Why Mulan is the Most Misunderstood Disney Movie of All Time
Mulan is the 36th animated feature film by Walt Disney Pictures. Released on June 19, 1998, it was the studio’s very first movie that starred Asian characters (voiced largely by Asian-Americans). It was directed by Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft, and it was written by a team led by the Asian-American writer Rita Hsiao.
The story is based on The Ballad of Mulan, a folk song from the Northern Wei dynasty. It tells the tale of a young woman named Mulan, who goes to war in her father’s place, fights on a campaign for ten years, is honored by the Khan for her heroism, and surprises her comrades when they visit her at her home and discover she was actually a woman all along.
It is also the most misunderstood, most misinterpreted Disney film of all time. It is so misunderstood that it is misinterpreted by the very studio that made it.
In this post, I will delve extensively into why Mulan is such a misunderstood movie. I also want to state, for the record, that I worked hard on this post, so I'd appreciate no negative comments. If you want to argue with my points, if you want to disagree with me…
Please do exactly the same thing I did. Please make a very long Tumblr post with the exact same word count as mine, the same number of sources, the same number of images. I'm sorry to say it, but that is the only way I will entertain your opinion.
Now that's out of the way, I hope my post is educational and helpful to you if you are not Asian. I am Korean-American, and the whole point of this post is to help non-Asian Americans understand why Mulan is Disney's most confusing franchise. I truly do hope that by the end of this post, you will see Mulan in a new light and understand why Disney's treatment of it is so strange.
There is one reason that Mulan is so misunderstood, and that one reason is simple: Mulan was a flop in China.
Mulan was a success in the United States and abroad, grossing $304 million on a $90 million budget. But in China, it bombed. It only made $30,000. There are many reasons as to why Mulan underperformed in China. The Wikipedia page for Mulan has a section devoted to China’s reception of the film:
Due to a combination of outside factors (the Chinese government’s dispute with Disney, a year’s delay in releasing the film, a bad release date with competition from local films, and rampant piracy) and cultural reasons (Chinese people hated the movie for being a “Westernized” version of their legendary Hua Mulan), Mulan flopped in China. Chinese people hated Fa Mulan. They criticized her for being too individualistic and too American. They called her “Yang Mulan”, or “Foreign Mulan”, and complained that she looked Korean or Western. (Sources here and here.)
I cannot stress enough how much China hates Disney’s Mulan. Chinese people hold contempt for Fa Mulan. Jingle Ma, the director of Mulan: Rise of a Warrior (a wuxia film adaptation of Mulan released in 2009), cited Disney’s Mulan as a portrayal of the character he did not care for (source here).
This is for one very simple reason: Chinese audiences simply can’t have the same values as Disney’s Mulan. They don’t relate to her. They don’t see her as a person, a teenager, or a child. They just see her as weird and creepy. They see her as Chinese-American food. They see her as Panda Express.
I will explain this point more later on, and explain why Chinese people hate Fa Mulan so much. It is truly strange when you notice it.
But bear in mind one simple fact: the filmmakers had no way of knowing Chinese people would hate Fa Mulan. Disney wanted Mulan to be their Kung Fu Panda before Kung Fu Panda even existed: a film set in China that Chinese people loved just as much as Americans.
And that leads me to my next big point about a certain character, and why I believe Captain Li Shang is the most misunderstood, most misinterpreted Disney character ever made.
Li Shang was made the way he was to pander to Chinese audiences. He was very clearly supposed to attract China’s attention, to be the reason that country would make this movie a box office hit. Shang is the fictional character equivalent to all of Hollywood’s desperate ploys to attract money from one of the biggest countries in the world. He is the character equivalent to the films that have been called out for pandering to Chinese people: Transformers: Age of Extinction, Doctor Strange, The Great Wall, 2012, and Pacific Rim: Uprising.
I think the point was this, in the context of the film’s original release in 1998: Fa Mulan is the relatable American everygirl protagonist, the one you want to see succeed and be a hero.
Li Shang, however, is the inscrutable Chinese male lead, the one that China is supposed to sit up and take notice of. He is supposed to justify why Disney bothered to make a movie about Chinese people at all.
