On Saturday December 9th, 2017, I went with my family to see the Pixar film Coco. My family is Mexican and we had been excited for weeks to see the film because it has been out in Mexico for quite some time already and has already become the highest grossing film of all time there. (To say more about the film’s general appeal rather than its cultural appeal to Mexicans, the film is breaking Pixar records in China where many were surprised that the film was not censored due to China’s refusal to show skeletons on screen. It was allowed after censors screened the film and left the screening in tears) . We went to see the film at AMC Bay Plaza in the Bronx where we live which is a predominantly Hispanic borough. Which explains what happened next.

My family all speak Spanish except for the young kids, who can barely even speak at all. Spanish is our first language. When we got to the theatre we were in the process of buying the tickets when we were told that there was a Spanish language version of the film that we could watch. This was exciting for me as many times my family, primarily my parents, have trouble connecting or understanding a film because of the language barrier. They speak and write in English but being that it’s their second language it becomes difficult for them to immerse themselves into a film. We quickly chose the Spanish-language version. It turned into one of the best times I have ever had at a movie theatre.

Not only was the film in Spanish but it did not feel as it was an afterthought but rather the initial plan of Pixar to make the film in Spanish. The songs sounded like they were meant to be sung in Spanish, the jokes flowed better in Spanish. It was one of the first times in my life that I was able to take my parents to see a film in their native language. Usually they are asleep by the first 15 minutes, but all throughout the film I kept looking over at them and seeing the joy in their faces at being able to connect so strongly to a film.

At the end of the film, my mom was emotional and teary-eyed and my dad had the biggest smile on his face. What this film was able to do was to capture a culture they grew up in with enough respect to treat it as normal rather than exotic. For a moment in the theatre, Coco transported them back home.