Family Film

Let’s Talk About Bruno

Bruno was more than a black sheep; he was the family’s scapegoat.

Todd Brewer / 2.3.22

If you have kids of any age, you’ve seen Encanto at least twice now. You probably already know the soundtrack back to front. Even if you don’t have kids, you know the songs. “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is the “Let it Go” of 2022, currently the top song on the Billboard charts (the other six songs on the album have also made the Top 100!). Yes, Encanto is ahead of Adele, Ed Sheeran, and Justin Bieber — and deservedly so. The tunes are ridiculously catchy, but it’s the musical’s depiction of family life that really sets it apart.

“Let’s be clear. Abuela runs this show.”

So we’re told in Encanto’s opening number. It’s a small detail at the time, an innocent and self-evident description of the family Madrigal’s matriarchal structure. But Abuela Alma’s management of the family holds the key to the entire film. Because behind the façade of this happy, singing family lies decades of dysfunction. The family may have magical powers, but all is far from well.

They don’t talk about Bruno: that family member whose mere name sets everyone’s teeth on edge. We are led to believe that Bruno was a perpetual problem, an ominous figure who relished predicting bad news. Bruno could see the future, but his gift was feared by a family that strove for perfection.

Bruno was more than a black sheep; he was the family’s scapegoat. The prophet of doom bore the cost of Abuela’s near-perfectionist demands. He is blamed for everything from the death of a goldfish to rain on a wedding day. Bruno was the one who could never do anything right. His supposed faults are amplified to absurdity: “he sees your dreams and feasts on your screams.” Bruno never fit in, a crime for which his disappearance (exile?) seems an appropriate punishment. Better to forget Bruno entirely than recall the family dynamics that drove him away.

Parental judgment and anxiety always tend to trickle down to the easiest target: the shy one, the short one, the middle child. There has to be a release valve; someone has to pay. Focusing on the oddball lets everyone else off the hook. The scapegoat gets sent to therapy, alone.

Abuela, though, isn’t really the villain in this story. She’s selfless in her dedication to the family and the town, bearing the responsibility of others’ flourishing. When Abuela’s children were just infants, her husband was killed as they fled from the army. But when all seemed lost, a miracle provided the family protection and magical powers. Abuela held the family together against all odds, but her past trauma poisons her protective instincts. In the opening number she sings:

“We seek to always help those around us and earn the miracle that somehow found us … Work and dedication will keep the miracle burning. And each new generation must keep the miracle burning.”

The miracle was received as a loan — to be perpetually repaid with works of service. For Abuela, protecting the family means keeping it in line, exerting an implicit pressure on her children and grandchildren. Her love wasn’t conditional, but it sure felt that way. Following Abuela’s cue, the family believes they must always prove themselves worthy of the gift they’ve received. They must never be upset, sad, regretful, or anything but totally fine, lest the miracle be withdrawn.

Abuela didn’t mean to be so exacting. Fear has a way of turning good intentions into a burden, a miracle into a curse.

Bruno was never the problem, nor was he the only one suffering. He might have been the family’s scapegoat, but the rest of the Madrigals fall neatly into the typical roles children play within a dysfunctional family. Roles that often mirror the gifts they received from the house.

Isabella (the flower-powered daughter) is the hero, the “golden child” perfectionist. Luisa, possessing super-human strength, becomes the helper who can’t say no. Young Camilo shapeshifts, a gift that serves him well as the family mascot; Camilo “won’t stop until he makes you smile today.” Tia Pepa is the mastermind who always gets her way: when she’s unhappy, the weather turns and everyone else is unhappy too.

Mirabel, meanwhile, watches in awe of her family’s perfection; watching is what lost children do. She is dearly loved by her parents, but Mirabel still feels unseen, literally forgotten from the family picture. In keeping with her role in the family, she never received a gift from the house. Her closest confidant is her cousin Antonio, who’s too young to have special powers himself.

Bruno fled the family when Mirabel was five years old, and it’s hard to blame him. He did what everyone else in the family seems to have at least fantasized about.

Luisa might have the strength of a god, but under the surface she’s a “tightrope walker in a three ring circus,” crushed by the family’s high standards. No mistakes allowed. The smile of the golden-child (Isabella) is just a pose; she doesn’t want to be so perfect after all. The other family members don’t have any solos, but their refrains would probably sound the same: overwhelmed by the expectations placed upon them, tired of playing a role in this dark family drama, and longing for freedom.

The Madrigals might have magical powers, but their story is far from unique. We all occupy given roles within our family of origin, whether it be the hero, helper, mascot, lost child, or something else altogether. These roles are as inescapable as they are damaging. No one is ever as heroic (or as lost) as their family wants them to be.

For those caught in the web of an unhealthy family, the options can seem desperate. You can either leave your family altogether (like Bruno) or silently suffer (like everyone else). But what if there was a carpenter who came to patch up the holes? They’d surely fix the house … right?

Every time Jesus was asked to wade into family dysfunction, he didn’t take the bait. The mother of James and John asked Jesus to put her sons at the top of the kingdom of God hierarchy, but Jesus gave her no assurances of their rank. A man asked Jesus to force his brother to divide the inheritance — who better to have as your advocate than the son of God? But Jesus demurred: “Who made me a judge between you?” In his teaching, Jesus told a parable of a father who refused to be pulled into the enmity between his two sons.

More than a quick fix, the family Jesus envisioned was the kind that could only come by way of death and resurrection, where dysfunction is exchanged for shared belovedness. A family without hierarchy, rivalry, or (most importantly) judgment. In this family, there are no heroes, helpers, scapegoats, or lost children.

The Madrigal house doesn’t need a fresh coat of paint over the cracks – no, the appearance of perfection could not be maintained. It needs a new foundation altogether. One not built on fear and the burden of perfection, but love, forgiveness, and mutual support. In such a house, there’s room for everyone — even Bruno.