Fictional Women Around the World: Mirabel Madrigal

In the 2021 animated film Encanto, Mirabel Madrigal won over hearts with her optimism, determination and empathy. We do talk about Mirabel, how she comes into her own and representation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie. And Samantha. And welcome to Stuff
I Never Told You, a production of iHeartRadio. And today,
for another sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-segment of fictional women around the world, we
are talking about Colombian teenager Mirabel Madrigal, voiced by Stephanie Beatriz,

(00:29):
from the 2021 hit animated Disney movie, Encanto. The story
follows the magical family, a family with powers that lives
in a magical house together. The house is called Casita.
Except Mirabelle has no powers and the house is slowly crumbling.
It's up to Mirabelle to save the house and the family.

(00:51):
It's got themes of love, family, intergenerational trauma, immigration, and healing.
I remember I watched this based on my friend Marissa's recommendation,
based on one specific song in there, Surface Pressure, which
we did an episode on later after I listened to
it because I was like, yes, yep, I feel this.

(01:15):
So it came out like kind of as the pandemic was,
like we were slowly coming out of it. And it
was very popular. It did very, very well. So Mirabelle
Madrigal is the youngest daughter of Julieta, and Augustine, with
older sisters Louisa and Isabella. As mentioned, she is the
only member of the family without powers, but as the

(01:37):
miracle begins to fade, the miracle that gives them powers
and made the house and the valley that they all
live in, she takes it upon herself to save the
family's magic, and in doing so, she uncovers a lot
of family trauma and secrets, and helps people cope with
their malfunctioning powers that have long defined them. Getting powers

(01:58):
involves a ceremony that takes place around five years old,
where the child in question touches the door handle of
their new room that the house created. However, when Mirabelle
touched the handle, the door faded away, much to everyone's shock,
especially the matriarch Abuela Alma. Because of this, her younger
cousins live in fear of not getting a gift, and

(02:20):
Mirabelle is sometimes blamed or seen as a warning of
the magic fading. Due to her lack of gift, she
is constantly trying to help out and make her family proud.
She becomes somewhat like the family therapist as the story progresses,
where her empathy really shines through. As the house starts

(02:41):
to deteriorate, at first the family dismisses her concerns, but
soon they become impossible to ignore. Mirabelle decides to track
down their estranged relative, her uncle Bruno, who has the
ability to see visions of the future. The family doesn't
talk about Bruno famously, and Mirabelle doesn't know quite why

(03:02):
he was kicked out. She goes to her sister Louisa
for help, only to learn that despite her super strength,
she struggles with anxiety around expectations and not being strong enough.
After a heart-to-heart, the pair hug, and Mirabelle continues her
search with a tip from Louisa. Mirabelle finds pieces of

(03:22):
Bruno's last known prophecy that seemingly show the house cracked
behind Mirabelle. After a disastrous dinner, Mirabelle's secret is revealed,
the house cracks even further, and everyone loses their abilities.
It turns out Bruno never left and has been living
in the walls of the house the whole time. Bruno

(03:44):
reveals that his gift of prophecy made people believe that
he was a curse causing the events he was predicting,
but that he couldn't leave the family completely, so that's
why he stayed in the walls. He also tells her
that in his vision, Mirabelle either saves the house or
destroys it, and that his worry about Mirabelle and what
would happen to her if this was found out is

(04:07):
that's why he left. Despite his reservations, Bruno caves to
Mirabelle's request to have another vision, one that shows her
hugging her older sister Isabella, with whom she has a
strained relationship, And in this vision, that hug seemingly strengthens
the magic. Reluctantly, and only under Bruno's coaxing, she goes

(04:29):
to Isabella's room to get that hug. At first, it
doesn't go well, but Isabella opens up about the perfection
placed upon her, the expectation placed upon her, and how
she doesn't want to marry the man her family is
setting her up with. With Mirabelle's help, she is able
to use her powers... to make plants and flowers grow,

(04:49):
to create messier, non-perfect creations. She had never been able
to do that before. Something that isn't perfect. They bond
and hug, but when Abuela Alma discovers them, she is
not happy. She asserts that what is happening is all
Mirabel's fault, but Mirabel argues back that Alma's expectations on
everyone is what is killing the house and the magic.