The clues for this theory are all there if you pay attention to the film’s production. Shang was voiced by Jackie Chan in all of the film’s Chinese dubs: mainland Chinese Mandarin, Taiwanese Mandarin, and Cantonese. His model sheet states that he was based on Bruce Lee, China’s favorite action hero (which is deeply ironic, because Bruce Lee was a Chinese-American who grew up in Hong Kong and was partially white on his mother’s side).
He is stoic, serious, and dignified at all times, and never meets Mushu or Cri-Kee. He is handsome, authoritative, and powerful. He gets extra scenes with his father, he's the leader of Mulan's platoon, and Chi Fu gets emphasis as his personal antagonist just as much as he is Mulan's. He wears a red cape, just like China's flag. And moreover, he is hard for non-Asian viewers to understand.
This is why there are so many debates about his sexual orientation and whether or not he was attracted to Mulan when she was Ping: because he shows subtle signs of affection towards Ping (smiling at Ping after being kicked in the face during training, looking back at the "For what it's worth, I think you're a great captain" comment, touching Ping's shoulder in response to "his" condolences over his father's death, and smiling at "him" and telling "him" he has his trust), like an Asian person would.
The reason this is not obvious to the viewer is because China did not like Disney's Mulan. The movie failed in China, and Chinese audiences simply weren't there to respond to Shang's character. They were indeed alienated by Mulan being too American, and completely ignored her boyfriend. The one they were supposed to relate to.
And that is why Shang is so confusing to the non-Asian American viewer. That is why fan discussion about Shang is so repetitive and circular, and always focuses on only two topics: how hot he is, and the question of whether or not he loved Mulan when he thought she was a boy. Non-Asian American fans, particularly white Americans, fetishize and sexualize Shang because to them, he is the male version of the “exotic Asian lady” racial stereotype.
This is also why it is deeply ironic that Mulan (2020) removed Shang’s character. The live-action remake tried to pander to China, to succeed where the original animated film failed, and not only failed again, but also removed the character who was designed for Chinese audiences. The remake made Mulan a China-pandering hero who wore red, and ignored the actual character who was already the China-pandering hero wearing red in the original film.
And most importantly of all, this is why Shang is a bisexual icon. He is both the inscrutable Asian love interest and the boyfriend in a girl power fantasy film. These two factors combined make him extremely desirable to the American viewer, but they also make him extremely confusing.
And I’m sorry, but I’m going to be blunt: as a Korean-American woman who watched this movie over and over as a kid, I truly believe I have the correct interpretation of Shang’s feelings for Mulan.
The interpretation is this: Shang was in love with Mulan when she was Ping, but he is not bisexual. He is straight with an exception, that exception being Mulan.
Confusing? Yes, I know it is. But please keep in mind that Mulan went into production in 1994 and was released in 1998, in a time where LGBTQ+ rights were very different. The filmmakers are all cisgender and heterosexual except for Dean DeBlois (the co-head of story), and they aimed the movie at a cisgender and heterosexual audience. It’s okay to headcanon Shang as bisexual, but to treat him as canonically bisexual is not only giving the filmmakers more credit than they deserve…
…it also misses the point of Mulan and Shang’s relationship. (For a very good reason, please read further before you call me biphobic.)
I will get more into that later. For now, I will cover another important point about another character who has also been misinterpreted, though absolutely nowhere near as much as Shang. That character is our main character, Mulan.
Now, I want to stress, first of all, that I support trans rights and I do not condone transphobia in any way.
But with that out of the way, I want to say this: interpreting Mulan as a trans man misses the point of her character.
There is an obvious rift between (usually white and American) trans people who see Mulan as a transgender icon because of her song, “Reflection”, and her story about disguising herself as a man, and Asian women, Chinese feminists especially, who see Mulan as a female icon and vehemently disagree with the trans interpretation because they believe it goes against the whole reason Mulan is legendary in China.
Chinese feminists argue that the entire point of Mulan’s character arc is lost if you interpret her as a trans man, because the point is that she proves women can be just as good as men. She stands up and defies the sexist traditions of her society to save the day by being a courageous, intelligent woman. The power of this message is undermined if she was “actually” a man all along.
I agree with this argument, but I want to take a different tack by taking Mulan’s love interest, Shang, into account.
Mulan cannot be canonically transgender for the same reason Shang cannot be canonically bisexual: she was made by cisgender, heterosexual filmmakers in 1998 for cisgender, heterosexual audiences. She was made to appeal to American girls in the same way Shang was made to appeal to Chinese boys. And most importantly, Mulan and Shang’s character arcs are defined by being gendered contrasts.
