Mulán. Disney.
Esta entrada contiene un trabajo que hice para Cuestiones de la Lengua Inglesa. Está en inglés, claramente, pero lo he subido porque suscribe mi opinión sobre Mulán, para un debate en el livejournal de dryadeh sobre pelis Disney.
As Henke and Umble stated in their article “And She Lived Happily Ever After… The Disney Myth in the Video Age”, Pocahontas (1995) portrays a new model of female character in the Walt Disney Feature Animation addressed to children, unseen until that point. After that remarkable innovation, Mulan (1998) was released, portraying not only a new view of a Disney heroine, very much attached to Pocahontas’ style but also a peculiar view of the gender roles in the Ancient China society.
In this paper I will deal with three main points that are present in the movie: first of all, I intend to analyze the way in which gender roles are exposed; the second point I am up to deal with is women’s role in the society of Ancient China and finally, the third is the importance of believing in yourself as Mulan does to get to be respected more than the fact of being a male or a female.
The movie can be labeled as a “Disney movie”, since it belongs to the Walt Disney Feature Animation. The genre is animation, with some traces of humor, fantasy and magic, and, as it uses to be in Disney movies, love (despite the fact that love in Mulan is not the kind of love we expect from this kind of production, but we will deal with it further on).
Focusing in the Disney style, it usually uses those considered “adult themes” such as racism in Pocahontas or the gender roles and how they are adopted in Mulan, and adapts them into a language that can be understood by the most innocent minds, maybe to try to make them accept “the others” since the youngest ages; another characteristic of Disney movies is the magic that surrounds everything, and also the really intelligent animals that try to help the heroine like Meeko, Flit and Grandmother Willow in Pocahontas, or Mushu, Cri-Kee and The Ancestors in Mulan; they usually try to guide the protagonist in her path to get what she deserves. In Disney style, we should also highlight the music, since the movies are full of songs that portray the main themes; we will deal with one later on.
The main themes that will be developed during this paper will be, as it was said before, the gender roles, the women’s situation in society and the importance of believing in yourself to reach your goals.
According to Wikipedia, the movie is actually based upon the legend of Hua Mulan, that’s recoiled in The Ballad of Mulan, this woman supposedly lived in a period between 386 and 534 of our Era. However the movie is based in a posterior time (after XV century) just because the Forbidden City appears in it and it was not built until the Ming dynasty; despite the fact that the dresses portrayed belonged to a previous century. The movie tells the story of how Mulan (unable to be the sophisticated, apt to be married, woman she is supposed to) disguises herself as a man to occupy her father’s place in the Imperial Forces to fight against the Huns.
The movie is addressed to children, especially girls, and, as it happens in Pocahontas, since the protagonist is a non-Caucasian, it also addressed to a multicultural public. Nevertheless we should remark the fact that Mulan is a girl, so, as it is commonly known, more girls than boys go to see Disney movies with female protagonists, but both, boys and girls, go when the film is starred by a male character, such as The Lion King or Toy Story.
The movie addresses the viewer more as a girl than as a boy, since is understandable that some girls (ignoring the gender roles that society imposes and preferring to play with a ball or another game that is socially “masculine”) are able to empathize with Mulan. The viewer is not addressed according to a single or married status, just because they are supposed to be children, so they must be single, and it is, as I said before, a multicultural addressed movie, I think that specially to that Asian-American part of the United States population, just because some girls in the first years of school can be bulled because they look different (this, unfortunately, happens a lot) so this movie could be seen as a way of promoting multiculturalism.
The movie deals with gender roles and bringing honor to the family, these are the main themes developed upon it. Mulan embarrasses her family twice. The first time is when she goes to the city, to meet with the matchmaker and she messes up the interview because of Cri-Kee (the lucky cricket). In this scene we can see a little trace of the theme of gender roles (and also of the cross-dressing factor that is developed over the movie) when the matchmaker paints herself without noticing it, and the marks resemble a beard and a moustache.
