Luca (2021 film)

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Fandom
Name: Luca
Abbreviation(s):
Creator: Enrico Casarosa
Jesse Andrews
Simon Stephenson
Date(s): June 13, 2021 (Aquarium of Genoa)
June 18, 2021 (United States)
Medium: Film, Short Film
Country of Origin: USA
External Links: Official Website
Wikipedia Page
IMBD
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Luca is a 2021 computer-animated coming-of-age fantasy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The film features the voices of Jacob Tremblay as Luca, Jack Dylan Grazer as Alberto and Emma Berman as Giulia.

Set on the Italian Riviera in the 1950s-1960s, the film centers on Luca Paguro, a curious sea monster boy who herds goatfish and has the ability to assume human form while on land, exploring the Ligurian town of Portorosso with his new best friend, the free-spirited Alberto Scorfano, who shows him the wonders of the surface and travels with him. Together, they experience a life-changing summer adventure. While there, they befriend an outgoing human girl, named Giulia Marcovaldo, and try to avoid being outed as creatures of the sea by the inhabitants of the region.

Subsequent content includes a short film, titled 'Ciao Alberto'.[1]

Canon

Spoiler Warning: This article or section may contain spoilers. If this bothers you, proceed with caution.

The film begins with Luca Paguro, a young sea monster, herding a school of goatfish. Luca lives underwater with his parents and grandmother, in a sea monster village. He has little knowledge of the surface and has never questioned his parents’ orders to stay away from it, but longs to see how it's like and discover the world. One day Luca meets Alberto Scorfano, a fellow sea monster teenager who lives alone above the surface. Luca is thus influenced by his new-found friend to venture out of the ocean. Upon discovering his actions, Luca's overprotective parents decide to send him to the deep sea with his uncle Ugo for the season. In retaliation, Luca runs away with Alberto to the town of Portorosso, planning to find a Vespa and travel the world together.

There they meet Giulia Marcovaldo, a human girl. In order to win the money needed for a Vespa, the boys form a team with Giulia to compete at the Portorosso Cup, a local triathlon. As they are training for the race, they befriend Giulia's fisherman father, Massimo, while Giulia bonds with Luca over their mutual love for learning. Alberto becomes jealous of Luca and Giulia's growing friendship, and after a quarrel between the two sea monsters, he reveals his true form to Giulia. Unable to give himself up, Luca pretends to be surprised at the transformation and, heartbroken, Alberto leaves. Giulia later discovers Luca's true identity as well and sends him away for his own safety, since the town is infamous for its sea monster hunting.

Luca attempts to reunite with Alberto and discovers that his father has abandoned him, making Alberto think that everything was his fault and he deserves to have no friends. As he refuses to co-operate, Luca sets out to win the Vespa and make things right by himself. He takes the lead in the race, but is forced to find shelter when it starts to rain. Alberto arrives with an umbrella, but is knocked by Ercole Visconti, the town's bully, and both boys are revealed to be sea monsters. Ercole intends to kill them to collect bounty money, but Giulia arrives to help them by smashing her bike into his. Luca and Alberto turn back to help an injured Giulia and the three of them are defended by Massimo, who reveals that the sea monsters are his friends and intimidates the sea monster hunters. When Ercole refuses to accept the changes, his own henchmen, Ciccio and Guido, throw him into a fountain, fed up with his abuse and insults, declaring Ercole as an outcast.

Luca and Alberto eventually buy a Vespa, but Alberto sells it to get a train ticket for Luca, allowing him to go to school, in Genoa, with Giulia. They all promise to each other to keep in touch. During the credits, Luca meets Giulia's mother and attends school, Massimo becomes Alberto's adoptive father, and Alberto and Luca’s families enjoy interacting with each other. Luca and Alberto stay in touch, frequently calling and sending letters to one another.

