Disney’s recent movie Encanto’s viewership officially surpassed 407 million minutes in the U.S. during its first weekend on Disney+. From its accomplished musical repertoire to its fierce Colombian representation, Encanto has been a global hit. 

A character that has shown to be a fan favorite from this film is Luisa, a female character with super-human strength and sensibly depicted having big muscles. But did you know that Disney didn’t originally want Luisa depicted as a buff woman?

The pattern of character design regarding typical female Disney characters, especially princesses, is very apparent. We can see that most of them are illustrated as a typical sense of beauty with big doe eyes, dainty and thin bodies. This trend was meant to continue with the development of our adored Luisa Madrigal.

In fact, Encanto’s graphic designer, Mitchell Snary, had to heavily campaign against Disney to give Luisa her trademark muscles, which make complete sense with her character. 

Disney did eventually allow Luisa her brawny physique but subsequently decided that she wouldn’t be a favored character over the more stereotypically feminine and beautiful Isabella. This is made evident by Disney’s lack of Luisa merchandise in comparison to Isabella or even the more central main character, Mirabel. 

As Encanto gains popularity, of course, children are going to throw their Encanto-themed birthday parties and celebrations. Many parents are taking to social media to complain that Luisa doesn’t have nearly enough merchandise to frame a party around with Luisa being many of their children’s favorite characters. 

All this is to say that it’s blatantly clear that Disney has lost sight of what children adore in a movie’s characters. They choose to impose adult beauty standards onto characters created for child consumption, which has now been proven to be unnecessary. 

Kids love Luisa because she is a symbol of vulnerability, passion, and triumph, and also sings a pretty catchy song. Children don’t mind or even register the fact that she isn’t representative of societal beauty standards, so why should Disney?