Ironically, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” has been the most talked-about Disney song for months. Taking an interesting spin on the classic villain song present in many Disney musicals , this one refers to a man who’s actually much more misunderstood than evil.
And as we find out more about Bruno during the course of Encanto , it makes WDTAB a lot more upsetting than menacing.
In the world of ‘Encanto’, every member of the Madrigal family is granted magical powers.
Well, almost everyone. The vast majority of Mirabel’s relatives have powers, each relating to their specific personality traits. For Bruno, it’s being able to see into the future.
This doesn’t bode well for him, as many villagers (and his own family) begin to see it as a curse.
WDTAB specifically makes mention of the different prophecies he’s told, each having catastrophic results. It’s clear that, to the Madrigal family and their village, Bruno is the villain.
Eventually, due to his powers, the townspeople (and his own family) shun him.
Ten years before the events of Encanto , Bruno disappears with the hopes that his prophecies won’t hurt anyone again
But the song also has some pretty strange details, too.
Mirabel’s cousins, Dolores and Camilo, share details about their uncle Bruno that don’t necessarily have to do with his abilities. Dolores, who has heightened hearing, mentions that she can hear him moving around, foreshadowing the fact that Bruno never actually left home.
Camilo, on the other hand, presents Bruno as a menacing figure.
His lines in the song paint Bruno to be a villain, both inside and out. As he says, “Seven-foot frame, rats along his back. When he calls your name, it all fades to black.”
What makes this line in particular interesting is the part about the rats.
While Bruno isn’t some evil giant who tries to steal people’s souls, he does hang around with rats. When Mirabel comes across Bruno’s dwellings inside the walls of their house, he is noticeably hanging around rats .
The fact that rats are mentioned in WDTAB points to the fact that Bruno sought companionship with rats before his disappearance.
In other words, the people in the town and his family would’ve seen him with rats.
This detail adds a whole new level of depth to his story.
Bruno’s misunderstood powers made him an outcast, who was likely only accepted by rats. Let’s not forget that rats generally carry negative connotations, to boot.
This actually makes Bruno’s situation a whole lot sadder.
As if that dinner plate scene isn’t sad enough. It’s pretty likely that Bruno had experienced being shunned and mistreated for a number of years before his disappearance, which is really upsetting.
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And while he is eventually accepted in the end, he still had to deal with years of sorrow.
But it also shows the level of detail in every part of ‘Encanto.’
As dark and gut-wrenching as the undertones of WDTAB really are, it also shows that so much thought was put into the song, and the rest of the movie.