Multicultural films aren’t just feel-good PR – they help storytellers speak more deeply to broader audiences and open up films to previously untapped markets.
It started with a headline-grabbing blunder, seemingly perfectly calibrated for the era of identity politics. In 2013, Disney’s lawyers tried to quietly trademark “Day of the Dead” and “Día de los Muertos” for a new Pixar film, sparking instant backlash. Latinx communities were outraged that the entertainment behemoth would claim ownership of the name of one of Mexico’s most treasured holidays, particularly in light of Disney’s history of questionable depictions of non-white people and cultures. But four years later, Pixar’s Coco had won widespread critical acclaim, including fawning reviews from the same people that had vociferously criticized the studio earlier. It smashed international box office records to become one of Pixar’s highest-grossing films worldwide and the most successful animated film ever to screen in Mexico. So what changed?
In short: inclusivity and sincerity. Eschewing Pixar’s traditional tightly-controlled insular creative process, Coco’s creators collaborated with members of the Mexican and Mexican-American community at all stages of the process, from development and production to marketing and advertising. This didn’t merely mollify offended activists or make a show of complying with calls for diversity. The studio’s comprehensive integration of community members and intensive research markedly improved the quality of the story itself by making it feel true to its source and helping it access emotions and values that transcend culture.
PRODUCTION - EMBRACE COMMUNITY INSIGHTS
When the trademark scandal broke, director Lee Unkrich knew he needed to go above and beyond Pixar’s standard practices in developing his film. Early on, he had been concerned about how to effectively direct a film about Día de los Muertos as a white American from Cleveland with no personal ties to Mexican culture. He disagreed with the idea that people should limit themselves to “only telling stories about what they know and their own culture,” but wanted to ensure that his film didn’t “lapse into cliché or stereotype”. So Unkrich hired a group of Latino consultants from a variety of professional backgrounds: artists, playwrights, media strategists, and even Lalo Alcaraz himself. He also promoted screenwriter Adrián Molina to co-director. Over six years, Unkrich took his creative team on multiple long research trips to Oaxaca and Guanajuato. Through home stays with local families, interviews, and brainstorming sessions with the advisory team, the Pixar crew adjusted their story to more accurately reflect the local aesthetics and culture. The young protagonist Miguel’s grandma, originally written as a cold disciplinarian threatening spankings with a wooden spoon, became a warmer, brasher abuelita brandishing la chancla (a sandal), an instantly-recognizable cultural motif to Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. The directors hired an almost entirely Latinx cast of voice actors and for the English dub peppered the characters’ speech with Spanish words and phrases, helping the dialogue reflect the kind of natural code-switching common in Mexican-American communities. The studio also decided to only record one Spanish language dub for the film in Mexican dialect, rather than add a second rewritten in Castilian Spanish dialect as is typical. Raúl Aldana, Senior Creative Manager for Disney Character Voices International at Mexico, explained that “The best way to maintain the authenticity was to use the same Mexican dub…we used the voices of more than 30 Mexican celebrities that represent the different aspects of the Mexican culture: actors, writers, singers, journalists, and cartoonists.”
MARKETING - BRING AUDIENCES INTO YOUR WORLD
In marketing Coco, Disney brought audiences more fully into the world of the film through thoughtful, innovative cross-promotional partnerships. Here, as well, they invested heavily in collaborations with Mexican and Mexican-American groups. The studio’s advertising and social media teams in Latin America consulted with their Mexican counterparts to ensure that they maintained a consistently Mexican voice in their work. Disney partnered with Herdez salsa to offer a culinary tour of Mexico and with AirBnB to promote visits to towns and cultural sites tied to the film. Cordoba Guitars designed a guitar based on the one that Miguel plays, which was sold for a limited time at Guitar Centers and given away in sweepstakes. A cross-promotional campaign with ancestry.com invited new customers to explore their roots the way Miguel does in Coco, and the Latinx channel Mitú broadcast a heartwarming video short of a host’s interview with her great-grandmother before the two went to an advanced screening. The Pixar animators worked with Oculus Rift to create a VR experience, literally bringing audience members into the world of the film in advance of the its release. Of course, few studios have the resources to flood the market with advertisements and promotional campaigns in a wide variety of sectors internationally before selling a single ticket. But beyond the dollar amount spent on publicity, a significant factor in Coco’s marketing success was the way the campaigns connected the world of the film to people’s real lives, whether by celebrating the same cultural heritage that inspired the filmmakers or by tapping into the power of music and familial love that drive the narrative.
