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“We Don’t Talk About Bruno” Is Being Snubbed in Awards Season: Here’s Why

bruno awards

Although the Walt Disney Animation Studios movie Encanto has been garnering awards and award nominations for itself throughout the 2022 awards season, the Disney movie’s original song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” has definitely stolen the movie’s thunder by breaking records, constantly topping the Billboard and Spotify charts, and inspiring fan-made mashups online.

The original song from the Disney animated movie is notoriously catchy, with celebrities like Hilary Duff sharing their ‘addiction’ to it, but this Encanto song has not been getting any awards. Why? The simple answer is: composer Lin-Manuel Miranda and his team didn’t submit that song from the Disney animated film for awards in the first place!

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Pepa and Isabela singing about Bruno in ‘Encanto’ Credit: stagechat.co.uk

The song that was nominated from Encanto was actually Dos Oruguitas, a Spanish song that plays while the story of Abuela and her late husband is being shown. As it turns out, the Academy that gives out Academy Awards has a rule about song nominations; no more than two Encanto songs could be submitted by Disney.

encanto-movie

The Madrigal family: Luisa (voiced by Jessica Darrow), Isabela (voiced by Diane Guerrero), the matriarch Abuela Alma (voiced by María Cecilia Botero), Felix (voiceded by Mauro Castillo), Julieta (voiced by Angie Cepeda), Pepa (voiced by Carolina Gaitán), Agustín (voiced by Wilmer Valderrama), Camilo (voiced by Rhenzy Feliz), Antonio (voiced by Ravi Cabot-Conyers), and Dolores (voiced by Adassa) and Mirabel Madrigal (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz). John Leguizamo voices Bruno (not pictured). Credit: movies.disney.com

Lin-Manuel Miranda spoke to E! News and explained that the rule was actually put in place because the lyricist Howard Ashman and the composer Alan Menken created songs for Disney that were simply too good. “It’s a product of [Howard] Ashman and [Alan] Menken’s success actually,” Lin-Manuel said. “They were so good, and they were running the table so long at the Oscars that there’s actually an Alan Menken rule. Like, you can’t submit more than two.”

Abuela, "Encanto"

Abuela in ‘Encanto’, voiced by María Cecilia Botero. Credit: Disney

Even though this rule does technically allow the team behind Encanto to submit two songs to the Academy Awards this year, Lin-Manuel Miranda also pointed out that submitting just one song for the entire awards season was a deliberate and conscious choice. In this case, the choice was led by a desire to only nominate a song that really encompassed the entire feeling and theme of Encanto.

“The goal is always to, sort of, submit what you think best represents the film as a whole. And, for us, ‘Dos Oruguitas’ really is the heart of the movie. It’s the heart of Abuela’s story and, in turn, everyone else’s story,” the composer and playwright said.

Mirabel Dolores Bruno Encanto

Dolores Madrigal singing to Mirabel Madrigal about Bruno in ‘Encanto’ Credit: slate.com

An extra push towards submitting “Dos Oruguitas” to the Oscars was also the fact that it is the favorite Encanto song of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s wife, Vanessa Nadal. With that extra push in mind, Lin-Manuel said that it “just felt like that was the natural choice for submission” instead of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno“. We can still enjoy Bruno’s song on our own, but it won’t be winning any Oscars!

 

About Sharon

Sharon is a writer and animal lover from New England. Sharon's two main focuses in her work are Disney's correlations with pop culture and the significance of Disney princesses (which was the basis for her college thesis). When she's not writing about Disney, Sharon spends her time singing, dancing, and cavorting with woodland creatures!

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