The Representation of Gender in Walt Disney's "Mulan"

Table of Contents

1  Introduction  2

2  Short Summary of Disney’s “Mulan  2

3  The Representation of Gender  3

3.1  The Protagonist Fa Mulan  3

3.2  Treatment of Women  6

3.3  Depiction of Men  6

3.4  Meaning of Song Texts presented in Disney’s “Mulan  8

4  Gender as Performance  9

5  “Mulan’s Influence on Society  10

6  Conclusion: Disney’s “Mulan A feminist movie?  12

7  Appendix  13

  Bibliography  17

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The Representation of Gender in Disney’s “Mulan”

1 Introduction

“How can they tell if I am male or female?” ¹ With this last line of “The Ballad of Mulan” the (anonymous) author raises the gender question already in the 6 ^th century. In this essay, I would like to analyse The Representation of Gender in Walt Disney’s “Mulan” ² , using the structure of the movie to focus on The Protagonist Fa Mulan, the Treatment of Women and the Depiction of Men. Additionally, the inquiry concerning the Meaning of Song Texts in Disney’s “Mulan” appears useful as these always play an important role in conveying movie themes. In order to establish a connection to the seminar on which this paper is based, I will illustrate how the movie is a good example for Judith Butler’s theory of Gender as Performance. Last but not least, I would like to show the Influence of Disney’s “Mulan” on Children and Society because fairy tales and movies “[…] do influence the manner in which children conceive the world and their places in it […]” ³ . Drawing the “Conclusion”, I will try a careful approach to find out if Disney’s “Mulan” might even be considered as a feminist movie.

2 Short Summary of Disney’s “Mulan”

Walt Disney’s motion picture movie “Mulan” is loosely based on an ancient Chinese poem “The Ballad of Mulan” and set in 15 ^th century China ⁴ . It deals with a brave girl named Fa Mulan who is in search of self-definition and in this process enters the Imperial army disguised as a man and manages to save the country. Fa Mulan is an impulsive girl who is expected to be a disciplined daughter and a future caring wife. However, after a catastrophic visit to the local matchmaker, she is reproached for being a disgrace to her family and predicted that she will never find a husband. Later that day, messengers of the Emperor announce that the Huns have invaded China and that one man from each family is obliged to fight in the Imperial army. Mulan’s elderly father obeys the command but it is obvious that he would not

¹ Lau, J.: Ode to Mulan; http://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/mulan.html; as of March 28, 2007

² In the following, I will refer to the Disney movie “Mulan” in inverted commas and to the protagonist Fa Mulan without special labeling

^{3 3} Zipes, Jack: Don’t Bet on the Prince. Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North American and England; Gower, 1986; p. xii

⁴ cf. Wikipedia: Mulan; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulan; as of March 20, 2007

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survive the battle. Therefore, Mulan steals her father’s armament, dresses as a man and runs away to join the military in his place.

In confrontation with the enemy, Mulan manages through a tactical maneuver to win the battle. However, she has received an injury and her secret is revealed. As a consequence, Mulan is left behind while her company enters the city in order to celebrate their victory. As she realizes that a small group of Huns has survived and attacks the Emperor, Mulan succeeds with another peculiar strategy to rescue the sovereign. She is glorified as a heroine and offered employment under the imperial crown which she thankfully refuses. She prefers to return to her family to which she now has brought great honor.

3 The Representation of Gender

3.1 The Protagonist Fa Mulan

“The heroes are male because that has been the unconsidered choice, the norm, the American selfhood. Woman is the exception; man is the default setting […]” ⁵ . Fa Mulan is such an exception. She is the heroine of Disney’s motion picture film “Mulan”. As noted in “Understanding Disney” “[…] the hero succeeds […] because of what they do […]” and “[…] heroines require nothing beyond what they are born with […]” 6 . Considering this distinction, Mulan deviates even twice from “the norm” of fairy tales: not only is she the heroine of the story but also does she achieve this by her actions. The way towards being a heroine in a patriarchal society, however, was a major challenge for the protagonist. At the beginning of the movie, Fa Mulan is forced into the stereotypical feminine gender role but cannot fulfil it properly. Consequently she suffers from self-reproaches and the humiliation of being criticized in public.