OPENING WEEKEND - BREAK THE RULES WHEN THEY DON’T WORK FOR YOU
Disney screened Coco in Mexico first, weeks before its opening in the U.S. This marked the first time the studio had ever opened a film internationally before showing it domestically. The Coco team wanted to time the film’s Mexico opening to coincide with Día de los Muertos in Mexico while also taking advantage of the Christmas movie season in the U.S. They took care not to conflate Coco’s Day of the Dead theme with American Halloween in any of their marketing materials, since both holidays are celebrated at the same time of year but have very different cultural implications. Coco opened in Mexican theaters on October 27 and had a premiere screening at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, with performances by the National Symphony Orchestra and Carlos Rivera and proceeds benefitting the Oaxaca Center of Musical Training and Cultural Development. The early international release built buzz domestically for the film and secured its bonafides as an accurate and sincere celebration of Mexican culture, boosting its appeal among Latinx and socially-conscious filmgoers. Three weeks later, Coco grossed an impressive $50.8 million in its U.S. opening weekend.
SUCCESS IN CHINA - SPEAK TO VALUES, DON’T PANDER TO STEREOTYPES
One surprising aspect of the Coco’s success was its popularity in China. Though China has become an increasingly crucial segment of Disney’s box office revenue, Pixar films have generally fared poorly there. Only Zootopia won over Chinese audiences comparable to its success with American filmgoers, ultimately bringing in $235.5 million in mainland screenings. In contrast, most of the studio’s other titles have grossed well below $50 million in China. Chinese people are on the whole far less familiar with Mexican culture and traditions than Americans and Latin American audiences, so there were fewer opportunities to build anticipation through existing cross-cultural channels. China’s media censorship also posed a challenge for Coco: censorship guidelines published by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television (SAPPRFT) in 2008 specifically prohibit “showing contents of murder, violence, terror, ghosts and the supernatural," although those guidelines have been only loosely enforced in recent years. After the film was approved, Disney decided against investing in a large marketing blitz for Coco’s mainland China opening the way it had in other countries. The film consequently brought in only $18.2 million in its first weekend. But to Pixar’s surprise, Chinese audiences fell in love with the film. Word of mouth and high ratings on Douban, a Chinese website similar to Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, drove a spike in week two ticket sales, pushing sales to $43.8 million — a 141% increase over the opening weekend. The film sustained high popularity throughout its mainland theatrical run—for a brief period, Chinese ticket sales even outpaced domestic figures — and closed with $189.2 million.
So why did Coco succeed in China where so many other Pixar films failed? Here again, Pixar’s investment in a truly collaborative and international creative process paid off. In a serendipitous coincidence, China’s Tomb Sweeping Festival (清明节 qing ming jie) is strikingly similar to Mexico’s Día de los Muertos. For both holidays, people honor their deceased loved ones by tending to gravesites and offering food, flowers, prayers, and remembrances. This meant that Chinese audiences had an immediate innate understanding of the cultural significance of Día de los Muertos in Mexico even though the holiday was not previously well-known within China. Coco also emphasizes strong multi-generational family ties, as well as honoring and caring for one’s elders, values that are often overlooked in American films but which resonate strongly with the Confucian emphasis on filial piety. More important, the process of designing the film to appeal to a multicultural audience specifically meant that it portrayed more universal human experiences and values. What remained emotionally resonant after multiple cuts with input from people from different cultural backgrounds naturally spoke more deeply to a broader group of people. The effect is more striking when you compare Coco’s release in China with that of Disney’s 1998 animated film Mulan. Though the Ballad of Hua Mu Lan (木兰诗 Mù Lán Shī) is a well-known and beloved classic tale within China, the movie bombed at Chinese box offices in large part because the film strayed too far from the traditional story and was culturally too American. Filmgoers derided her as “Yang Mulan” (foreign Mulan), complaining that she was too individualistic and looked more Korean than Chinese. Disney’s missed opportunity with the animated Mulan film reinforces how important it is for creators to engage sincerely and respectfully with all aspects of their source material.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The courage to strive for something honest and authentic instead of settling for easier, more familiar approaches pays off dividends, both in the quality of the film and at the box office. It’s easy to assume that a multi-cultural approach matters only for films aiming for international distribution. But on a deeper level, that kind of intensive investigation and dialogue helps to produce stories whose specificity and universality speak profoundly to the human experience.