Mulan is the feminine counterpart to Shang. Her entire arc hinges on her lack of femininity not making her less valid as a woman. She is a woman who learns it's okay to not be feminine, and she is also specifically an Asian woman who overcomes the sexism of her society to be a hero. Most transgender people who interpret Mulan as a trans man are not Asian and are often white, and are missing the point because Mulan being a man undermines the point of her defying sexism.
Mulan and Shang's character arcs are yin and yang. Mulan is a woman who starts off insecure about her failure to be feminine, but grows stronger and finds happiness in being a woman in the end when she saves China. Shang is a man who starts off confident about his success at being masculine, but breaks down and grows vulnerable after losing his father.
All of that is lost if you interpret Mulan as "actually" being a man. It makes absolutely no sense if Mulan is a trans guy. Even if you leave out the important cultural context that Mulan is a Chinese female icon defined by being a woman, and the problem with trans people interpreting her as trans is that they're mostly white and thus don't get her cultural context as an Asian woman, the point is that Mulan is Shang's narrative foil by being a woman. And Shang's character arc is about unlearning his sexism against women because of Mulan, who is his feminine counterpart.
This is also why fanfiction that gender bends Mulan to be a cis male named Ping makes me so uncomfortable. It misses the point of Mulan and Shang’s powerful bond to make it a standard gay male relationship, usually to fetishize Shang and Ping. It plays into my larger point about Shang being an incredibly misinterpreted and misunderstood character, who is fetishized constantly by non-Asian fans because of his good looks.
Now, that also leads me to my point about Mulan and Shang’s relationship. I believe their relationship is unique and sends a very deep, important message that has often been lost and misinterpreted not just by fans, but by Disney itself. I have written an entire manifesto called “You Fight Good” that analyzes Mulan and Shang’s relationship from Shang’s perspective. It is very long, and divided into seven parts. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, and Part 5 here.
The short version, however, is this. I believe this is the intended moral of Mulan and Shang’s relationship:
True love knows no gender. True love knows no sexuality. Shang loved Mulan for what was in her heart, not what was between her legs. That was why he loved Ping, the soldier who defied his expectations, proved him wrong, comforted him, and saved his life twice. Whether or not he's bisexual is completely besides the point, because the only thing that matters is that Shang loves Mulan, and only Mulan. The filmmakers did not intend for Shang to be read as bisexual. They meant for him to be straight with an exception, and that exception is Mulan because Mulan is special to Shang.
I believe there are two main reasons why Mulan and Shang’s relationship is so misinterpreted by fans. They are as follows:
Mulan and Shang’s relationship is often misinterpreted because they did not kiss at the end of their film. Their relationship is mistaken for merely being implied, and Mulan II, which was written by three white American men and not Rita Hsiao and her team, is wrongly given credit for “validating” their relationship by having them kiss and get married.
I believe that is wrong. I believe that the only way Mulan and Shang’s relationship makes any sense at all is if Shang fell in love with Ping. That is their love story. That is their entire romance subplot. Mulan and Shang already had a love story in the original film. They did not need the sequel to make them a “real” couple, because Shang loved Ping.
Please remember that in traditional Chinese adaptations of Mulan, Mulan’s love interest and commanding officer were separate characters. The filmmakers could have made Mulan’s trainer General Li, and had Shang only show up at the end to be Mulan’s love interest after she stopped pretending to be a boy. He would have been no different from Princes Florian and Charming, who fulfill similar roles in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella, who barely make appearances and only show up to whisk away the heroine to fairy tale wedded bliss in the end.
If Shang really did only fall in love with Mulan after she turned out to be a girl, then he would’ve only shown up at the very end in the last thirty minutes because that’s when the romantic arc would have begun.
But he does not. He shows up at the beginning, at the same thirty-minute time mark as Megara from Hercules and Jane from Tarzan. He is in the movie from beginning to end, because he is the love interest from beginning to end.
The second reason I believe Mulan and Shang’s relationship is misinterpreted is because of homophobia. Unfortunately, the mere implication that Shang fell in love with Mulan when she was Ping brings up the tiring, circular, never-ending debate over what his sexual orientation is. People will debate, over and over and over, whether or not Shang is gay, bisexual, pansexual, demisexual, or whatever else.