After this scene, Mulan embarrasses her family again (especially her father) in front of Chi-Fu, the Emperor’s advisor, and all the people in their town; but she only was worried about her father, since he had an ill leg and he was called to defend the Empire. So, trying to get forgiven by her father, trying to bring honor to the family and also trying to prove herself, Mulan dresses up her father’s armor and she leaves to the camp where new soldiers will be trained (and this is the second time we see a change in the gender roles).
The third time we see a change in the gender roles during Mulan is towards the end, when she leads Shang (the Captain) and her friends (Yao, Ling and Chien-Po) into the palace. Her three friends adopt the roles of concubines, dressing as women in that time, and putting make up over their faces. They also used fruits to get feminine “forms”, and when they are disguised as women, Yao asks “Does this dress make me fat?”
That is an enormous feminine stereotype, since it is thought that women care so much more about how they look than men do. We can also see some masculine stereotypes, as when Mulan (dressed as a boy) first arrives to the camp, when Mushu gives her some advices on how she should behave, and we can see Mulan/Ping walking as if she was going to broke, just because she was attempting to walk as a woman thinks a man would, even having an account on the advices that Mushu gave to her.
While Mulan is in the camp with the other soldiers, the song I’m up to analyze is performed. The song is used to skip over the trainings showing the viewers how they improve, after a lot of work. The trainings start being a complete disaster, since Mulan does not seem to have any particular skill to help her to pass them. Some words used are gender specific, such as “daughters”, “sons” or “man”, and all of them are used in a generic way. Also we can see the word “daughters” associated to the term “saddest bunch” so here we can perceive how women are seriously mistreated in this particular part of the movie, since they try to portray femininity as something negative, associated with weakness and uselessness, while masculinity is portrayed as something positive, associated with strength and power.
The song “I’ll Make a Man Out of You”, written by David Zippel (the music was composed by Matthew Wilder) is not addressed to nobody in a special way, it’s addressed to all the former soldiers as a whole, unless when Mulan is sent home by Shang, after she fails all the prompts that the Captains gives her. “So pack up, go home / you’re trough / How could I make a man out of you”. Here we can see a clear use of irony (present in the whole song) since Mulan is a woman; because, no matter how much she trains and tries to behave as a man, she’ll always be a woman. After this part, she uses her intelligence (something that was not appreciated in a woman) to recover the arrow Shang shot to the top of a stick, becoming, this way, respected by her partners, since she impresses them, and she is allowed to stay in the camp. It also represents a new beginning, because after this feat, all the former soldiers star to improve their trainings. We also can consider a taboo the fact that Mulan is disguised as a man, and if somebody finds out what she really is, she will be killed. In Ancient China, the fact that women pretend to be men was a matter of death penalty.
We can see in the song (and also in the movie) a very clear gender assumption: women are weak and they are not able to do physical efforts that need so much strength. We can see that when Mulan is carrying the bags with water over her shoulders. She collapses and Shang makes the work for her. It is traditionally thought that women are weaker than men just because their body structure is usually thinner, even though that depends on each individual, not in the whole collective of men and women itself.
If we focus now on the rhetorical figures which are present in the song, we can find a repetition “be a man”, during the chorus, interpreted by a choir that follows the voice of Donny Osmond, the performer in the movie. We can also find all sort of similes, such as “we must be swift as the coursing river” or “mysterious as the dark side of the moon”. These similes are also some kind of personification, since the song gives to the “typhoon”, the “river”, the “raging fire” and the “dark side of the moon” some characteristics that are necessary to the soldiers that Shang is training. We can also see here a clear sign of the Chinese culture, because in it is extremely valuable to be in harmony with Nature.
