#stepping stool

The entire tragedy of Coco can be summed up in one very important thing. 

A fathers lullaby to his daughter was capitalized on. 

This entire movie is the idea of family being used as a stepping stool instead of as a staircase. 

What does that mean?

Imagine, if you will, a staircase. It belongs in a home. You can go up one with multiple people. Sometimes people drag behind, you wait for them, or you pull them up alongside you. You can sit on them and talk or run up as fast as you can. They’re long, and they’re eternal, and when you get to the top you’re often exhausted and sore. 

You can fall down a staircase and feel every bump. And climbing back up one is twice as exhausting as the first time. 

A stepping stool is build for one. It generally has only three steps. And, in many cases, those three steps are built out of the ones you’ve pushed below you. Falling down it doesn’t hurt as much as a staircase and climbing up one doesn’t take much physical exertion at all. 

When you stand on the top step, no one can stand there with you. 

Ernesto used Héctor’s life, family, and achievements as a stepping stool. And nowhere is that clearer than in the way his most famous song, Remember Me, was originally created to emphasize the staircase that Héctor was building for his family. 

Remember Me, Héctor tells his daughter, to remind her that family will always be back, and family will always love her, and family will never stop caring, supervising, and supporting .

Remember Me, says Ernesto to an audience, to remind them that he succeeded, he’s eternal, and his legacy will be solidified in their culture for generations. 

The thing with the staircase is that it can’t all be positive. In many ways, Héctor pushed Imelda down behind him. She reached for his hand, and he pulled away. She fell to the bottom with her daughter while her husband climbed and climbed and climbed without her. 

But like all things, he had to stop. And when he stopped, he waited. 

For her. 

With a staircase, you can fall up. But you can wait. And you can join with people again. And you can walk down and apologize. 

Ernesto made a single stepping stool with no one to climb away from. He created it out of the people he scorned, and he brought it with him wherever he went. And if you fall off a stepping stool? It doesn’t do much. It’s only you. And so you can get back on and pretend nothing has happened. No apologies. No support. Just yourself and the world. 

This movie is a tragedy as much as it is an epiphany built around the concept that the higher you go, the more chance you have to fall- but a fall can only lead to more climbing. And yes, you’ll be exhausted and winded. And yes, your legs will hurt. And yes, the climb back up is tiring and treacherous and long. 

But it’s worth it. 

It’s worth it to wind your fingers through the hand of another and keep moving on together. 

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My mother: Let me just