People who argue that Shang is straight and are usually homophobic about it will argue that Shang didn't love Ping at all and only saw "him" as a brother (which is misinterpreting the movie). People who argue that Shang is bisexual or gay (and claim to appreciate him, and hold him up as a bisexual icon, but usually just fetishize him because he’s a handsome Asian man who goes shirtless) will argue that Shang loved Ping more than Mulan and was angry when Mulan turned out to be a girl because that made her less attractive to him.
And, again, I’m sorry, but I believe all of these people are wrong. Shang’s sexuality is not the point. All that matters is that he loves Mulan and Ping equally. He felt brotherly affection for Ping at first, but fell in love with Ping when “he” saved his life in the avalanche. The reason he is angry when Mulan’s secret is exposed is because he is hurt that his best friend and true love lied to him.
I should also note that BD Wong, Shang’s voice actor, stated in an interview that he would like to think Shang was indeed attracted to Ping. (Source here.)
I will come back to this point later. I will explain later why Shang cannot be gay or bisexual, and I cannot stress enough that while I support LGBTQ+ rights and LGBTQ+ headcanons, I truly believe that Shang cannot be a sexual minority because that misses the point of his character arc.
Now, I mentioned Hercules and Tarzan earlier. Let’s go back to that.
Mulan was released back-to-back with a specific set of movies: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), and Tarzan (1999). Mulan cannot be a Disney Princess movie because it follows the same story beats as those films. It is a war movie, it is an adventure movie. Those movies, like Mulan, are not fairy tales. They are not marketed in the Disney Princess line. The only reason Mulan is marketed as a Disney Princess movie is because Disney sees Mulan as their token Asian girl. Mulan was made as Disney’s first Asian lead to appeal to China. Because China did not like Mulan, Disney did not bother to make another movie set in an Asian country, and thus a movie about an actual Asian princess.
That is why, despite Mulan’s success in the United States, Disney did not make another movie with an Asian lead until Big Hero 6 in 2014, sixteen years later. The reason we did not get another Asian Disney movie for over a decade is because Disney prioritized the native Asian people who hated Mulan over the Asian-American people who loved Mulan. That is because Disney does not actually care about Asian representation. They care about money.
Mulan is a farmer girl whose father is a soldier. She goes on a hero’s journey to save the Emperor from Shan Yu. She cannot be a princess because she was designed to be as relatable as possible to American girls, which is why female Disney fans hold Mulan in higher regard on average than male ones do. That is why she has a mother, unlike so many of the Disney Princesses. That is why the fancy, iconic dress she wears is an outfit she is uncomfortable in. That is why she does not have a “love at first sight” moment with her love interest, that is why she does not sing a duet with him about how much she loves him, and that is why she does not kiss him at the end. Her romance with Shang is a subplot for her character arc about becoming a hero. She is the female equivalent to Quasimodo, Hercules, and Tarzan.
Please look at this poster below. Please pay attention to how this movie was marketed.
This is how Mulan was advertised at the time. Mulan was marketed as a hero, a warrior who saved the day. The moviegoers in 1998 would have seen Mulan as an American underdog hero to root for, in the same way they rooted for Hercules in 1997. They would not have seen her as a Chinese princess.
That leads into my greater point: Mulan is a Chinese-American movie, and this is why Disney misinterprets their own film. Disney sees Mulan as a Chinese movie, an “exotic” movie, their token Asian movie. Disney does not understand the themes and story of Mulan, which is why Mulan II and Mulan (2020) turned out the way they did (read: very poorly).
Remember the point I made earlier about how Chinese people hate Disney’s Mulan? I will revisit it here.
The reason China hates Fa Mulan is because Mulan is too relatable to American girls. She’s kind, she’s funny, she’s expressive. She starts off as a bumbling, insecure dork who’s sad and miserable about not fitting in, but she eventually blooms into a confident and courageous young woman who saves China with the power of her wits and friendship. And most importantly, Mulan is Asian-American.
Mulan looks Asian, but she is sympathetic to Americans, especially Asian-Americans. She has American hero cues, American expressions, and American behavior. She can’t relate to her family, they’re too different from her, they mean well but constantly try to crush her spirit out of the mistaken, well-meaning belief this will make her exactly like them…
That is why Asian-Americans love Mulan. And that is why Chinese people hate Mulan. Remember what I said earlier about them complaining that she’s too individualistic? Yeah.