Ciao Alberto

With his best friend, Luca, away at school, Alberto is enjoying his new life in Portorosso working alongside Giulia's father, Massimo. He wants more than anything to impress his mentor, but it's easier said than done. It becomes apparent that Alberto is seeking approval from Massimo, but is concerned about being fired for his mistakes. Upset by his inability to impress him, Alberto packs up his things to leave, but Massimo rushes out to stop him. As Alberto tells him to leave him alone, he accidentally calls him "dad", which shocks them both. In the end, Alberto manages to accept Massimo as a father figure.

Characters

Main Characters

  • Luca Paguro - A sea monster curious about the world above the sea.
  • Alberto Scorfano - Luca's sea monster best friend who is enthusiastic to explore the human world.
  • Giulia Marcovaldo - An Italian human girl who is an outcast in Portorosso and befriends Luca and Alberto.

Supporting Characters

  • Ercole Visconti - The town's bully.
  • Daniela Paguro - Luca's overprotective mother.
  • Massimo Marcovaldo - Giulia's imposing father, who adopts Alberto later on.
  • Lorenzo Paguro - Luca's distracted father.
  • Ciccio and Guido - Ercole's henchmen.
  • Mrs. Marsigliese - A lady who runs the Portorosso Cup race.
  • Grandma Paguro - Luca's supportive grandmother.
  • Ugo Paguro - An anglerfish-like sea monster and Luca's uncle.

Fandom

Even when the movie had just come out, in June 2021, the fandom for Luca was already rapidly growing, with new works being posted on AO3 every hour and considerable discussion online. Through the summer of 2021, and especially in July and August, the movie enjoyed considerable popularity, largely due to the attention it received online on TikTok and other social media. This large number of fans slowly declined, albeit with occasional fluctuations such as when "Ciao Alberto" came out in November 2021. Eventually, by early 2022, a smaller but loyal fanbase remained committed to the movie, with most fans being active on Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram.

Latin Americans form a quite significant component of the fandom and many of them are active even on less popular platforms, like Facebook. Queer and neurodivergent fans also account for a large percentage of the fanbase, providing a wide variety of headcanons for the characters. The fans of the movie may occasionally call themselves "Lucanators" or "Luca Nation", particularly on Twitter.[2] Enrico Casarosa, the director of Luca, is quite popular within the fandom and is known for frequently interacting with the fanbase on Twitter. By March 2022, Luca had over 1200 works on AO3.

Queer Readings

Since before its release, comparisons were drawn between Luca and the 2017 film Call Me By Your Name, which is also about the close relationship between two male characters and was set in an Italian town during the summer as well.[3] The central plot point of Luca and Alberto having to hide their true sea monster forms, has also been considered an allegory for queer people, having to hide their identities in order to be accepted.

The director has dispelled the idea that this allegory was intentional, his original vision for the film being the exploration of the time in a child's life before romance, stating that: "We really willfully went for a pre-pubescent story... This is all about platonic friendships".[4] He has since welcomed the interpretation after the film's release, also stating: "While I identify with pronouns he/him and I am a straight man, the themes of diversity, acceptance and inclusion in our movie are dear to my heart".[5] Therefore, many fans have read the film as an allegory for queerness and the relationship between Luca and Alberto as one of young romantic love.

Migrant Readings

Some people have interpreted the story as being a metaphor for refugees and immigrants as well. While the director admitted that this was unintentional too, he was welcome to all interpretations: "We were aware making the movie that this was a wonderful journey of owning your own identity, and coming out with it – whichever that identity is. I thought that everyone would bring their own identity to it".[6]

Shipping

The most common pairing of the fandom is Luca Paguro/Alberto Scorfano, with 10 fics tagged with the pairing being posted to AO3 alone within 48 hours of the film's release.

Discussions about pairing children and underage characters were opened by many fans inside and outside the fandom. Those against shipping the characters support that it's wrong to sexualize children by imposing a relationship on them. Those in favor of pairing them say that countless examples of children falling in love have been common in heterosexual media for decades and no one ever complained, and that the constant criticisms of shipping Luca and Alberto were due to the fact that it was queer love; the ship's supporters seeing homophobia coming from those who are against it.