The male characters represented are former soldiers while the female character is a woman pretending to be a man. Women in the movie are represented as objects, since the candidates to be chosen by the matchmaker to the concubines, women in Ancien China are represented as simple decorative objects. Mulan is a former object, when she goes to see the matchmaker, but, after the training period, she pretty much becomes a subject (the one who rules her life). The characters are all oriental-featured, even though Shan Yu, the leader of the Huns, is totally animalized, since his eyes are exactly the same color and form of his falcon’s. Dealing now with age, Mulan is young, and so are the former soldiers or Shang, while The Emperor or Fa Zhou are represented as aged men. In the song is a clear binary opposition, since femininity (daughters) are considered worse than masculinity (sons). The ironic fact here is that Mulan (who is a daughter) turns to be the best “son” in the camp. This is clearly related to gender roles, because a women is not supposed to be able to do anything she does during their trainings, so we can see here how she adopts a gender role that does not belongs to here, and she succeeds in it.
The bodies are represented as a whole, and usually dressed, because Mulan can not undress herself among her partners if she does not want her secret to be known. We can particularly see that in the scene of her having a bath in the lake, when her friends go to swim along with her and she tries to run away from them to keep here secret safe.
The song I have analyzed emanates from Shang’s point of view, since he is the one who is speaking (or singing) during it. His tone is a bit disappointed, because the soldiers did not turn up to be what he was expecting but also with a bit of hope, because he thinks he would be able to turn them into real soldiers.
A last thing I wanted to highlight from the movie is the theme of love. Love is not the first thing Mulan is looking for (as Bella or Ariel did in their respective movies). Mulan looks for self realization; she wants to do things by herself. She wants to prove that she is worthy and after she proves that she can be as good as any man, or even better is when Shang goes after her. We can see in this movie that love is a secondary priority in Mulan’s life, and I really think it is a good lesson to the young girls that see the movie: life is something more than having a man to protect and take care of them; women can perfectly take care of themselves and do things.
To sum up, we can say that Mulan is a really important movie in Walt Disney Feature Animation, since it portrays a new type of heroine that is able to prove that she can be independent and do things by herself. We can also see a reflection of gender roles in Ancient China society and how women were considered part of the decoration, a fact that the protagonist changes because, as the movie points, is important to believe in yourself to get your goals.
As Henke and Umble stated in their article “And She Lived Happily Ever After… The Disney Myth in the Video Age”, Pocahontas (1995) portrays a new model of female character in the Walt Disney Feature Animation addressed to children, unseen until that point. After that remarkable innovation, Mulan (1998) was released, portraying not only a new view of a Disney heroine, very much attached to Pocahontas’ style but also a peculiar view of the gender roles in the Ancient China society.
In this paper I will deal with three main points that are present in the movie: first of all, I intend to analyze the way in which gender roles are exposed; the second point I am up to deal with is women’s role in the society of Ancient China and finally, the third is the importance of believing in yourself as Mulan does to get to be respected more than the fact of being a male or a female.
The movie can be labeled as a “Disney movie”, since it belongs to the Walt Disney Feature Animation. The genre is animation, with some traces of humor, fantasy and magic, and, as it uses to be in Disney movies, love (despite the fact that love in Mulan is not the kind of love we expect from this kind of production, but we will deal with it further on).
Focusing in the Disney style, it usually uses those considered “adult themes” such as racism in Pocahontas or the gender roles and how they are adopted in Mulan, and adapts them into a language that can be understood by the most innocent minds, maybe to try to make them accept “the others” since the youngest ages; another characteristic of Disney movies is the magic that surrounds everything, and also the really intelligent animals that try to help the heroine like Meeko, Flit and Grandmother Willow in Pocahontas, or Mushu, Cri-Kee and The Ancestors in Mulan; they usually try to guide the protagonist in her path to get what she deserves. In Disney style, we should also highlight the music, since the movies are full of songs that portray the main themes; we will deal with one later on.
The main themes that will be developed during this paper will be, as it was said before, the gender roles, the women’s situation in society and the importance of believing in yourself to reach your goals.