Most importantly, this is why you hate Mulan (2020). Not just because it removed Shang and Mushu, not just because it removed the songs, not just because it was overall a bad movie all around. You hate it because it made Mulan a bland, boring Chinese “girlboss” who was completely unrelatable to you, the American. You hate it because it ruined everything you liked about Fa Mulan in a desperate, pathetic effort to pander to Chinese audiences, who didn’t even like the movie anyway.
That’s why it does not make sense for Disney to market Mulan as their token Asian Disney Princess, as an “exotic” Chinese princess in a pretty dress. That is not why American girls of all races loved Mulan when they saw her for the first time on the big screen on June 19, 1998. Mulan is an all-American girl. She cannot ever be a native Chinese girl, because that ruins her audience appeal.
Or, to put it another way: you love Mulan because she is a brave and heroic farm girl. Disney loves Mulan because she is a Chinese girl they can use to court cash from Asian customers.
Remember what I said earlier, about how Mulan was made to appeal to American girls and Shang was made to appeal to Chinese boys? That is key here to understanding why Shang is so fundamentally misinterpreted and misunderstood by American viewers in a way that Mulan is not.
Shang’s character arc is based on him being a Toxic Asian Alpha Male™. He is the Chinese equivalent of a privileged, cisgender heterosexual white man. He is not a sexual minority in any way. He is mean to Mulan when they first meet, and although he has understandable and sympathetic reasons for why he’s so hard on her at first (he was being promoted by his father, fantasizing about being the leader of China’s greatest troops, and being hassled by Chi Fu before he saw her being blamed by the other soldiers for starting a food-fight that destroyed his camp), the fact remains that he humiliated and scared her in front of the entire platoon and made her an outcast.
This is because, as I said before, Mulan and Shang’s character arcs are yin and yang. Mulan starts off as a tomboy, a loser, a weakling who can’t fit into her society’s ideal of womanhood. Shang starts off as a hero, a winner, a powerhouse who perfectly lives up to his society’s ideal of manhood. And for this to work, for him to be a privileged man, he has to be heterosexual. He has to be straight.
This is why Shang does not ever act on his attraction to Ping. It is not just because he is a consummate professional who would never abuse his power over a low-ranking soldier. It is because he questioned his heterosexuality because of Mulan.
I’m going to be very blunt: I believe the only reason the theories that Shang is gay or male-leaning bisexual exist at all is because most of the people who push those theories are not Asian. They are white. They are projecting their LGBTQ+ headcanons onto the very Asian, very inscrutable man because of their fetishization of Shang and nostalgia from not watching the movie in decades. Or, to put it another way: you, the non-Asian American, do not understand Shang because he is the only Disney character who is defined by his race and cultural context.
Shang’s character arc is completely nonsensical if he is gay or male-leaning bisexual. He does not like men before he meets Mulan. He is secure with himself, he is indoctrinated by his society into being the Ultimate Chinese Manly Man™. The point of that arc is lost if he is a sexual minority, in the same way that Mulan being a trans man misses the point of her character arc.
Because, just like how Mulan’s Chinese-American coding is important to her character, Shang’s Chinese identity is important to his character. Without his being Chinese, Shang’s character makes no sense at all. He is incomprehensible. Without it, he’s just a weirdly stoic guy who acts vaguely affectionate toward the heroine a few times, nearly executes her, and then randomly falls in love with her at the end.
This is why Shang is so confusing. This is why Mulan fans, time and time and time again for all time, argue over Shang’s sexuality, even though his character is not confusing at all to Chinese audiences. To them, he would have been clear-cut. To them, Shang's feelings for Ping would have been very obvious.
Because most importantly of all, I want to keep reminding you that Shang is China-pandering. He is stoic, he is reserved, he is dignified. His model sheet explicitly notes that he has understated acting like Clint Eastwood. The reason he is not more overt about his affection for Ping, and not more overt about his emotions in general, is because the Chinese viewer would not have respected him if he was.
Shang shows his affection for Ping subtly. He acknowledges Ping by looking back at “him”, by touching “his” shoulder, by smiling at “him” and saying “he” has his trust. Chinese viewers would have understood that Shang cares deeply for Ping, because he shows his affection through actions. Asian people do not primarily show affection through hugs, kisses, and declarations of love, they show it through gestures.
