My Journey Through 花木兰 

Some 16-year-old Chinese girl rants, nitpicks, and fangirls over a certain 1998 Disney film.

I admit, I wasn’t much of a Disney fan as a child. Like many 90’s kids, my favorite Disney Princess was Ariel from The Little Mermaid. However, my mother didn’t believe in watching a movie more than once so I only got to see it a second time after a lot of begging. She didn’t approve of many of the Disney Princesses and I heard her grumble a lot about how they were bad role models, gave unrealistic expectations on love, life, and body images, had too much romance and marriage in their movies, etc. She wagged a finger in our (I have a sis) faces and told us we shouldn’t expect some Prince Charming to come out of the blue one day to sweep us off our feet onto his white horse and carry us into the sunset or whatever. Which was nuts, because I was five and didn’t give a crap about romance in movies.

I’m still very blind to them now, but that’s another story.

Anyway, because of that, I did more approvable things like play with LEGOs and ride my bike and do tuition worksheets instead of watch movies. Such a wholesome child!

Actually, for most of my childhood, I kind of thought Disney, including Disney Princesses, was a really tacky idea. I mean, cartoon? Randomly bursting into song? Talking animals? Poofy ball gowns? Come on.

But I guess recently (or not so recently anymore), Disney has really come around. I was way impressed with its CGI movies. Rapunzel knocked that half-fish redhead down one spot. WIR, BH6, and let’s not even talk about Frozen… My view on Disney skyrocketed. But only on the 3D films, because before I had only been intrigued with CGI, thanks to Dreamworks. I didn’t find 2D animated films as professional. Yes, I was one of the many people prejudiced against traditional animation.

I came around sooner or later anyway. I’m sure you’ve seen those Disney Princess parodies and spoofs on YouTube, because there is a shedload to keep you entertained. They sure entertained me, even though I had not known know as much as I should as I had not seen these films in about a decade. A couple of girls from school also raised their eyebrows at me for not knowing certain tunes. Because of these two factors, I felt bad, since I had already considered myself a fan of animation.

Once school was over, I took it upon myself to, at the very least, know some of the classic songs. (I did not have the ability or time to get the movies yet.) After digging around, I finally had my own little Disney playlist on my phone. And out of all of the songs, out of Part of Your World and Circle of Life and A Whole New World, guess which one became my favorite?

I loved I\'ll Make A Man Out of You even though I didn’t know what was going on in it (so I thought it was incredibly sexist). I mean, where was this song when I was preparing for my O Levels? It’s so inspirational! And badass! Those drums! Those strings! That voice!

More months passed and during that time I finally had a chance to watch TLM, the number one Disney movie I had been wanting to watch again because you know Ari was my favorite as a kid and I still had the memory of loving her. Well, that plummeted to its death after witnessing her make some terrible life decisions that actually ended up improving her life and getting her everything she wanted. Like wut? Wut? But I guess I admired her when I was younger because of her passion and big personality. I guess.

I stumbled upon some Mulan videos on YouTube and I became fascinated and I watched more and more until I basically spoiled the whole movie for myself. Later on I was finally able to watch the entire thing, but even then I was resistant. I mean, it felt kind of weird because I am pretty much the exact same gender, race, and age as the heroine (yeah, your impression of me just took a dive). Does that make me narcissistic in a way? Will people point it out and laugh in my face? That’s why I kind of avoided it my entire lifetime because it was strange, and even more so when you see the West make a movie about the East. Almost everyone is Chinese but speaks English.

I swear, Mulan is supposed to be a serious character. I did not expect to see how absolutely adorable she is as Ping. She’s so cute and she doesn’t even know it. It makes me want to hug her.

I love all of her little idiosyncrasies. Apparently, Mulan has a habit of

    ·         Playing with her hair (stroking it, tucking it behind ear)

    ·         Being late (alright, this isn\'t particularly admirable)

Okay, that last one is mainly to aid the plot, but come on. It happened three times.

Other than all the small stuff, I love all her other qualities as well. Strong, intelligent, independent, free spirited, honest (you know what I mean), eager to please, humble, beautiful within, slightly crazy. Loaded with guts. And selfless, so selfless it’s kind of insane. It blows my mind. I believe it’s her main quality, so it irks me whenever I see all those Disney High fanfics strip it of her. They make her join the football team or athletics club or whatever to show that 

gurls can do whateva bois can do! I luv sports and I’ll show them!