The first appearance of the protagonist is the young girl sitting on her bed and writing characters of a ‘perfect woman’ on her forearm. For the meeting with the local matchmaker, she tries to memorize the following qualities: a woman has to be “quiet and demure, graceful, polite, delicate, refined, poised, punctual.” 7 Speaking

⁵ Reising, Russell: It’s a Dirty World after All; In: American Quarterly; Vol. 49, No. 4; John Hopkins University Press; Baltimore, MD, December 1997; p. 857

⁶ Wasko, Janet: Understanding Disney. The Manufacture of Fantasy; Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd.; Malden, MA, USA, 2001; p. 133

⁷ Disney’s “Mulan”. Special Edition; Directors: Bancroft, Tony/Cook, Barry; Walt Disney Productions, 2004; Chapter 3, Time 00:03:00

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of punctuality, she heads towards the city in order to be transformed from the tomboyish girl to a “perfect porcelain doll” 8 . Though, seeing herself in the mirror does not seem to make her really happy. The dress and the make-up appear more like a costume to her, a façade. This styling does not represent who she really is and how she feels but her family and society expect appropriate behavior from her. At the matchmaker’s Mulan is told once again that in order to “[…] please [her] future in-laws, [she] must demonstrate a sense of dignity and refinement. [She] must also be poised and silent.” ⁹ These characteristics are inculcated into the girls’ minds and in the sense of Simone de Beauvoir, Mulan “[…] is not born, but, rather, becomes, a woman […]” ¹⁰ by imposed behavior.

The encounter ends as a disaster and the matchmaker tells Mulan that she “[…] may look like a bride but [she] will never bring [her] family honour.” 11 Her outer appearance does not reflect who she is inside. When Mulan arrives home and takes off her make-up from just one side of her face, this picture visualizes her inner conflict. It shows her true self and the woman she is supposed to be. How she suffers from the previous experience and the inability to fulfil the social expectations is expressed in the song “Reflection” (see Chapter 3.4).

After having discussed the war issue with her father and being told that she needs to find her place in society, Mulan decides that she will join the army in her father’s place. The depiction of her changes from woman to man clearly illustrates the elimination of stereotypical feminine features. She is cutting her long hair short, changes her dress for her father’s military uniform and substitutes the prescription notice with her hairgrip.

Arrived at the boot camp, Mulan - now disguised as the man Ping - has to get used to the masculine behavior of her comrades and tries to adopt their gender role. At the beginning, she is not integrated into the group; she is bullied and sleeps outside the camp. Although she is not as strong as a man, she manages as the only trooper to complete a difficult task on account of her intelligence and great discipline. She holds her ground in a man’s world and is accepted as one of the best

⁸ ibid.; Chapter 4, Time 00:08:27

⁹ ibid.; Chapter 4, Time 00:09:49

¹⁰ In: Butler, Judith: Performative Acts and Gender Constitution. An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory; In: Conboy, Katie/Medina, Nadia/Stanbury, Sarah: Writing on the Body. Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory; Columbia University Press; New York, Chichester, West Sussex,

1997; p. 402

¹¹ Disney’s “Mulan”; Chapter 4, Time 00:10:51

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soldiers by her comrades. In contrast to the matchmaker scene, Mulan feels “more a part of a group by dressing up as a guy” ¹² than by being styled as a girl. After Mulan rescues the complete unit from being killed in the battle, her secret is revealed. The man who was praised as “[the] bravest of us all” 13 is suddenly shunned by everyone as a woman. She confronts Ling Shang with the question of what is different from her now that she is a woman than when she was a man. ¹⁴ The captain had trusted Ping but rejects Mulan. It is at this moment that Mulan sadly “discovers that there are arbitrary sexual distinctions made in society, largely by men” 15 . The scene highlights how a patriarchal society makes an insurmountable differentiation between men and women even if a woman has demonstrated identical or even greater achievements.

However, in the end of the movie, Mulan “[…] [makes] herself seen and heard -

- as a woman -- before the Huns destroy China.” ¹⁶ The company accepts her not only as a woman but even as their leader and with Mulan’s unusual strategy they manage to save the Emperor. Mulan defeats the enemy and is praised as a heroine by her unit, the Imperial Crown and the entire Chinese population. Although Mulan has just received such a great victory she still tries to defend herself as she faces her father for the first time after she ran away. This outlines that the submissive and obedient role as a daughter is internalized. She is not selfconfident enough to face her father in the same way she has faced everyone else during her adventure. She is afraid that she has lost her father’s affection because she has been disobedient and insubordinate. But against Mulan’s expectations, her father is not enraged and is not interested in her distinctions. Rather is he grateful to have his daughter safely back home, loves her and is proud of her the way she is, an emancipated and rebellious young woman.

Mulan has proven that there is another way than marriage to bring honor to the family and that she does not necessarily need a man to be respected. She is a “[…] heroine who actively seeks to define herself and her self-definition determines the

¹² Jensen, Olivia: Disney does gender. Talking sex-role reversal with the lead voice in Mulan; http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/1998/061198/film1.html, as of March 28, 2007

¹³ Disney’s “Mulan”; Chapter 22, Time 00:56:58

¹⁴ cf. Maoist International Movement: Mulan;

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/movies/review.php?f=long/mulan.txt (June 23, 1998); as of March

29, 2007

¹⁵ Zipes, Jack: Don’t Bet on the Prince; p.14

¹⁶ Green, Michelle Erica: Mulan (1998); http://www.greenmanreview.com/film/film_mulan.html; as of March 15, 2007

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