The complicated reasoning behind why We Don’t Talk About Bruno wasn’t nominated for the Academy Award this morning.
If there was a breakthrough original song from last year’s crop of contenders, it was undoubtedly “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” the Lin-Manuel Miranda-penned earworm from “Encanto” that has gone on to become a certifiable blockbuster (it currently has nearly 125 million streams on Spotify and is the No.1 song on the Billboard Hot 100). But when the Oscar nominations were announced Tuesday morning, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” was conspicuously absent. Instead, the stirring “Dos Oruguitas” from “Encanto” scored the nomination. But why? The short answer is: because Disney didn’t submit “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” for contention. Each studio has to put forth the songs that they think will make the most impact. In the past, Disney submitted multiple songs for the category, particularly during the lucrative Disney Renaissance period (for example “Hakuna Matata” and “Circle of Life” were submitted from “The Lion King” and both secured nominations); these days Disney usually only submits one per film, probably for fear of one song canceling the other out. But why didn’t they submit “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” for the category? Well, nobody knew that “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” would explode the way it did. It’s a relatively deep cut, one that moves the plot forward while revealing specific character details.
