#AND SHE IMITATES MIGUEL’S DANCING IN POCO LOCO

[toonjazzy]

“Y aunque la vida me cueste llorona…No Dejaré de quererte…”

I love songs about La Llorona. This is def my favorite song from Coco

[beckytailweaver]

Coco thoughts lately

This is (mostly) in response to @anotherweepingwoman and This Post but also some other things in general I’ve been reading (and you will probably recognize it if you’ve read the same things). It’s separate here because I didn’t want to hijack other people or Great Wall of Text so badly again. XD I’ve tried to be coherent but this will likely drift around a lot! It’s a lot of thoughts all muddled into one space.

(Disclaimer: I only got to see Coco in theater once. For the rest I must resort to vid clips that may or may not decide to load on my slow internet, until I can buy the disc. It's a good exercise in my memory skills.)

Héctor is a liar, but oftentimes he's apologizing for his lies. When I go into my headcanon-framework for his background, these fibs that come out may be old habit from an orphaned childhood. If he was raised, say, in an orphanage by strict caretakers, it would have been to his advantage to know how to put on a good-little-boy face and say whatever was needed to divert attention or stay out of trouble. If he was more of a rangy little street rat type, then white lies would have been a stock part of his survival kit. I think this habit of evading the truth would have worn down a bit once he had a stable home with Imelda (and she would insist on teaching their daughter honesty), but after decades of desperation in the bottom of the afterlife he's definitely back to street rat mode.

Ernesto lies too, and we've seen where that went.  I don't think Héctor has ever lied in such a way that was meant to harm anyone. Little fibs to his advantage, a disguise here or a sparkly promise there; never damaging gossip or deliberately hurtful untruths or a promise that could get someone killed. But he is a liar, and anyone who's known him long would know that. (This might also explain why Imelda seems so eager to believe he'd run off and never come home, whether or not Ernesto told her anything. Héctor is slippery and she knows it, but she'd dared to hope he would not be dishonest to her.)

Héctor acts his age, largely, I think because you are sort of frozen the moment you die: You get a skeletal representation of your body at the moment of death, with some decorative additions to give you individuality and mark who you are. Skeletal children don't grow, the old are forever elderly. While the visual/physical form of the body is bones, there has to be some kind of force to animate them, to process what goes on around them. Invisibly, I think, a sort of ghostly/energy echo of the body remains, and part of that is the echo of a brain (how else could they think and remember things?) which for Héctor is an imprint of a 21-year-old brain with its not-quite-complete neurological maturity. While he can learn and gain experiences, the structure of that brain is still going to process things in a 21-year-old way. Experience can shape his thinking and grant him wisdom, but at his root he's still young in personality. (Young people can be tired, cynical, and hopeless too.)

Héctor is a father, but he has never been a parent to a child older than 3-4. (Young parents grow with their first kids and learn things!)  "Rubbing shoulders" with Miguel may just be the only way he knows how to interact with young boys older than his daughter was. He does seem to be comfortable around kids and isn't flustered by dealing with them, which makes me think he was around a lot of them growing up (orphanage?) or ended up being That Kid in their small town who is all the children's favorite bro. He is the fun, gentle sort of person that children flock to, so it's likely he would sing and play with the neighborhood kids even up into his marriage. He seems pretty active and playful himself (when not desperate or on the clock, but you still see flashes of it), despite the crippling of being Forgotten.

Miguel wasn't mimicking Héctor to mock him, but because he wanted to walk "like a skeleton" and his nearest, dearest example happened to have the Forgotten condition of loose bones and an awkward limp. Miguel will imitate his new cool big bro! But in this case, Héctor is so used to being mercilessly ridiculed for everything that he takes it poorly on reflex, without realizing (perhaps not until he stops and thinks about it later) that Miguel meant nothing bad by it. The shove in response isn't really that severe for the horseplay that young boys can get up to. (It wasn't a punch or a slap or a kick or a grab, which angry men are certainly capable of.) But it is reactive in a somewhat immature way, same as his snappish responses to the musicians later on.