Hello. Mulan couldn’t care less about flaunting girl power. She just wanted to save her father (and to find herself/prove her worth, yadda yadda), and I think that’s far more honorable. However, since she wasn’t out to prove anything but ended up being incredibly kickass anyway, I think she demonstrates girl power best.

She has other qualities, but sometimes I feel that they sort of cancel each other out. She’s an introvert with extroversive tendencies. She has both masculine and feminine characteristics and she ends up being a tomboyish girl but a weak and girly man. She’s clumsy and energetic with an outspoken attitude but was looking pretty graceful and dainty in her song. She just ends up being… A person. No labels. It makes her a fairly complex character which would work well in real life as we are all full of contradictions, but in a movie that has to include songs and humor and action? Sometimes it confuses me a bit and now I have no idea how she would act in certain situations. I don’t know where to place her character.

It takes a certain level of grace and agility to do this.

Sometimes it also feels like she lacks flaws. Being awkward, klutzy and different don’t really count as flaws in her story because those are things that people are proud of and to be and can count as traits of a Mary Sue. In fact, I would have written Mulan off as a Sue if she hadn’t sucked so badly in training. That was a smart move.

Anyway, the only flaws that I could find, and I had to squint to see, is that she’s lazy and can be quite bitter. (But even then some people still take pride in being lazy.)

But I still love her. I prefer her Disney personality over the other types she could be in the beginning, like the badass tomboy in the live-action movie or the chirpy girly girl in the live-action drama series. It’s more rounded and realistic and relatable. Her personality itself, though not big and dramatic and striking and extreme, is humble.

I also really, really like how she’s just a normal girl. She doesn’t have any superpowers and/or royal status. She’s no Superman or Snow Queen or that Barbie Princess Power crap... She started from the bottom, a lost farm girl, and worked hard to get where she was. She saved her entire nation with raw brains and brawn. (Plus, she’s a young lady, which is already saying something for the plethora of movies out there.) You would usually expect some noble, tough, handsome guy to be the hero but no, it’s the little runt everybody wants to punch who saves the day. And even after doing all these great things, she still declines any high position or large reward and heads back home to her family.

Also, it takes place in China. My little baby’s all grown up and saving my ancestral homeland! That probably helped me love the movie, being in this completely new and different setting from other films that I watch.

… Yeah, that’s another thing. Aside from the slightly racist character design, I am slapped in the face with so many stereotypes in the first few minutes. And that’s not even considering the several cultural inaccuracies. Now, I don’t know much because I am so out of touch with my roots, but I’m pretty sure no one eats rice porridge with chopsticks. You just can’t. That’s like eating soup with a fork.

Then again, there’s a talking dragon force-feeding you…

Also, I noticed in some scenes with characters that are not supposed to be our focus at the moment have their eyes remain closed.

They also have the chance to show off the rich culture through art, but they don’t. No, they decided to do that ‘poetic simplicity’ thing that diluted the details, the beauty, the boldness…

And they pronounce the names all wrong. Zhou and Shang. I think I know why they did what they did, but you could have just… changed their names. It kind of makes me wonder how they pronounce them in the Mandarin dub.

But it’s not like it bothered me that much, since this is a Disney movie we’re talking about, not a documentary. Just go with the flow. And these people actually did their research while I\'m just here pretending to know what I\'m talking about.

So a couple of guys don’t rinse out their socks. Picky, picky, picky…

What really got me the first few times watching, however, was the magical face morphing. You realize that when she changes from a female to a male,

And they said Rapunzel and Elsa were the only ones with magical powers...

And it all switches right back when she’s a woman again. I wish they just stuck with one face, because it kind of feels like she would have an entirely different soul for a character if it wasn’t for her voice. Heck, even when she’s just a woman or soldier, her face is pretty inconsistent. It keeps changing a little bit here and there as if the animators didn’t have a reference. And we have all these people to blame for it.

That’s right. I’m looking at you, Sai Ping Lok.

While I’m still taking shots at the movie and sweating the small stuff, I guess I’ll also talk about Mulan’s status as a Disney Princess. Because of this, instead of getting epic shit like:

Which I don’t mind too much, because I like pink and sparkles and princesses, but that is waaaay too many hair accessories…

Well, that’s what I get for liking something that’s part of a little girl’s franchise. It’s ironic, because I believe the creators were trying to make Mulan as non-princessy-supermodel-Barbie-doll as possible. It’s shown in the first instance we see her in the movie – she’s kind of stocky and does not move gracefully. You would think that a warrior is the furthest thing you can get from a princess.