According to Wikipedia, the movie is actually based upon the legend of Hua Mulan, that’s recoiled in The Ballad of Mulan, this woman supposedly lived in a period between 386 and 534 of our Era. However the movie is based in a posterior time (after XV century) just because the Forbidden City appears in it and it was not built until the Ming dynasty; despite the fact that the dresses portrayed belonged to a previous century. The movie tells the story of how Mulan (unable to be the sophisticated, apt to be married, woman she is supposed to) disguises herself as a man to occupy her father’s place in the Imperial Forces to fight against the Huns.
The movie is addressed to children, especially girls, and, as it happens in Pocahontas, since the protagonist is a non-Caucasian, it also addressed to a multicultural public. Nevertheless we should remark the fact that Mulan is a girl, so, as it is commonly known, more girls than boys go to see Disney movies with female protagonists, but both, boys and girls, go when the film is starred by a male character, such as The Lion King or Toy Story.
The movie addresses the viewer more as a girl than as a boy, since is understandable that some girls (ignoring the gender roles that society imposes and preferring to play with a ball or another game that is socially “masculine”) are able to empathize with Mulan. The viewer is not addressed according to a single or married status, just because they are supposed to be children, so they must be single, and it is, as I said before, a multicultural addressed movie, I think that specially to that Asian-American part of the United States population, just because some girls in the first years of school can be bulled because they look different (this, unfortunately, happens a lot) so this movie could be seen as a way of promoting multiculturalism.
The movie deals with gender roles and bringing honor to the family, these are the main themes developed upon it. Mulan embarrasses her family twice. The first time is when she goes to the city, to meet with the matchmaker and she messes up the interview because of Cri-Kee (the lucky cricket). In this scene we can see a little trace of the theme of gender roles (and also of the cross-dressing factor that is developed over the movie) when the matchmaker paints herself without noticing it, and the marks resemble a beard and a moustache.
After this scene, Mulan embarrasses her family again (especially her father) in front of Chi-Fu, the Emperor’s advisor, and all the people in their town; but she only was worried about her father, since he had an ill leg and he was called to defend the Empire. So, trying to get forgiven by her father, trying to bring honor to the family and also trying to prove herself, Mulan dresses up her father’s armor and she leaves to the camp where new soldiers will be trained (and this is the second time we see a change in the gender roles).
The third time we see a change in the gender roles during Mulan is towards the end, when she leads Shang (the Captain) and her friends (Yao, Ling and Chien-Po) into the palace. Her three friends adopt the roles of concubines, dressing as women in that time, and putting make up over their faces. They also used fruits to get feminine “forms”, and when they are disguised as women, Yao asks “Does this dress make me fat?”
That is an enormous feminine stereotype, since it is thought that women care so much more about how they look than men do. We can also see some masculine stereotypes, as when Mulan (dressed as a boy) first arrives to the camp, when Mushu gives her some advices on how she should behave, and we can see Mulan/Ping walking as if she was going to broke, just because she was attempting to walk as a woman thinks a man would, even having an account on the advices that Mushu gave to her.
While Mulan is in the camp with the other soldiers, the song I’m up to analyze is performed. The song is used to skip over the trainings showing the viewers how they improve, after a lot of work. The trainings start being a complete disaster, since Mulan does not seem to have any particular skill to help her to pass them. Some words used are gender specific, such as “daughters”, “sons” or “man”, and all of them are used in a generic way. Also we can see the word “daughters” associated to the term “saddest bunch” so here we can perceive how women are seriously mistreated in this particular part of the movie, since they try to portray femininity as something negative, associated with weakness and uselessness, while masculinity is portrayed as something positive, associated with strength and power.