He let out that grouchy "how come he didn't invite you?" comeback to Miguel in the rehearsal area, but Miguel wasn't hurt or upset by it.  Kid didn't even blink.  (It was a pretty legitimate question from Miguel, even!) But I think the subconscious drift into familial familiarity made it more like the kind of snark Miguel gets at home all the time and he doesn't even pause.  It's Rivera snark, it just happens, nobody's really injured by it, on to the next subject.  They may use it to cover up their soft spots, and they all know how to take it as well as dish it out. Miguel had the proper Rivera response as well: Let it go.  He didn't keep digging in or teasing on this.  He might react with disbelief to some of Héctor's statements about knowing a famous guy like De la Cruz, but that's because he's already recognized Héctor as a consummate embellisher and knows better than to believe every word from his mouth. He never uses the lack of party invitation as a weapon or even brings it up again.

Héctor's poor actions as an "adult and disciplinarian" after Poco Loco can be attributed to, yes, his mental youth, and also I think to those edges of desperation that crop up many, many times all night long. That desperation, knowing that tonight is probably his last, is a poor help to an already-impulsive young man's mind. It makes his Ready-Fire-Aim even worse. It short circuits a century's worth of wisdom and (after)life experience in favor of urgent, sometimes thoughtless rushing. Yes, he is very deeply concerned with himself and his photo right now; he can't help it. He's dying and he's desperate and he needs to do this now, and however much he likes Miguel this dumb kid is on a clock too and doesn't even know what's important here!  Despite that he's usually a nice guy I definitely don't think Héctor is a total pushover in personality.  That whole night prior to the cenote we're probably looking at the shortest his fuse has ever been. And he still manages to be in general kind and supportive to Miguel (who has been alternately delighting him and giving him hell all evening).

I have a somewhat different headcanon about Héctor watching Miguel's slow fading to bone over the course of the night. I think Miguel did discuss his time limit with Héctor during or just before the face painting early on, but initially Héctor is understandably more concerned with his own deadline. As he comes to know Miguel better, he cares more. But he also may forget now and then, in his own urgent situation, until a look over the kid's shoulder reminds him that two hourglasses are trickling down, not one.  And he does care, potentially a great deal: "Your life literally depends on you winning!" He didn't even mention the photo until after, when the family thing came up.

Genuine Héctor...definitely makes numerous appearances through the night. Most of his performance-art is for guards and gatekeepers, wheedling to people he needs to get past who might cut him some slack. Héctor being all super extra nice to Miguel during the face paint and explanation is definitely performance. He does a lot of performance with the Shantytown Crew, putting on a happy-go-lucky face. His Frida impersonations are absolutely performance, quite deliberately so!

However, Genuine Héctor comes out surprisingly fast around Miguel. The kid worms his way into a position of camaraderie pretty darn quick. Perhaps this is due to Héctor's loneliness making him open to someone who could be a real friend, or maybe it's genetic similarity gently drawing them to trust more easily. Most of the Genuine Héctor moments are in Miguel's proximity, possibly not only because the kid is the other leading character of the film; a lot of his genuine moments aren't just in proximity to Miguel, but in response to him.

Genuine Héctor generally doesn't come with the overbearing grins, theatrical body actions, or higher, wheedly tone of voice.  Genuine Héctor is in the casual questions, exasperated eye-rolls, short-tempered grumps, dramatic sighs, epic grouchface, snappy comebacks, freely teasing, warm encouragement, playful dance teaching, melancholy stillness, angry desperation, grieving rage, tearful hopelessness, clear relief. Those moments when Héctor is not keenly watching the people around him as targets he needs to con. (There's a difference in his gaze; keep your eye on it!)

Not all of his performance is negative or self-serving, either; sometimes it's just because a nervous kid needs a pick-me-up and Héctor can put on a smile for that.

Face painting scene—lots of performance, but some real warmth. Walking with Miguel, the shove—no performance, pure grumpy. Talking to Ceci—plenty of performance for deference, Ceci is a gatekeeper. Rehearsal studio—mostly genuine; no point in faking the musicians, they treat him like crap no matter what he does. Going down to Shantytown—performance, especially off the ledge! With Chicharron—started as performance, became genuine real fast. Trolley to the plaza—performance to get around truthtelling, but also to act encouraging. Waiting for a turn onstage—no performance until okayokayokay and he goes into another encouraging spiel.

