. Here’s an example:
Oh! And that’s my mom Julieta, here’s her deal, whoa
The truth is, she can heal you with a meal, whoa
You can find similar techniques in all his music. In short, it doesn’t bother me because it is intentional and it’s his style.
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