This is why Mulan and Shang should not be the token Asian Disney Princess and Prince. Their love for each other is realistic. They don’t kiss or declare their love for each other, they don’t sing or dance together, they do not have a “love at first sight” moment (Mulan has a crush on Shang when they meet, but that is a human reaction, and it is not played as a magical fairy tale moment). Mulan and Shang do not have a fairy tale romance, and the only reason you think they are a Disney Princess couple is because Disney has falsely marketed them as such. Shang’s love for Ping is subtle, because the Chinese viewer, not the American one, was expected to understand that Ping is special to him.
Shang loved the bumbling, dorky recruit who became such a brave and exceptional soldier, a brave and exceptional hero. His love for her was pure, it was real because he is the only animated movie male lead who loved his heroine before he even knew she was a beautiful girl who could bear his children. And the Chinese viewers would have understood that, and would have been moved by that, if only they had understood that Shang was made for them.
The reason this has not been picked up on for twenty-seven years and counting is because, due to China’s hatred of Disney’s Mulan, Chinese viewers completely ignored Shang’s character. They simply were not there to explain Shang to American viewers.
Again… I can’t stress this enough. I need to stress this to you, over and over, because it is really important:
The reason Mulan is the most misunderstood and misinterpreted Disney movie of all time is because China hated Mulan. Because China hated Mulan, Disney did not bother to make another Asian movie. Because China hated Mulan, Disney made Mulan and Shang their token Asian Disney Princess and Prince to make money off of them instead of making an actual Asian Disney Princess and Prince who fulfilled the royal fairy tale tropes of other Disney Princess movies.
This is why you, the American, only think of Mulan as Disney’s Chinese princess movie, when in reality, Mulan is Disney’s Chinese-American adventure movie. That is how audiences on June 19, 1998 saw it. That is how it was made. (Here is a Twitter thread by Joshua Luna that goes into more detail about why Mulan is a fundamentally Asian-American movie.)
This is why, quite frankly, I cringe when I see people cite a certain individual when talking about Mulan. I believe this person, along with one other individual, has actively contributed to misinformation about Mulan.
I believe Xiran Jay Zhao, a native Chinese person who made YouTube videos about Chinese culture in Mulan, and Scott Mendelson, a white male film critic who made a tweet about Mulan, are wrong about Mulan. I believe they have actively contributed to misinformation about Shang’s character because of the constant cultural misunderstanding of Mulan.
I want to be polite, yet firm. I want to stress that you should not send hate or harassment to these people. But I truly believe both of these people are wrong about Mulan and Shang.
I believe Xiran Jay Zhao is just as bad as Disney because, just like Disney, they only see Mulan for its Chineseness. They are a native Chinese businessperson, who actively markets themself on their Chineseness for hollow “diversity” points. They made these YouTube videos to make money off of white Americans. They only see Mulan as a Chinese movie, and they do not understand its Asian-American themes because they are not Asian-American. They have made the same tired jokes about Shang being bisexual. They have done the same thing as Disney. That is why I, an Asian-American person, dislike them.
For Scott Mendelson, I believe he is not good at his job. He failed his job as a movie critic. If he truly believes Shang did not care about Ping at all, then I’m sorry, but he was simply not paying attention to the film. As a cisgender, heterosexual white man, he is the American equivalent to Shang (a cisgender, heterosexual Asian man), and yet he failed to understand Shang’s character at all.
That is why I dislike those two. That is why I believe you should not take their opinions seriously. They are both wrong about Mulan.
Now, then. I’ve already gone over why Mulan is not the Chinese Disney Princess movie Disney markets it as, and that Mulan and Shang should not be Disney’s token Asian Disney Princess and Prince. That leads me to a thought experiment, one that I guarantee you have never thought of at all:
What would have happened if Mulan had succeeded in China?
If Mulan had indeed been Disney’s Kung Fu Panda, and had been a hit with Chinese viewers just as much as it was with American ones, I truly believe everything would have been different. I believe Disney would have seen movies with Asian protagonists as a worthwhile investment. I believe we would have had another Disney movie with an Asian lead before Big Hero 6.
