To continue my segment of analyzing the Encanto characters, this weeks post will be about Pepa Madrigal. She was absolutely one of my favorite characters in the film and I related to her so incredibly well. Pepa is the middle of the three Madrigal triplets. She has three children—Dolores, Camilo, and Antonio, and she is married to Felix.
In the opening number of the song, The Family MadrigalI, Mirabel sings “My Tía Pepa, her mood affects the weather/When she’s unhappy, well the temperature gets weird.” Pepa has the ability to control the weather with just a small change of her mood. For the majority of the movie, the weather is nice and sunny, there is not a cloud in sight. However, there are some small, short moments when she starts to form what her husband refers to as a “cloud.”
In one of the opening scenes, Antonio’s gifting ceremony, her youngest son is nowhere to be found. She starts to form a rain cloud from the stress of her missing son on such a big day for the family. She has to talk herself down by whispering to herself about “happy skies” and “happy times.”
Pepa is a very funny character on the show, because even if she wanted to she would never be able to hide her emotions. There have been some speculations that Pepa has a mental illness such as anxiety or bipolar disorder. I believe a lot into this fan theory especially with how often her mood changes. Majoring in Psychology, I have been studying mood disorders all year. From the small tidbits the writers and directors allowed us to see about Pepa throughout the film, I can nearly one hundred percent confirm that she likely does have some sort of mood disorder. This has a lot more to do with the fact that she is pressured for it to always be sunny than it does her mood swings.
The pressure from, not only her family, but also the townspeople. can be quite crippling. There is probably a lot of emotions that she harvests and hides away because she does not want to let the people of the town, or her family, down by having a bad day and therefore, causing the weather to be bad. A small snippet of this is scene during her verse in We Don’t Talk About Bruno. She retells “It was my wedding day/We were getting ready and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky” foreshadowing that Bruno caused something terrible to happen the day of her wedding. She follows on by saying “Bruno says it looks like rain/In doing so he floods my brain/Married in a hurricane.” Later on in the film, once we are introduced to Bruno, we can infer that he likely said something more along the lines of “you look stressed” and Pepa finally realized how big of a day it was and all the stress that she had been harboring for likely years just released itself. Bruno tells Pepa in the end that he’s sorry about her wedding, he did not mean to upset her however she looked upset and he wanted her to know that he loves her so much,
Another theory, which I discussed in my post about Bruno, is that the family all got gifts to prevent another tragedy such as the one that killed Abuelo Madrigal. Pepa’s gift is quite literally natural warfare. She has the ability to wreak devastation on nations at basically the snap of her fingers if she is upset. Pepa is all around an amazing character. She is a great mother, wife, daughter, and sister. I relate to her the most out of the entire cast, and she has thus far been one of my favorite characters to analyze.
This was a very interesting post. I know that Disney is always notable for linking weather with emotionally climatic moments in their films and shows. I find it very interesting that they made Pepa the embodiment of that. All in all, a very interesting analysis!
I still have not seen encanto yet and reading this just makes me want to go on to disney plus and watch it right now. Between you talking about the characters in such a passionate way and the millions of people I see talking about the music in it I definitey need to give it a watch.
This was so fun to read about. Your insight really does it seem like the movie is playing in front of my eyes. Honestly, it just reminds me that I need to watch the movie eventually! Again, great job!
The imagery that Disney put into its movies is always a treat to watch. This moment was no different. Linking the mood of Pepa to the weather is amazing imagery. Your analysis of her was great to read about.
This was another great post. I love how you harped on the stress the endures as someone in the family and how she has to keep that under control. I think Pepa is one of the more important characters thematically as “emotion” is a topic heavily dealt with in the movie and Pepa Illustrates how that emotions plays a huge role in their lives.