At least it’s the only way I can get any merchandise off her, right? So I go to my nearest ToysRUs or Kiddy Palace or whatever, not at all conscious of the fact that I’m the only one my age in these stores, and all I see is Cinderella and Aurora and Rapunzel and Belle and Ariel and Elsa.

Notice it’s all just the white Disney Princesses too. And I live in Asia.

So to add insult to injury, there’s hardly any merch, which is a shame because I want the doll and the artbook and the poster and the...

I suppose then that the only good thing that comes out of her being part of this line-up is that she’s included. She’s not completely forgotten like other females such as Kida or Megara or Esmeralda or Giselle or mothereffing Eilonwy, Eilonwy, the princess no one remembers the slightest.

Especially those YouTube videos I mentioned. She’s very included.

It is clear that both the strict franchise and the sequel (which ruined everything) are both targeted towards little girls. It makes me wonder, who is the target demographic of the movie itself? (I’m going to sound so close-minded/sexist/racist/stereotypist saying this but) It’s animated for kids but it has adult themes such as war. The theme of war and fighting is also more of a male thing but the main character is female. It takes place in China but everyone talks and acts pretty western.

He’s Chinese and he’s Mongolian but that’s a-okay because everybody speaks perfect English.

So obviously, this movie is targeted towards whitewashed teenage Asian girls who love animation and are children at heart. Because I fit into that category perfectly. It wasn’t a matter of if I would like the movie but when...

In all seriousness, I know they were aiming to get as broad an audience as possible. It has a little bit of everything in it for everyone. So that’s great. I still like to pretend that this movie was a birth day present as it was released around the same time I was born. I’m glad that the one time that they decide to make a movie about a teenage Chinese girl, it is a war epic. An adventure tale, and not some cheesy slice-of-life high school romance. (Yes, I know there was Wendy Wu Homecoming Warrior, but it was kind of… Lame. Also, it wasn’t animated.)

That is another thing I would like to discuss. The movie was awesome, of course, but it could have been even more awesome. It was great but could be even better. I mean, if they can make an epic adventure movie about a talking toaster, imagine what you can do with a war epic like this! War is already a larger-than-life theme, plus you throw in a unique and cool element of a woman in disguise, and you have a very unique and rich setting. That is just screaming with potential. Because that’s what Mulan is full of. Potential.

So if Disney ever decides to create a live-action version of Mulan, since they appear to be really into live-action remakes right now, imagine what they could do with it, things they can’t do in animation. If done right, it could be brilliant. It would be insane. I would love to see that. And it appears I’m not the only one.

Mulan wins by a landslide. (But where is The Little Mermaid and The Hunchback of Notre Dame?) 

Of course, it would be strange to see an all-Chinese cast speak English again but I’ll roll.

Like I was saying. One does not simply make a movie about war without any head-on battle on both sides, or hardly any combat for that matter. It was slightly disappointing in that area. And for a movie about war, it’s a lot more entertaining than emotion-wrenching if you know what I mean. There’s not as much feels as you would expect. Don’t get me wrong; I’m impressed that they were somehow able to create a kid-friendly movie about war, but – what’s that word again?

That’s why I was surprised when I saw the poster for the movie. It’s all red and black and dark, even while the film isn’t as much.

    ·         Probably ixnay on the talking dragon, but still keep the dragon symbolism alive within her

    ·         Still have her suck like hell at training (because it was fun)

Written In Stone, you ask? Well, yes. It would definitely be my favorite song if it had been included in the movie. It’s a beautiful song that I would love to see somehow incorporated into the non-existent live-action. Unfortunately, all we get of the recorded version is in the Mulan Jr musical.

While I’m at it, I would also like to request for a Disney Princes line-up.

Which reminds me, another thing about her being a Disney Princess is that she is made to wear her matchmaker outfit of all things instead of her warrior outfit at Disney World.

Using two fingers to point instead of one. Shan Yu would make a great Disney World employee.

I don’t care what Augustus Waters says, I REALLY want to go to Disney World now…

I had a total girl (boy?) crush on Ping after watching that video.

In reference to the picture above, I’m glad that they didn’t make Shang gay or feel any sort of attraction or whatever towards Ping in the movie. It does, however, make for some hilarious fanfiction.

