Discussion of the Film Reflection Assignment
The film reflection, analyzing a film from the approved list, is the final vehicle for
demonstrating the knowledge you’ve gained from this course. Select 5 concepts that you
have not applied to a parent-child relationship in your previous assignments. These can
include concepts used previously and now could be applied to a different-aged child such
as a different stage in Erikson’s or Piaget’s theories. You have more space to
work on your analysis. Apply the same guidance I gave in the Article Analyses to this
assignment.
This is not a film review. What you liked about the film or how it reminds you of
experiences you’ve had is not relevant to this assignment and only takes up space that
could be used for your analysis. Giving your opinion on how the parent is managing their
relationship is not an analysis. Using a concept such as House of Self to describe parenting
behaviors that support a child’s self-esteem and then comparing those with the parent
character in the film is what I’m looking for. After making the comparison, consider what
the effect on the child is now and how that might influence their future. This is an
objective report you are giving after observing a bit of this parent’s and child’s
relationship.
Use the concepts you’ve selected to apply directly to the characters and their story. Use
quotes or scenes to support the links you are making between the film and the concept.
You will find most of these films on Netflix or Prime. Some are available on YouTube. There
may be one or two that have been removed from any site. You may have to rent the film.
Provide a brief overview of the film at the beginning of your paper. A paragraph should be
enough. Write it as though I’ve not seen the film, much like the description that you find on
theater websites.
For this discussion forum, share the film you are going to use and why you’d like to analyze
the particular parent-child relationship in the film. Which concepts are you thinking of
using?
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Coco’s Parent-Child Relationship
Riddhi Patel
Professor Wilder
CDFS 3401-M51
April 23, 2023
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Parent-child relationships evolve around nurturing children’s emotional, social, and
physical development. The connection is a unique bond that every child shares with their parent
which they can enjoy and nurture. Parent-child relationships lay the foundation of the child’s
disposition, behavior, and overall life choices (Cooke et al., 2019). Therefore, maintaining a
healthy relationship is essential to the growth and development of the child since it improves his
mental, emotional, and physical growth. Parents always aim to nurture their children based on
their core beliefs. However, external forces can sometimes influence the child’s development,
leading to new traits contrary to the parent’s intrinsic beliefs. These external forces cause the
relationship between guardian and child, leading them to drift from their parent. The nurturing
failure also causes the parents to view themselves as failures since they can’t nurture the child
how they intended (Cooke et al., 2019). As such, the parent must consider the environmental
factors influencing the child’s growth. This paper analyzes the parent-child relationships
displayed by the Coco film and relates them to the five concepts studied throughout the course.
Coco summary
The Coco film was produced by Pixar Animations and released by Walt Disney Pictures
in 2007 as a computer-animated fantasy film. The movie is based on the idea of its director Lee
Unkrich and follows the adventures of Miguel, a 12-year-old boy living in Santa Cecilia. His
great-grandmother and grandfather disagreed after the latter left to pursue his musical ambition.
Due to the discord, the great-grandmother enacted a ban on music which was carried down
through generations. Miguel has a musical ambition and goes to the Land of the Dead to find his
great-great-grandfather to help him return to the land of the living (Frederick & Brussat, 2017).
The film is based on the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration and was released the weekend
before the holiday.
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The plot revolves around a young boy called Miguel who is passionate about music
despite his family having an ancestral music ban because his great-grandfather ran away from
home to pursue music. Mama Imelda, Miguel’s grandmother, forces the entire family to reject
various music, musical instruments, and their affiliations. The grandmother’s grief forced
generations after her to reject the musical life of her husband. The family owns a shoe-making
industry that they run together and serves as a way of implementing the music ban. However,
Miguel’s passion for music pushes him to run away and attend musical functions that encourage
him to become a music icon like Ernesto de la Cruz. Miguel steals a guitar from the dead on ‘Dia
de los Muertos,’ which gets him cursed. The boy panics since he does not know what is
happening until Hector finds him and disguises him as a skeleton to avoid suspicion from the
other dead. His other ancestors find him, explain the reason for the musical ban and send him to
the living world. Ultimately, Miguel finds his great-great-grandfather and reconnects him to
Mama Imelda, lifting the musical ban on his family.
