Over the holidays, I watched Encanto, the new Disney movie set in Colombia about a magical family living in an enchanted house. I did not expect to watch it twice, cry both times, or feel so seen.
If you haven’t watched it yet, Encanto is about the Madrigals, a family in which every member except for the protagonist (Mirabel) has a special gift (healing, super strength, etc.) When the “miracle” that enchants the family and home is in danger, Mirabel sets out to save it. The movie touches on heavy topics like societal violence and displacement. It also grapples with familial expectations and the pressure to be perfect. (Editor’s Note: Spoilers ahead!)
The family’s struggles were handled with tenderness and a surprising amount of nuance. And as I watched, I was blindsided by how the movie depicted my struggles with perfectionism more accurately than a lot of contemporary Christian teaching has. It was especially accurate in how it portrayed the nature of perfectionism in non-Western, communal cultures.
As I reflected on the film, I wondered: Why did I walk away wishing that more Christian counselors and writers understood perfectionism the way the writers of the movie did?.
Perfectionism is More Complicated Than Self-Regard
As someone who struggles with perfectionism, I pay special attention when a Christian book, article, or podcast seeks to address it. Over the past decade, I’ve noticed that much of the teaching on perfectionism in the Reformed evangelical and gospel-centered movements hasn’t always been helpful for me.
The counsel I’ve come across in these Christian circles for those struggling with perfectionism mostly centers on repentance (for fear of man or concern with self-image) and exhortations to remember our justification. The main idea is that if we know we are already positionally perfect, forgiven, and worthy in Christ, we will stop striving to be perfect in what we do.
Particularly in writing for and by women, perfectionism is diagnosed as a failure to understand one’s “identity in Christ.” The reasoning is that if your self-perception is grounded in the truth of God, the psychological experience of anxiety, guilt, or pressure to be perfect ought to be relieved.
One problem with this counsel is the underlying assumption that the core issue for all perfectionists is their sense of self, either in how they perceive themselves or wish others saw them. While it’s important for Christians to know what God thinks of us, for those in communal cultures, perfectionism is often more complicated than how we are regarded by ourselves or even by God.
“For the Family”
In Encanto, the Madrigals are buckling under the weight of familial expectations and perfectionism. Abuela Alma, the matriarch of the family, repeatedly says that things must be “perfect.” She seeks to preserve her family and community, but her demanding expectations are informed by trauma and fear, and her children and grandchildren suffer for it. Luisa, Mirabel’s sister with super strength, expresses this in the song, Under the Surface,
Give it to your sister, it doesn’t hurt
And see if she can handle every family burden
Watch as she buckles and bends but never breaks
No mistakes just
Pressure like a grip, grip, grip and it won’t let go
Luisa is duty-driven, anxious, and scared to fail. While there is a way in which her sense of worth is tied to her performance, her fear of failure is clearly rooted in her concern for family. She sings, “I hide my nerves and it worsens, I worry something is gonna hurt us.” She is carrying family burdens. It turns out the rest of her family is too.
In this way, Maribel felt different to me than other Disney female protagonists. Even Mulan, ostensibly doing things for the honor of the family, has always seemed American. The story of her heroism is subservient to her character arc which centers on self-discovery and showing “who she is inside.”
In contrast, in Encanto, you never get the sense that the main force behind Maribel’s actions is a desire to prove herself. She is, like the rest of her relatives, doing everything “for the family,” a refrain repeated throughout the movie. While Mirabel is trying to make the family proud by saving their miracle, she tells her uncle she’s willing to give up that pursuit if her actions will hurt the others. This is a recurrent fear for other family members as well, that they might somehow be neglectful, hurtful, or unhelpful to the whole.
This gets at the experience of perfectionism in many communal cultures, where the good of our families and communities are central to our experience of human flourishing. We don’t do things for the family because that’s how we find our worth, as if our own sense of self is central to what we do. We consider how our actions affect others simply because that’s what it means to be a person. Our performance, successes, and failures are intrinsically connected to the welfare of those around us, and we know this instinctively and to our cores.
For many immigrants to America, the examples of those who sacrificed for the good of family further underscores the fact that individuals’ actions never just belong to themselves. The functional unit is not the individual, but the family and community.
Thus, in communal cultures, perfectionism cannot be addressed as mere obsession with self-image, low self-worth, or fear of not being justified before God. Rather, there is often a deep-rooted fear that those we love will suffer the consequences of our failure to be perfect. We carry this sense of responsibility in our families, into our communities, and in the church. The telos and loci of perfection in these cases is not primarily self, but the good of those we love. Therefore, those who struggle with perfectionism in this context—in wanting to excel in their education so they can eventually support their parents, in carrying heavy relational burdens to keep the peace, or in feeling like they always must be willing to say “yes” to community needs—need to know more than just what God says about them as individuals.
This type of perfectionism is experienced in Western culture too. Though some Christian books and blogs seem to suggest that moms who struggle with perfectionism are trying to gain favor with God or to project a false image of themselves, many women are just genuinely afraid that their mistakes will hurt their children. Those struggling with performance and burnout serving in church may not be doing so because of lack of faith in God’s love, but because they are afraid that if they step back, no one will step up. Those whose struggle with perfectionism rooted in a desire for the flourishing of their families and churches need different help than those struggling with trying to be perfect for their own sakes, and Encanto hints at some of these biblical helps.
Some Communal Helps
One of my favorite things about Encanto is that it doesn’t end with everyone breaking free from the family, but the community becoming stronger through growth and reconciliation. Abuela Alma apologizes for her own fear-driven demands. Maribel comes to understand her grandmother’s suffering and demonstrates gratitude and grace. The family works together to rebuild their home, and the townspeople, who had relied heavily on the family’s gifts, now come to serve. In this way, Encanto reflects the way healing and help from perfectionism often comes in the context of community.
In the church, healing may look similar to what it looked like in Encanto—with children coming to appreciate their parents’ imperfect love, and parents repenting of the ways they’ve raised their children from places of fear. For some, like the characters in the movie, this includes understanding the effects of trauma and loss. Through Christ, we have hope for reconciliation and change as we recognize the way that our perfectionism has been shaped by our family histories.
Perfectionists who carry heavy burdens for the community also often begin to experience freedom when they sense that others in the body of Christ, like the townspeople in Encanto, are truly glad to serve them. Through the sharing of responsibility, we learn not to fear that our limitations will mean the ruin of our families and churches. We were not meant to shoulder the burdens of family and community on our own, and in God’s family, we learn we don’t need to.
Perfectionists also need other believers to show us in word and deed that God cares about our wellbeing, not just about what we do. In the ending sequence, Luisa uses her strength to help rebuild the home and then is encouraged to rest. Those fearful that if they stop striving, they will hurt those they love, often need assurances that it’s ok to rest. They need people who know them to remind them they are valued in the community for more than their gifts. That it’s okay to “lay down [their] load.”
Nothing So Broken
Although their casita (home) crumbles, Encanto ends with the Madrigals building a home with a better foundation. It is a beautiful picture of the hope at the center of many stories from Scripture and the story of our salvation: God’s ability to use even the bad for good. His commitment to redeem all things, including the mistakes we make, is a refuge for the one bearing the weight of communal burdens. Because even if and when everything falls apart as we fear, there is nothing so broken that God cannot fix or heal—perfectionists and their families included.