Common Pairings

Fans immediately started shipping Luca and Alberto, even before the movie came out. There are over 700 works featuring Luberto on AO3, as of March 2022. Popular tropes of this pairing include friends to lovers, forbidden love and mutual pining. Fanworks depict them in both their sea monster and human forms, mostly aged up and in slice of life situations. When in their sea monster forms, the mating trope is quite common as well.

Giulia, in relation to Luberto, is either treated as the source of a love triangle or the matchmaker, while Massimo is often shown as secretly supportive of their relationship. Ercole is additionally sometimes depicted as a potential source of tension and homophobia.

Luca and Alberto are also portrayed as best friends by a big part of the fandom, with no romantic intentions for each other. Common Luberto friendship tropes include childhood friends, bromance and smarm.

Giulia and Luca form the most popular het pairing of the fanbase. Their romantic relationship is more often than not depicted in underage and fluff fanworks. When aged up, they tend to be portrayed in a fake relationship for various reasons. Alberto can be the cause of a love triangle in Giuca art and fics.

However, it is more typical for Luca and Giulia to be treated as very good friends by the fandom. High school and college AUs are pretty common Giuca friendship tropes. Their mutual interest in learning and their overall similar interests are oftentimes a central part of fanworks and their dynamic may follow the trope of the gay best friend, when it comes to Luca.

Giulia and Alberto form a somewhat rare romantic pairing, which tends to follow the fomula of the can't live with them can't live without them trope.

Because Alberto eventually gets adopted into Giulia's family through her father, most fans prefer to depict them as siblings, while another part of the fanbase prefers to keep them as good friends.

Giucole is the second most popular het romantic pairing of the fandom and is usually supported by older fans of the movie, as opposed to the younger Giuca fanbase. This ship has been the source of controversy from time to time, due to the age difference between the two characters, which is why many fanworks depict them aged up.

The enemies to lovers and opposites attract tropes are the dominant ones for this pairing. Despite all of the above, a large number of fans prefers to treat them as rivals, frienemies or friends, since romantic portrayals of Giucole have also be seen as problematic for normalizing the harmful loving bully trope.

When treated as a romantic pairing, Albercole mostly focuses on Alberto falling in love for a reformed Ercole, as the latter gets to know the young sea monster that Portorossans have welcomed into their lives. This pairing can play into the tropes of I can fix him and redeeming love.

Nevertheless, most fans prefer to portray the two as rivals or frienemies. A portion of the fandom likes to think of them as former rivals who befriended one another too.

Polycules/OT3s

Meta & Analysis

Resources & External Links

Archives and Communities

Wikis

References

  1. ^ Sequel Short Ciao Alberto Trailer Brings Us Back to the Italian Riviera Movieweb.com, November 07, 2021.
  2. ^ LUCA NATIONNN❗📢 we made a gc for fellow lucanators and bring them together especially after the oscars so REPLY TO THIS TWEET TO JOIN US🗣️🌈🐠🐟🛵🌊🇮🇹🏳️‍🌈, Twitter.com, March 28, 2022.
  3. ^ Pixar’s New Movie Is Inspiring Peach Jokes And Comparisons To ‘Call Me By Your Name’, Uproxx.com, July 30, 2020.
  4. ^ Pixar's 'Luca' debuts trailer: Director says coming-of-age adventure influenced by Miyazaki, Fellini and 'Stand by Me' Yahoo!Entertainment, February 25, 2021.
  5. ^ "Luca (2021): il nuovo film della Disney parla di un coming out?" Cupofgreentea.it (in Italian), June 23, 2021.
  6. ^ Luca Pixar’s first gay movie? How the Disney+ film’s ‘deeper story’ and animation design came together, with a little help from Renaissance maps and sea iguanas South China Morning Post, June 22, 2021.
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