Coco’s parent-child relationship
The ecological system theory proposed by Bronfenbrenner sees child development as a
multifaceted system of relationships that can be influenced by numerous factors within the
surrounding environment (Crawford, 2020). These include his family, school setting, culture,
customs, and other regulations. Therefore, to study a child’s development, they need to look at
the child’s immediate environment and the larger one. In the film, Mama Imelda passes the shoemaking business to Miguel’s parents and insists they should not engage in music and its
affiliations. As a result, Miguel’s parents enact the ancestral ban on Miguel by introducing him to
the shoe-making business at an early age. Enrique Rivera, the boy’s father, bans Miguel from any
form of music or musical instruments and hopes to join the shoe-making business once he
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reaches an appropriate age. The film confirms Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory in that
external forces influence Miguel’s development, such as the ancestral ban on music.
The ecological theory divides a child’s development into five distinct ecological systems:
microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. The microsystem refers
to things that have direct contact with the child, like his parent, siblings, teachers, and other
children. These interactions create a bi-directional relationship meaning the child is influenced
by the people in their environment and can change the actions and beliefs of others (Crawford,
2020). It defines the mesosystem as a system where the child’s microsystem does not function
independently but is interconnected to assert influence on one another. Therefore, the child’s
immediate community directly affects the child’s growth and development and loosens the link
between the parent and child. In Coco, Miguel’s family resides in Santa Cecilia, where the
community is deeply rooted in music. The community has a music star, Ernesto de la Cruz, who
lives in the middle of the city. Every child in the community grows up hearing the music and
story of Ernesto, causing them to embrace music like the rest of the community (Seitz, 2017).
The musical nature of the community makes enforcing the ancestral community a challenging
experience since the community exerts external influence on Miguel, causing him to adore
Ernesto and the town’s musical nature. The communal influence causes Miguel to drift away
from their family norms gradually.
The theory defines the exosystem as a mixture of informal and formal social structures
that directly influence them, like the microsystem. For example, the exosystem can include the
parent’s friends, media, and the immediate community (Guy-Evans, 2020). In the film, Mama
Imelda creates and enforces a ban on all forms of music when her husband runs away from
home. The disagreement between Mama Imelda and her husband, including Miguel, affects two
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generations after her. The ban creates a negative psychological attitude towards music, forcing
him to have the same hate for music and musical instruments. However, the community’s
influence causes him to deviate from the family norm when he gets obsessed with playing the
guitar and following his musical icon Ernesto (Seitz, 2017). These factors cause raising the child
against music very difficult for his parents.
Miguel’s macro system also affects his growth, development, and the parent-child
relationship. His parents brought him up based on the family’s social values and cultural patterns.
They reach him about the Mexican holiday for the dead, “Dia de Muertos,” which helps them
connect with their ancestral spirits (Frederick & Brussat, 2017). These teachings allow Miguel’s
parents to create a solid relationship with their child by teaching him the community’s norms.
However, Miguel uses the freedom given by these cultural teachings to enhance his musical
ambitions. He steals a guitar from the museum, allowing him to go to the land of the dead.
Lastly, the chronosystem refers to changes that occur during a lifetime. In the movie, the
chronosystem is depicted by the family’s realization of Hector’s death and their subsequent
embrace of music, lifting the ancestral ban.
Parent-child relationships are unique bonds every child shares with their parent, leading
to emotional, social, and physical development. Such relationships are vital in giving the child a
healthy and secure attachment to their parents, leading to happy and content relationships. It also
allows them to exhibit confident and optimistic traits that regulate their emotions in difficult
situations. The film Coco shows the importance of parent-child relationships and how external
factors influence their growth. Although the family tries to enforce an ancestral ban on music,
environmental factors cause the child to deviate from the norm. He emulates musical icons like
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Ernesto and loves playing the guitar. His exploits eventually cause their family to lift the music
ban and reconcile Miguel’s great-grandparents.
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References
Cooke, J. E., Kochendorfer, L. B., Stuart-Parrigon, K. L., Koehn, A. J., & Kerns, K. A.
(2019).Parent–child attachment and children’s experience and regulation of emotion: A
meta-analytic review. Emotion, 19(6), 1103.
Crawford, M. (2020). Ecological Systems theory: Exploring the theoretical framework’s
development as Bronfenbrenner conceived. J Pub Health Issue Pract, 4(2), 170.
Frederick & Brussat, M., A. (2017). Coco: An excellent animated feature set around the Day of
the Dead in Mexico. Retrieved from:
https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/reviews/view/28537/coco
Guy-Evans, O. (2020). Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. https://www. simply
psychology. Org/Bronfenbrenner. html.
Seitz, M., Z. (2017). Coco. Roger Ebert. Retrieved from:
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/coco-2017
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