(05:11):
The implication horrifies Alma and the house is destroyed, and
the candle, which is the source of the magic, goes
out in Mirabelle's hands. All the powers are extinguished and distraught.
Mirabelle runs away. Alma finds Mirabelle crying at the place
where Alma's husband Pedro was killed by soldiers while they

(05:31):
were seeking refuge. And this is the spot where the
miracle that gave them the powers and the house and
the valley was born. Alma realizes the truth in Mirabelle's
words about the damage of her expectations and only seeing
abilities and makes up with Mirabelle and Bruno. The townspeople

(05:53):
help the Madrigals rebuild their house, including a door for
Mirabelle to have her own room. And this brings back
their gifts. They celebrate and make sure that Bruno and
Mirabelle are in the family photo because there's been a
through line throughout that they always leave out Mirabelle in
the family photo. So if this was a different episode

(06:16):
in a different podcast, there is so much to say
about the immigration and intergenerational trauma aspect of this, the
war aspect of this. But today we're focusing on Mirabelle, which,
by the way, there was a big theory at the
time that she did actually have an ability, and they

(06:37):
just never understood it. But I feel like reading what
the creators have said, I don't think, like their whole
plot line was they wanted a story where somebody didn't
have it, like everybody else didn't. She didn't. So I
don't think she did. But I remember that being a
big conversation. Now people do think she's going to be
the next, like, matriarch, like the next Abuela Alma. She

(06:59):
will take that role. So when we're talking about traits,
Mirabelle is kind and clumsy. She's empathetic and optimistic. She's
determined and brave. She can communicate with Casita like it's
a person. She's really connected to Casita. People related to her,
people as in the audience, related to her as someone

(07:21):
who isn't special, who feels like they don't measure up.
I read a lot of essays from third generation immigrants
specifically talking about how this, they really identified with this.
Not being appreciated or seen, blamed or dismissed. And I
think that's interesting because she's sort of painted as the
black sheep of the family. But then you learn her

(07:44):
sisters feel the same way. Like, pretty much everybody feels
the same way. The crushing weight of these expectations. Because
of that crushing weight and because she doesn't have a power,
she does have a strong desire or need to be helpful,
to prove herself and make her family proud. And this,

(08:09):
as she is realizing what her siblings with powers are
dealing with, she starts to see her worth outside of powers.
And so do her sisters with her help, which is
kind of the big thing, is that she'd been so
worried about feeling like she wasn't contributing because she didn't

(08:29):
have powers, but her coming into her own and realizing
that she had worth outside of that. Mm-hmm. There's a
lot of relationships with other women in the family that
I find really interesting with her sisters and her mom.
But I would say especially with her grandmother, people are really,
I don't know if divided is the right term, but

(08:49):
people have like strong opinions about the grandmother's actions. I
personally feel like I get where she was coming from
because it was like a really traumatic thing where she
lost her home. And she lost her husband and she
had these three kids. Mm-hmm. And having that fear of

(09:10):
losing that again and the candle going out and losing
the house. But I do also understand when people are like,
you know, she was a child, a literal child that
you were blaming for this whole thing. Right. So I
think their relationship is really interesting. Mm-hmm. And, yeah, representation.
So this was a third-generation immigrant story, but you had

(09:33):
the whole family in there. And, you know, I think
some of people's complaints about the grandmother was that you
sort of get this, like, montage scene that's really sad,
but it doesn't really go into her story too much.
But I feel like, you know, they did showcase where
she was coming from. And we've talked about that in
recent Disney movies. Like, Turning Red was similar, where, like...

(09:55):
The villain has gone from like straight up evil genie
to family drama right right yeah yeah so that that's
interesting uh they did go out of their way the
creators and designers to make sure that her clothing and
appearance uh fit her character but also his traditional andean

(10:16):
style she embroidered her own clothes in the movie. So
you kind of see that. This shocked me. She's the
first female Disney protagonist to wear glasses. Funny. I didn't. What?
I'm thinking about it. Huh. I guess so. And they

(10:40):
purposefully chose that because they wanted it to be like
she had a matter of perspective of how you were
looking at things. But yeah, that blew my mind. That
really blew my mind. But yeah, as I said, she
did resonate with a lot of people. I feel like

(11:00):
she's a relatable character. And a lot of people did
cosplay her at DragonCon the year Encanto came out. That
was a big one. It was a good one. It was.
It was a good one. Mm-hmm. As mentioned, if this
was a different podcast, there's a lot to talk about
what's going on in this movie. But when it comes

(11:22):
to this character, I feel like she was a really
fun character. And to see her growth and her kind
of healing herself and her family and them all coming together.
I liked it. Yes. Well, listeners, if I forgot anything...
if there's another character you would like to suggest, please

(11:42):
let us know. You can email us at hello at stuffmonevertoldyou.com.
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as always to our super producer Rima and our executive
producer Maya. Thank you. And thanks to you for listening.
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(12:03):
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