I believe Mulan would have been marketed differently. Mulan would have been marketed as its own movie, just like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, and Tarzan. Mulan and Shang would have been marketed like Phoebus and Esmeralda, Hercules and Megara, and Tarzan and Jane. Mulan would be marketed as a Disney heroine, not a Disney Princess, and her iconic outfits in merchandise would be her Ping armor and her blue dress, not her green and pink dresses.
Because, remember… Mulan’s iconic outfit is her Ping armor. It is the outfit she is in on all of the movie posters. It is the outfit she wears for most of the movie. The only reason she is not marketed in it is because Disney wrongly merchandises her as their token Asian Disney Princess, and because of that, she is wrongly marketed in a feminine outfit she only wore for two scenes at the beginning of the movie. It is strange of Disney to market her in the green dress. It’d be like if Disney marketed Hercules in his plain white tunic instead of his hero outfit.
You need to understand that the only reason Mulan is not marketed this way is because China didn’t like Disney’s Mulan. And if China had liked Disney’s Mulan, Disney would likely have made at least one more movie set in an Asian country. Moreover, Disney would likely have made an authentic Asian Disney Princess movie.
This will be where I get very, very strange. I will sound like a conspiracy theorist. But please bear with me. I believe that if Mulan had been a box office hit in China, Disney would have invested in a movie set in Japan next.
Japan is the other major East Asian country besides China. Japan has an active animation industry. Japan is the most obvious choice for another Asian Disney movie. Disney’s next Asian lead after Mulan was Hiro Hamada, a Japanese-American boy.
And in this hypothetical Disney movie set in Japan, the next Asian Disney movie after Mulan, the star would have been Princess Kaguya.
Kaguya is a famous Japanese fairy tale heroine. She is the protagonist of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. I won’t go too much into the actual story, because the story itself is not the point. The point is that Kaguya’s story, unlike Mulan’s, fulfills Disney fairy tale romance tropes.
It has all the fairy tale tropes. It has a beautiful princess from the moon with adoptive human parents, an Asian fantasy setting, suitors who fight for her hand in marriage, a lovely palace that the Emperor of Japan wants to whisk her away to forever, to be his bride, to be his empress, to be his princess. It is the most obvious choice for a Disney movie. It likely would have been the next Asian Disney movie. If Mulan had succeeded in China, Disney would have expected Kaguya to succeed in Japan.
Moreover, Disney is aware that Kaguya exists. Disney has no excuse for ignoring Kaguya the way they do, because Walt Disney Japan helped produce the Ghibli movie, The Tale of Princess Kaguya.
Now, this is where I’m going to get really strange and conspiracy theory-sounding. But… can I show you this image? Real quick?
Be honest with me. Do you know who this is? This girl is from a popular video game. She looks pretty, she looks princess-y, she looks Asian. I truly do bet that you do not know who this girl is. She is a stranger to you. All you know about her is that she looks like an Asian Disney Princess.
This turnaround is for the girl’s boyfriend. Her love interest. I guarantee that you do not know who this handsome man in white is. He is the hero of a popular video game, but he does not live in your consciousness at all.
Now, I want to ask you something else: do these characters look familiar to you?
They do, don’t they? Please do not lie to yourself. Please be honest.
You think these characters look similar to Mulan and Shang. You think the girl looks like a girly, feminine version of Fa Mulan. You think the guy looks like a vaguely rougher version of Li Shang.
I’m not saying Chinese and Japanese people look exactly the same, not at all. Obviously, they are very, very different ethnic people (in the same way English and French people, despite both being white and European, are very different).
But there’s no denying it. These characters look weirdly, completely and utterly coincidentally similar. I cannot stress that enough. It is weird to me that there is an actual Japanese story, made by white Americans, that somehow…
Looks exactly like the ideal Asian Disney Princess story.
Do you want to know who these characters are? Where they’re from?
They are from the video game, Karateka. They are the romantic leads of a video game that was produced in 1984 by Jordan Mechner, and received a remake in 2012. It has no relation to Disney at all and has no artists in common as far as I know, yet somehow, this video game is the perfect Asian Disney Princess story.
The game itself is simple: the player must fight a bunch of guys with karate to rescue a fair princess from the evil Lord Akuma’s castle. The 2012 remake has the same premise, but with the twist of three playable characters instead of one. You start off playing as this guy who looks like Shang, and if he loses, you play as two other men (a monk and a big, hulking brute). You are encouraged to retry to get the “correct” ending where this girl wins her handsome prince.
