Disney/Pixar released Cocoin theaters in 2017. While the vibrant colors and vivid images on the screen and beautiful and typical of Disney/Pixar works, the film’s important lessons and perspectives around death and memory work to highlight familiar and unfamiliar understandings of death and family.
Disney/Pixar’s Cocofollows Miguel, a boy around 12, who has a forbidden passion for music, based on a generations-old ban. During Dia de los Muertos (a Mexican holiday that allows loved ones’ spirits to return to earth), Miguel accidentally ends up in the land of the dead and works with Hector (a trickster trying to cross over and visit his daughter before becoming forgotten), to receive his family’s blessing to return to the land of the living in exchange for putting up Hector’s photo so he can be remembered.
By the end of the movie, with Hector and his family’s help, Miguel learns his family’s true history, and returns to his living family, including his great-grandmother Coco (Hector’s daughter, with whom he is trying to visit).
Several themes stuck out as unusual for a Disney/Pixar film. There was a striking lack of fear of death. In the film, death was and is a normal part of life. People live, they die and through our memories they continue to live on. Unlike other Disney/Pixar films, where characters either fear the end of their lives or seek to overcome death through power and magic, Cocooffers a striking contrast. Similarly, we can often see in our own cultures and families attempts to keep our loved ones living, with the end result of a slow death and a low quality of life. In Coco, we found it both comforting and unfamiliar that death was normalized.
While Coco affirms death as normal, inevitable, not something to be feared, it is being forgotten that propels the plot forward. Part of the ritual of Dia de los Muertos is the act of remembering. Families create offerings for their returning loved ones: by preparing favorite foods, decorating and putting up photos and sharing stories of their loved ones. The notion of being forgotten in Coco paints a picture of and flirts with a tragic outcome: once you’re forgotten by everyone on Earth, you face the final death where you leave the spirit world for good. Hector worries that the only living person who remembers him, his daughter Coco (the titular character and Miguel’s great-grandmother), is forgetting him because of age and dementia.
Being Disney, there is a happy ending, one that showcases the power of music and memory. Miguel returns to the land of the living, determined to help his Mama Coco remember her father, Hector. While performing a song that Hector wrote for her (and stolen by his musical partner after Hector’s death), Coco remembers the words. She sings along and in a lucid moment after the song ends, she shares stories she remembers of her father, including the letters he wrote to her as a young girl and a photo she had of him with Miguel and the entire extended family who witnessed a moment of intergenerational love and care.
This moment with Miguel and Coco can be seen in memory neighborhoods throughout United Church Homes and beyond. Residents who may not remember when and where they are, who may not speak hear a hymn or a piece of music and remember all the words. They often sing along and they, too, share a memory they associate with that song. Wherever we are in the aging process, may we remember the lessons from Coco: that death is a beautiful part of life; that our ancestors continue on in our lives through the stories and memories we share of them; and that music can be a powerful tool to remember and connect.
FAQs
But films like "Coco" by Disney Pixar have put death as the protagonist — and that has invited children and adults to approach it not with sadness or fear but as a tribute to life itself: If children ask what happens when someone dies, the message is that we remember them, because memory is life.
What causes the final death in Coco? ›
The Final Death is an event that occurs in the Land of the Dead if nobody in the Land of the Living remembers them. They will become weaker as the last living person who remembers them begins to forget them, eventually fading into oblivion as they are forgotten.
What is the death quote from Coco? ›
Héctor: [sadly] He's been forgotten. When there's no one left in the living world who remembers you, you disappear from this world. We call it the Final Death.
What happens when people stop remembering someone in Coco? ›
The notion of being forgotten in Coco paints a picture of and flirts with a tragic outcome: once you're forgotten by everyone on Earth, you face the final death where you leave the spirit world for good.
What is the deeper meaning of Coco? ›
COCO. A STORY OF TRADITIONS AND LEGACY. Disney Pixar's Coco follows the journey of young Miguel to find his great-great grandfather in the Land of the Dead. Coco provides us with a strong reminder that despite death, family history can transcend the years and continue to shape our families for generations to come.
What is the main message of Coco? ›
The main message of the movie is the importance of family. The love of the family is unconditional and forever. We should never stop loving them even after death. We should never stop talking about them to the next generation.
How old was Coco when she died in Coco? ›
Being 100 at the time of her death, Mamá Coco is the oldest Rivera to be deceased. She was also the last surviving member of the first generation of the Riveras.
What moral does the Coco movie leave us about our loved ones who have died? ›
Coco provides us with a strong reminder that despite death, family history can transcend the years and continue to shape our families for generations to come. For families that may be grieving, we are reminded of many themes we've experienced throughout our own grief journeys.
Why did Coco cry? ›
“If you've been following me for a while you just know this has been something the world has put on me at a young age. I'm just happy that I was finally able to overcome all that to do it,” she explained. “So that's where the tears came from and just a little bit of shock when I finished the match.
What are the three stages of death in Coco? ›
The “first death” is the physical one, the death of the body. The “second death” is more of a natural one: the moment the body is laid to rest in the earth and returned into nature's cycle. The “third death” is that breached in the film and is the most definitive: the moment the last memory of you fades.
Miguel begins to strum the guitar and perform the song Coco's papá wrote for her as a little girl. “Remember me,” he sings in a near-whisper, through tears. “Though I have to say goodbye.” Cut to a close up of Coco's hand, draped on the arm of her wheelchair, twitching ever so slightly.
Why doesn't Hector disappear when Coco died? ›
Héctor is happy to help Miguel as long as the boy promises to remember him when he returns to the Land of the Living, ensuring Héctor does not fade away.
Where do people go in the final death in Coco? ›
The Land of the Dead is a realm in the 2017 Disney/Pixar animated feature film Coco, and also the main setting in the movie. It is an afterlife location, an underworld known in Mexican folklore as the final destination for spirits of the deceased.
Why is memory so important in the movie Coco? ›
Over in the Land of the Dead, we're told that the skeletal souls that go on after they pass away can fade away forever if nobody alive remembers them in the Land of the Living.
What moral lessons can we learn from the movie Coco? ›
It was found that there were nine types of moral values found in the movie "Coco". They are honesty, courage, peace of ability, self-confidence and potential, loyalty and dependability, respect, love and affection, unselfishness and sensitivity and finally, kindness and friendliness.
What does Coco teach us about culture? ›
The film Coco serves as bridging the cultural gap, educating people to respect and reverse misunderstandings. The placing of countless references to specific practices and traditions is very deliberate in portraying Mexican culture.
What does Coco teach children? ›
It teaches children to cope with loss, and that your dead loved ones will always be there if you remember them. It teaches to celebrate their life and to remember them for what good they have done. journey to unlock the real story behind Miguel's family history.