Besides, the film already sparks enough discussion on gender and race, and even a bit of religion (if the ancestor part counts). Not to mention Mulan’s status as a Disney Princess. They don’t really need to add sexuality to the mix. Since I do not feel qualified to talk about any of the above, I will talk about hands instead.

Yes, hands. You know you’re in good, er, hands when the animators draw hands and fingers very well. (Don\'t ask me why, I just feel like it does.) It is especially noted in this scene:

It\'s okay if you shrink her fingers, they said. No one will notice, they said.

However, this is actually the scene that I remember most from my childhood. Though I had forgotten a lot, this scene from the montage is the one I remembered the clearest. I remember how my heartstrings were jerked when I saw Mulan fall down and Shang come over and, without a word, take her weights from her and add them to his own. I remember her look of pure dejection. That hurt.

In fact, I think some of the best scenes are when no one says a word. I also remembered the scene where she’s sitting in the Great Stone Dragon outside in the rain and just the shadows of her parents are seen moving. Nothing was said. That was also powerful.

That’s not to say that there aren’t any great quotes and messages in the movie. There is also great advice such as

Then there’s also ‘you don’t meet a girl like that every dynasty’, which is funny, witty, and… Probably hurt my feelings as a little girl, because apparently other girls can’t be like that.

Then again, I probably preferred the second movie over the first as a kid because I had an affinity for fairies, mermaids, and princesses and wasn’t the least bit interested in soldiers. It’s probably why I preferred The Little Mermaid over Mulan and had high expectations watching the former again and low expectations for the latter. Suffice to say, one of my opinions hit the floor while the other hit the roof. Ah, how your view on things change as you get older.

I still love TLM of course, with its beautiful animation and soul. And that incredible hair.

Meanwhile, Mulan can’t decide whether she wants to keep her hair tied up or not.

Lemme just tie it up in this unattractive ponytail to serve tea to my father…

Clearly, my ribbon fell off while riding Khan…

How does one even tie their hair with a ribbon? Cartoon logic…

It takes a lot for me to ship a pairing. It took me forever to ship Mulan and Shang, and when I saw him come in at the end I was like "go die Shang you just interrupted this beautiful father-daughter moment". She’s too good for him and he’s too buff for her. But after reading a shedload of fanfiction (MS takes up most of the archive so you can’t avoid it) and seeing this…

If this isn’t sweet I don’t know what is.

And Mulan still looks great in armor! Especially in armor that fits her! Why…?

That being said, I really like how Mulan is not sexualized. Like, at all. Unlike the myriad of other female characters I see out there. And before you say “Well, she’s a Disney character!”, may I say, have you seen some of the other Disney females out there? Our heroine is covered neck down all the way ninety percent of the time. I like that.

What other things do I like? I like how they draw the smoke. I like the firm, toned down colors. I like the shimmering of the characters on the ancestors’ monument thingy as they awaken from their slumber. I like how Cri-Kee sounds like a typewriter when he writes letters. I like how Mulan’s feet aren’t shown when she’s running up the roof, so it looks like it’s just her dress hopping about.

I like her grandmother. I like Khan, her horse, the most underrated character in the film.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that there’s a total of… five… die-hard Mulan fans in the whole wide internet. The Illuminati. Mulan fans.

. I am quite possibly the newest addition, since it\'s such an old movie. And while you can judge me for obsessing over something that’s inherently for little kids, can I at least say how much of a good influence it has been? It makes me want to be more selfless and proactive. It made me gain an interest in my own culture, something four years of lowersec history class and uppersec literature class didn’t really do. It made me pick up writing and drawing again, though that’s probably helped by the fact that school is over. It is the only piece of pop culture that I have been a fan of that makes me feel empowered, because eff it, this chicka saved three generation of men and her entire country in the process, and she put a lot of effort in getting where she was. It showed me that you can achieve something you were unable achieve your entire life, such as discipline and focus, in a few short months if there’s a hot shirtless guy singing a derogating song to motivate you.

That moment when you realize that the villain is actually the least sexist character in the movie, and the male lead is the second most sexist.

It also tops lists in many places, so there’s that.

I think I shall end this little article thing with the original ballad. And if that still doesn’t make you think Mulan is the best thing since sliced bread, then DISHONOR ON YOU, DISHONOR ON YOUR –

"The rabbit male runs here and there,