The song “I’ll Make a Man Out of You”, written by David Zippel (the music was composed by Matthew Wilder) is not addressed to nobody in a special way, it’s addressed to all the former soldiers as a whole, unless when Mulan is sent home by Shang, after she fails all the prompts that the Captains gives her. “So pack up, go home / you’re trough / How could I make a man out of you”. Here we can see a clear use of irony (present in the whole song) since Mulan is a woman; because, no matter how much she trains and tries to behave as a man, she’ll always be a woman. After this part, she uses her intelligence (something that was not appreciated in a woman) to recover the arrow Shang shot to the top of a stick, becoming, this way, respected by her partners, since she impresses them, and she is allowed to stay in the camp. It also represents a new beginning, because after this feat, all the former soldiers star to improve their trainings. We also can consider a taboo the fact that Mulan is disguised as a man, and if somebody finds out what she really is, she will be killed. In Ancient China, the fact that women pretend to be men was a matter of death penalty.
We can see in the song (and also in the movie) a very clear gender assumption: women are weak and they are not able to do physical efforts that need so much strength. We can see that when Mulan is carrying the bags with water over her shoulders. She collapses and Shang makes the work for her. It is traditionally thought that women are weaker than men just because their body structure is usually thinner, even though that depends on each individual, not in the whole collective of men and women itself.
If we focus now on the rhetorical figures which are present in the song, we can find a repetition “be a man”, during the chorus, interpreted by a choir that follows the voice of Donny Osmond, the performer in the movie. We can also find all sort of similes, such as “we must be swift as the coursing river” or “mysterious as the dark side of the moon”. These similes are also some kind of personification, since the song gives to the “typhoon”, the “river”, the “raging fire” and the “dark side of the moon” some characteristics that are necessary to the soldiers that Shang is training. We can also see here a clear sign of the Chinese culture, because in it is extremely valuable to be in harmony with Nature.
The male characters represented are former soldiers while the female character is a woman pretending to be a man. Women in the movie are represented as objects, since the candidates to be chosen by the matchmaker to the concubines, women in Ancien China are represented as simple decorative objects. Mulan is a former object, when she goes to see the matchmaker, but, after the training period, she pretty much becomes a subject (the one who rules her life). The characters are all oriental-featured, even though Shan Yu, the leader of the Huns, is totally animalized, since his eyes are exactly the same color and form of his falcon’s. Dealing now with age, Mulan is young, and so are the former soldiers or Shang, while The Emperor or Fa Zhou are represented as aged men. In the song is a clear binary opposition, since femininity (daughters) are considered worse than masculinity (sons). The ironic fact here is that Mulan (who is a daughter) turns to be the best “son” in the camp. This is clearly related to gender roles, because a women is not supposed to be able to do anything she does during their trainings, so we can see here how she adopts a gender role that does not belongs to here, and she succeeds in it.
The bodies are represented as a whole, and usually dressed, because Mulan can not undress herself among her partners if she does not want her secret to be known. We can particularly see that in the scene of her having a bath in the lake, when her friends go to swim along with her and she tries to run away from them to keep here secret safe.
The song I have analyzed emanates from Shang’s point of view, since he is the one who is speaking (or singing) during it. His tone is a bit disappointed, because the soldiers did not turn up to be what he was expecting but also with a bit of hope, because he thinks he would be able to turn them into real soldiers.
A last thing I wanted to highlight from the movie is the theme of love. Love is not the first thing Mulan is looking for (as Bella or Ariel did in their respective movies). Mulan looks for self realization; she wants to do things by herself. She wants to prove that she is worthy and after she proves that she can be as good as any man, or even better is when Shang goes after her. We can see in this movie that love is a secondary priority in Mulan’s life, and I really think it is a good lesson to the young girls that see the movie: life is something more than having a man to protect and take care of them; women can perfectly take care of themselves and do things.
To sum up, we can say that Mulan is a really important movie in Walt Disney Feature Animation, since it portrays a new type of heroine that is able to prove that she can be independent and do things by herself. We can also see a reflection of gender roles in Ancient China society and how women were considered part of the decoration, a fact that the protagonist changes because, as the movie points, is important to believe in yourself to get your goals.