Some of Héctor's best genuine moments are on the Poco Loco stage. Sure, he's performing, but that's genuine Héctor, not a performance. Not during the song. He's not watching the audience—he's watching Miguel. And then he's playing with him. There's no con in that music. That was all Héctor and Miguel having fun with each other.

Afterward, the argument...no performance. None. It's all very real exasperation and anger fueled by the same old desperation. The argument hurts both of them because it tastes like betrayal. ("I told you I needed to cross tonight!" "Well I told you it has to be De la Cruz!") They both pulled lies on each other (taste of your own medicine!) and ran face-first into a mirror.  Shortsighted demands and lack of explanation, and the whole thing goes down the drain.

As a kind person, we never see Héctor use force to get across the bridge.  He did not grab or physically coerce Miguel in any way to take his picture there; he used only words. Even when things came to a head and he was angrily trying to drag the kid back to his family, it was half-hearted at best (and no more than we've seen anyone in the Rivera family do with recalcitrant children) and Miguel slipped out of his grip in a heartbeat.  (Maybe he's getting too weak to hold on; maybe Miguel is too heavy for him to drag without lifting.) I'd bet money that Héctor has never threatened physical injury or actively harmed anyone in his pursuit of crossing; that he's never used a weapon or taken anyone hostage to try to force his way across. I doubt such things would even occur to him!  His entanglements with the crossing guards have all likely been evasions and brief tangles where he's trying to disengage. I'd wager that night that Ernesto is the first person he's actually attacked with intent to harm in a very, very long time—if ever.

One of the saddest things is how Héctor has been denied musical joy for so long.  "Stupid musical fantasy" is mainly because his turned out to be.  He's also lost perspective on this: To a child, these things are huge. Like, music is everything. Miguel has his family, but they're...in a way, background, they've always been there, and in his mind always will be.  He doesn't want to leave them for music, he wants to find a way back to them with music on his own terms.  Family should support you, but Riveras have made music into an all or nothing deal. (What would they have done, if the LoD journey hadn’t happened, if truth hadn't come out and Miguel refused to give up music? Would they have disowned him or otherwise banished him?)

Héctor likely had little or no family before the one he made for himself, and going back to them would not have meant giving up music altogether.  I think at the point of their argument, Héctor failed to realize (or had not been informed of) the position Miguel is in.  Héctor was giving up a fond dream of musical fame to go back to his small town family and find a local job he could do while continuing to play music for recreation and additional income.  It's really not the same as Miguel going back to (or being forced by curse conditions) an existence centered around a shoemaking family defined by its enforced silencing of music.  In that sense, Héctor was giving up fame and money (Ernesto's priorities), not music; Miguel would be losing music entirely, for the fame and money afforded by the Rivera shoe reputation.

It puts a different spin on their respective stories to think of it that way.  They both love their families and giving them up permanently isn't even part of the equation.  The real culprits/sacrifices here are wealth/reputation and music.  And before we get into "But Héctor left his family!" let's just pause: Héctor did not abandon his family, he went on a business trip!  He fully intended to return, and the fact that he didn't—sooner or later—is entirely due to Ernesto's choices.  It's incredibly sad that Ernesto decided to kill him, and equally as sad that Imelda was so eager/willing to believe that he would abandon them.  Poor guy just can't catch a break at any point in his life (or afterlife).

As a somewhat related postscript: I think it's a bit funny that people like to bring this up, since "Go for your dreams!" is a big motif in modern (especially American) society. We're pretty much expected to leave our families behind to achieve what we want. Big education, big job, big house, the spouse we desire, the city we want to live in, the generation gap we can't abide...basically the whole point (so far as I was told) is to grow up, move out, leave the old folks behind (call a few times a year, and visit on some holidays), and achieve our dreams no matter what.

What Héctor was doing—going on a business trip for a job or potential job—is absolutely nothing unusual to what goes on every day: People with spouses and children temporarily leave them to go on business trips, they go on military tour, they go on band/performance tours, they commute or move to another city for half the year for work...and this is considered normal. Not ideal, but pretty normal.  (Even when Héctor was alive, people would at times have to go far away to make money to send to their families.)  Maybe it wasn't favored in Héctor's time either, but I find it rather ironic that people give him hell over it now!