I'll Make a Man Out of You - Overanalysing Disney's Mulan

So it begins, after having a small crisis about what I’m doing with this blog, I’ve decided to overanalyse stuff on a regular-ish basis. After a vote on the facebook page, the people have spoken, and today’s film for brutal decimation rigorous discussion is Disney’s Mulan. If you haven’t seen it, or if it’s been a while, the basic plot is this: 

Ancient China. Mulan steals her dad’s armour and pretends to be a dude called Ping in order to join the army in her father’s place. She trains with men, “assisted” by a small dragon, Mushu and a cricket (because Disney) and goes to war. She saves the day, but is revealed as a woman, so she is scorned and kicked out of the army. But she is the only one who knows the Hun are still coming! So she saves the friggin day AGAIN and then goes home to her family. It is implied that the handsome commander man who has thus far been a dick to her marries her. The end.

I liked Mulan as a kid. I really did. I was a tomboy, and I liked the idea of a Disney Princess who did her own dirty work. No one saves Mulan, she does it all herself. She wields a sword, rides a horse, sings good songs and is quite funny. The film came out when I was 10, and I can say with absolute certainty that I admired her. In many ways I still do, but having watched the film twice this year, one of those times being this morning, I have a few bones to pick with Disney.

First of all, who approved the racism? A number of the artists working on the animation are Asian or of Asian decent, a number of the voice actors are Asian Americans. George Fucking Takei is in this film. I cannot believe that not a single one of them was like “uhhh… guys?” at some point. But nope, Disney you just went right ahead with cringe worthy racial stereotypes and shitting all over Chinese religious practises.

"A single grain of rice can tip the scale" - geez thanks Confucius, I mean Emperor

This is nothing to the fact that the basic premise of this film is “even Asians think all Asians look alike to the point where they don’t notice a girl dressed in her dad’s armour.” Raaaaaacism.

Ok, so I think we can all accept that Mulan isn’t exactly racially sensitive. In fact, it’s pretty well known that Disney regularly shits all over “other” cultures. May we never forget Pocahontas. But at least Mulan is a better role model for girls than the other princesses, right? Finally we have a female protagonist who looks after herself, who beats people up, who isn’t a damsel? Lizzy, I can practically hear you thinking, please don’t ruin this film by going on a feminist rant. Well, first of all, you’re in the wrong place my friend, and second of all, I am a big advocate for enjoying things in spite of the fact that they may be ‘problematic’. Given that I feel more knowledgeable and more comfortable talking about sexism rather than racism... 

Yeah. I’m about to tear Mulan to shreds.

In the matchmaker scene, Mulan is meant to be all demure and a “good woman” in order to impress the match maker (Miriam Margoyles by the way! Omg!). If impressed, the matchmaker will set Mulan up with a nice husband and she’ll “bring honour to us all”.  But it goes horribly wrong. In a rather hilarious, Disney style way. Stuff breaks, things spill, there’s a fire… it's fun for the whole family. But it doesn’t go wrong because Mulan isn’t a good woman, it goes wrong because the cricket Mulan’s grandma shoved up her dress gets out and causes a fire on the matchmaker’s butt. I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say here Disney. In my memory, I always thought Mulan was too tomboyish and adventurous to be a good, little demure woman. But in reality the problem is that she has a crazy grandma who shoves insects in people’s clothes? WHAT IS YOUR MESSAGE? I’M SO CONFUSED.

In fact most of the things that go wrong in this movie aren’t Mulan’s fault.  When she first arrives at training camp she gets blamed for a brawl that her dragon friend, Mushu, started, she is then singled out for the rest of the training montage.  The other soldiers sabotage her at every turn, putting scorpions down her shirt, tripping her, throwing rocks at her… you know generally being jerks. Once she’s left alone, she works hard and is the only one to climb to the top of the pole and retrieve the arrow. And then she suddenly gets good at all the other stuff. Except that’s not it, is it? She always had the potential but she was just being held back by jerks who didn’t think she could do it. I know they don’t know she’s a girl but um this looks EXACTLY LIKE INSTITUTIONALISED MYSOGINY.

So anyway, she goes on to be the best at army and they set off to defeat the Hun. Mulan uses her cleverness to save them all during a battle and in particular, saves Shang, the guy in charge who she has a slight crush on, from certain falling-off-a-giant-cliff-death. Unfortunately, she gets injured, and when they are patching her up, they discover boobs!

I am not kidding, the music literally goes "Dun Dun Dunnnn" at this moment.

So even though she’s awesome (and also quite injured by the way), she gets thrown to the ground and Cunning, Sneaky Administrator says, “I knew there was something wrong with you! A woman!! Treacherous snake! High treason! Ultimate dishonour!” Are we talking about impersonating a man here dude, or just being a lady in general, I’m not 100% sure. Sexy Shang doesn’t kill her (so generous!) because he owes her his life, but they leave her in the snow. While watching this I made the following note: 

Hello you just saved all our lives and were gravely injured in the attempt. But unfortunately, you have boobs, so we’re going to leave you to freeze to death, bye!

Of course that’s when Mulan realises that the Hun are, somehow, impervious to snow? I don’t know, she destroyed them all with a giant avalanche but even though some of them are shirtless, this seems to have no effect, and they go off on their quest to destroy the Emperor some more. Being the only person who knows this, Mulan heads off to tell everyone. Of course, Sexy Shang doesn’t care that she has vitally important information, only that she insists on still being a girl. “You said you’d trust Ping, why is Mulan any different?” God Mulan, haven’t you got it yet, it’s because of your treacherous anatomy!

It’s all ok though, because Mulan saves the day yet again. And this time, she does it wearing a dress. She’s not the only one either. Three of the men dress as concubines for no real reason to distract the guards. Of course, only the comedic male characters dress as women, not the heroic love interest, because dressing as a woman is both shameful and comedic. Yay. The Emperor is super duper grateful and offers Mulan a place on his council. She turns it down though, because she misses home. Sexy Shang follows her because all of a sudden he’s decided he’s in love with the woman he has been cruel to since the moment he discovered she wasn’t a dude named Ping.

I think what’s most upsetting about Mulan is that it presents as a feminist Disney film. Or at least, it promises a strong female lead, a complex interesting person who is looking for more than just Prince Charming. But it ultimately disappoints, because there’s no real challenge of any status quo. She could only do all those amazing things by being a man, and the second she was found out, she was despised. Mulan marries the handsome man even though he was a dick to her because… why? Because Disney films don’t seem to be able to conceive of a woman who doesn’t want to get married. She can’t just be happy because you know… she saved China, she also has to get a husband, otherwise she’ll be unfulfilled.

Which is exactly how I feel after saving large Asian countries too.

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