The co-director of “Coco” said Sunday evening after winning the Oscar for best animated feature he hopes the film’s success opens Hollywood’s eyes to the need to depict more diverse cultures in films.
The film, which was made by Disney-Pixar and is about a Mexican boy traveling to the Land of the Dead, was a worldwide hit.
“It takes an awareness of the fact that you know strong storytellers come from all sorts of places. At Pixar that is something that you know we’re putting a lot of focus on in creating a lot of opportunity for,” said Lee Unkrich, the film’s co-director.
He added, “We’ve seen it with ‘Coco,’ we’ve seen it with ‘Black Panther,’ and I think you’re going to see it with a lot of other films in the future.”
Unkrich said the movie was in the works before Donald Trump became president, but his election added a new sense of importance to the film. Trump has made a series of inflammatory comments about Mexico, including that some immigrants from the country are “rapists” or “bad hombres.”
“A lot of things started to be said about Mexico and Mexican-Americans that (are) unacceptable, and while we were making the film we began to feel a new urgency to get the movie out into the world, to get a positive message about the beauty of Mexico, the beauty of the Mexican people, the beauty of their culture and traditions, out into the world,” he said.
–City News Service