Camirabel

Camirabel
GENERAL
Encanto
Character	Mirabel Madrigal
Character	Camilo Madrigal
Canonical?	Canon
Status of Relationship	Cousins
IN FANDOM
Type (?)	Family
Also Known As	CamiMira, MiraCami

1

Camirabel is the family ship between Mirabel Madrigal and Camilo Madrigal from the Encanto fandom.

Canon

Mirabel and Camilo are maternal cousins, the children of Julieta and Pepa respectively. Both characters are the same age (15), and therefore would have spent the first five years of their lives together in the family nursery. Once Camilo got his Gift of shapeshifting, he moved out of the nursery and into his new magical room. Mirabel, sadly, never gets a magical Gift and thus has to stay in the nursery.

By the time of the film's events, they seem to have grown apart in their relationship and don't have many interactions. Throughout the movie, Camilo is sometimes seen reacting to the things Mirabel does, but his reactions are shared with the rest of the family and are not unique. For example, he looks surprised and concerned to see Mirabel walking Antonio to his door at the Gift Ceremony, he's shocked to hear that Mirabel appeared in Bruno's final vision (and briefly transforms into both her and Bruno with his shapeshifting ability), and he is seen looking for Mirabel later, despite his gift going haywire and turning him into a baby-headed abomination. For her part, Mirabel seems to feel neutral-positive about Camilo. During the "Family Madrigal" musical sequence, she names Camilo and his ability, and has an extra line about him at the end: "My primo Camilo won't stop until he makes you smile today." Camilo has a reputation as a jester and a prankster, so Mirabel was highlighting this. There is a short scene where Mirabel talks to Camilo who is disguised as Dolores, but she loses interest as soon as she realizes the truth. At the end of the movie, Mirabel is seen handing Camilo a broom, and he drops it while looking in embarrassed, checking to see if she noticed.

The only notable one-on-one interaction between the two in the film is during the "We Don't Talk About Bruno" sequence. Mirabel is asking her family about their missing member, Bruno, and Camilo gets his own verse in the song. Here, Camilo transforms into an exaggerated and grotesque version of Bruno, and describes him (with dramatic language and movements) as a 7-foot-tall boogeyman who feasts on people's screams. It's unclear if he actually believes any of this at the time, but he is definitely having fun messing with his cousin during this scene.

Outside of the film, Camilo has had some more interaction with Mirabel in spinoff material. In the new comic book The New Adventures of Encanto, there is a story focusing on Camilo. Mirabel tells him that a boy is bullying Antonio, but she advises not confronting the bully directly and instead focusing on boosting Antonio's confidence. Camilo does not listen to her at all. Instead, he poses as a boy named Sebastian, drives the bully away and earns the awe of Antonio and the Encanto kids. Mirabel does not fall for the act, and she calls out Camilo quickly to put an end to it. This is the most interaction we have gotten between the two in official material, and it shows a silly but fairly typical family relationship.

In earlier versions of the movie, Camilo was intended to be a more angsty teen and represent the "jerk cousin" stereotype. He would have been more of an antagonist to Mirabel. However, the creators decided that it would be stronger to give the antagonistic role to Isabela, Mirabel's sister. Since it would have felt too mean-spirited to have both of them being jerks, Camilo's personality evolved into the fun-loving theater kid that fans know him as, and he was given a lesser role in the story. Some official material has remnants of Camilo's original personality. For example, the official graphic novel has an extra line where Camilo blames Mirabel for the house falling down, saying "No wonder she didn't get a gift!"

Fanon

Even though the two have had a small amount of interaction with each other in the 2021 film, Mirabel and Camilo are two of the favourite Madrigal grandchildren. Camilo himself became a popular character in the fandom and fans wanted to explore more of his character and his past. When fans realized that he and Mirabel are the same age, this led to many headcanons about the two. Since they spent their first five years together, many fans think they they have a close bond, to the point of being each other's favorite cousins and best friends--perhaps even a bit of a chaotic duo. Some fans even think that Camilo was hurt by Mirabel calling Dolores her "favorite older cousin" in the film. (Though, since Camilo is only three months older than Mirabel, it's debatable whether he even counts as an "older cousin.") There are also some headcanons about how Camilo may have reacted after Mirabel's failed Ceremony. Most fans portray him as sympathetic and trying to cheer her up, but being a five-year-old, would not be able to do so effectively. That is why some of the fan art on the two is of their child selves.

There are also fans who wish Camilo had a bigger role in the movie, and so some concepts involved rewriting the film with Camilo as Mirabel's sidekick. There was also a short trend of having Camilo replace Mirabel entirely as the protagonist (with some even rewriting Mirabel's song, "Waiting on a Miracle", from his perspective), but this trend died out fairly quickly.

Another thing that fans noticed is that Camilo's personal problems are probably the least addressed out of everyone in the film. There is director commentary about how Camilo may have identity issues and is trying to figure himself out as teenagers do. Fans believe that his shapeshifting ability plays into this and can even lead to a full-blown existential crisis. Mirabel, having helped several members of her family (especially her sisters) with their personal problems, is a prime candidate for stepping up and helping Camilo figure himself out. There are multiple fanfics and fanarts that explore this dynamic, and they oftens how the two rekindling the friendship they had as kids. Other times, fans even go as far as writing fanmade musical numbers for Camilo to sing, similarly to how Isabela and Lusia (and even Mirabel herself) had songs in the movie about their troubles. Many examples of these fansongs can be found on Youtube.

Fandom

FAN FICTION

Camilo & Mirabel tag on AO3

Variations

Madrigal Family refers to the ship between Alma Madrigal, Pedro Madrigal, Julieta Madrigal, Agustín Madrigal, Pepa Madrigal, Félix Madrigal, Isabela Madrigal, Luisa Madrigal, Dolores Madrigal, Antonio Madrigal, Bruno Madrigal, Camilo and Mirabel

Madrigal Grandkids refers to the ship between Dolores Madrigal, Antonio Madrigal, Isabela Madrigal, Luisa Madrigal, Camilo and Mirabel