The Great Success of Coco in China: Family Conquers All
Coco has received unexceptional success in China, grossing over 154 million in the first month after release. While it presents unique, engaging Mexican aesthetics and novel music, its appeal may depend on the Chinese audience resonating with this film’s hidden message. Rather than a simple story of a boy chasing his music dream encountering family disapproval, it offers a heritage value that enduring and immutable family bond and support would never vanish. That is why this movie translates well in China; family bonds are so long as keeping people’s memory alive.
Coco celebrates the Day of the Dead, a traditional Mexican festival, on November 2. In Mexico, families prey and remember the friends and family members who have died. In the movie, Miguel’s grandmother Abuelita and other members started setting up altars up to a week before. The altars include some essential elements. A beautiful cloth placed over a table with all the deceased members’ portraits and marigolds; however, Miguel’s great-great-grandfather did not show up. The story begins here with how Miguel reveals the mysterious scene of his great-great-grandfather and brings him back to the family.
From the beginning scene of the movie, the Papel Picado, colorful perforated tissue paper representing the wind, presents the backstory of Miguel’s family. Because the great-great-grandfather left to pursue his music dream, the ban on music in the family came out. Because China has red paper cuts to celebrate the New Year, this remarkable familiarity enables the Chinese audience to engage more from the very beginning. As a mother without the support of her husband, Miguel’s great-great-grandmother Imelda started her shoemaking industry, sacrificing her dreams for the benefit of her extended family. After successfully creating the family shoe industry, she prohibited all family members from contacting music. To prevent the recurrence of the tragedy of abandoning her family because of her ideals, Imelda put all her efforts into keeping the harmony of the extended family, becoming an extremist trying to protect the family.
Family prioritizing others, which the background story of Miguel’s family, appears to be a platitudinous idea, yet it profoundly appeals to the Chinese audience. This feudal patriarchy has deep roots in China. Although young people in China are now very assertive and are no longer obedient to their parents’ teachings, the family tradition of respecting parents and strictly abiding by their ancestors is still an essential part of traditional Chinese culture. Indeed, it is a pedantic and old-fashioned notion, but at least Mexicans are similar to Chinese ancestors in this regard. Because of this cultural resonance, even the crude love of Miguel’s grandmother is empathetic among the Chinese audience.
Mexican heritage values that death is the reflection of life. Only death shows the highest meaning of life, which is the opposite side and the supplement of life. In the movie, on the Day of the Death, people gather at the ceremony and dance, dressing up in colorful dresses and hats. The gloomy content of death and remembering is presented by bright colors, cheerful singing, and dancing. Specifically, the well-arranged altar in the film and the “Bridge of Marigolds” leading the dead show the audience the firm belief of the Mexican people in the return of the deceased. The distinctive smell of the flowers is said to guide the spirits back to the land of the living. In the movie, the shining yellow marigold bridge connects the land of the living and the land of death, corresponding to the mythology of marigold petals representing the path to family. The value of life and death behind the Day of the Dead reveals that death is not the end of life; forgetting is. The movie shows that Mexicans do not avoid mentioning death and even deal with it with ridicule or contempt. Day of the Death is a memorial as an excellent opportunity to reunite with the deceased because as long as people are in the memory of other family members, they did not pass away.
The value of death coincides with the recycling of life from Buddhism, in which death is the disappearance of the physical body but not mental relations. In China, during the Qingming Festival, people offered their remembrances to their dead ancestors, relatives, and friends, which is the reverence and reflection on death, the longing and wish for life. Coincidentally, Chinese people often send chrysanthemums, a yellow flower, to the dead while sweeping and doing tribute activities. This similar sense of nostalgia makes the Chinese people connect with Coco in terms of a point of emotional resonation. In traditional Chinese concepts, death is a taboo topic. The fear and sadness that people experience when facing death make them cherish and revere life even more. When people think about life and death, they perceive the beauty of life and analyze the meaning of life. Although Qingming Festival and Day of the Dead have different origins and cultures, they are all festivals to pay homage to the deceased and think about life and death, evoking the Chinese audiences’ apathy.
As the movie goes on, Miguel finally finds Hector is his true great-great-grandfather, not Ernesto. Down in the pit, Miguel expresses regret for abandoning his family to the land of death. Hector expressed his desire to see his daughter Coco. Meanwhile, even though Imelda is reluctant to help Hector back as a cohesive and united family, she is willing to help at the last moment. Miguel safely returned to the real world with family help and support, bringing Hector’s photo. With recognition by the whole family, Hector finally is a man with an identity, which could freely travel between two lands. Miguel sing “remember me” in the final scene, which not only reveals his dream come true with the approval and support of his family. As this song connects his family, the reconciliation and reconnection signify the lesson that as long as people are being remembered, they are not dead.
Cross-cultural success implies the globalization of culture. Coco humbly presents a foreign culture to the world, but more than any other aspect of the film is the idea of family and death. In other words, a central theme runs through the film — Miguel risks everything for his family. The power of family in Chinese culture is also an inveterate value, which is probably the most cross-cultural human emotion ever shown in the film — the need for self-protection, attention or love, and the need to connect, all of which are fulfilled by the family members. Additionally, the remembrance of deceased family members appeals to the compassion of Chinese audiences, overlapping the Chinese comprehension that death is the start of recycling. China’s strong sense of family and reception of recycling life is the most significant catalyst for empathy. By tapping into the cross-cultural well of the family, the film resonates with all Chinese audiences, regardless of cultural background and language.