And here’s the kicker: this girl’s name is Princess Mariko. Her boyfriend does not have a name, he is called the “True Love”. This girl who looks like Mulan has a name that also starts with an M. Isn’t that just… a really strange coincidence?
The basic point of why I am bringing up this unrelated video game in a post about Mulan is this:
Mariko looks like what Disney’s Kaguya would have looked like in the alternate universe where Mulan succeeded in China and Disney invested in a movie set in Japan, which would have received all the marketing as the actual “Asian Disney Princess” story. The True Love looks like what the Emperor, Kaguya’s love interest, would have looked like. Mariko and her True Love look coincidentally similar to Mulan and Shang because they are designed to be the standard attractive Asian woman and man, just like Mulan and Shang are.
In this alternate universe, Mulan and Kaguya would co-exist as Disney’s two Asian heroines. Mulan would be recognized for what she really is: the hero of an adventure movie, a war movie. She would not be a Disney Princess at all, because Kaguya would fill that role. Kaguya would get all the sparkly, girly, princess-y merchandising and extra fancy dresses she never actually wore in the film, while Mulan would be marketed correctly in her armor and blue dress. Mulan would never be called a “Disney Princess” movie at all.
The point is that an Asian Disney Princess movie was right there, and Disney did not take it. At all. It was tailor-made for them, and they just did not care. China did not like Mulan, so they did not even bother to make Kaguya for Japan. Kaguya and the Emperor should have been the token Asian Disney Princess and Prince, not Mulan and Shang.
That is the world we would be living in if Mulan had succeeded in China. Do you understand now, truly, why Mulan is the most misinterpreted, most misunderstood Disney movie of all time? It is because if it had succeeded in its protagonist’s homeland, we would have had more Asian representation on American screens. Mulan would not have been Disney’s token Asian franchise, it would have been one of two Asian franchises. It would have been recognized as Disney’s Asian-American movie, while Kaguya would have taken the role of Disney’s “exotic” Asian Disney Princess movie. Mulan would have been Disney’s Asian tomboy heroine, and Kaguya would have been Disney’s Asian girly girl heroine. They would have been compared and contrasted with each other by fans.
Now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, and established that Mulan would have been marketed very differently if it had succeeded in China and it would likely have caused the existence of another Asian Disney movie, I want to ask you one thing.
What do you think Mulan II would have been like if Mulan had succeeded in China?
I want to state, first of all, that I do not like Mulan II at all and do not consider it canon. That being said, I do not hate people who like it, and this is not a personal attack on them.
With that out of the way, I will not talk that much about Mulan II because it’s really not the point. The reasons for why it’s bad (Mushu’s radical 180 in characterization to make him the villain for stupid reasons, the lack of a proper villain besides Mushu, Mulan and Shang’s mischaracterization and dumb domestic drama, the boring princesses, the horrible implications of the ending) have already been delved into. But I want to bring up a thought experiment that no one has ever brought up before, and establish one thing before I get into it:
The reason Mulan II is bad is because it is a concentrated effort to bring Mulan in line with her soulless, tokenized Asian Disney Princess merchandise. That is why Mulan wears her hair long again and wears dresses all the time, why Mulan and Shang kiss and get married and act like an extremely heteronormative couple, why three never before mentioned daughters of the Emperor are introduced, and why it is a musical even though Mulan stopped being a musical halfway through for very plot-relevant reasons. That is why it feels so out of step with its predecessor movie: it completely changed genres. Mulan is an adventure movie. Mulan II is a hollow effort at a Disney Princess movie.
Now, for the thought experiment: what do you think Mulan II would have been like if Mulan had been marketed correctly?
If we look at certain other story beats in the Disneytoon Studios direct-to-DVD sequels, we know exactly what Mulan II would have been like. Or at least, I believe I know. And what I believe is this:
I believe if Mulan had succeeded in China, Mulan II would have also been a war movie. Mulan II would have also been an adventure movie.
Now, I’m not saying that would have improved the movie at all. I’m not saying that would have made it good. It was Disneytoon Studios, it would still have been cheap. It would still have been washed out and ugly to look at, and still have silly, contrived plot beats and bad characterization written by new writers for a quick and easy cash-in.
But I believe that in this scenario where Mulan was a success in China and received non-Disney Princess merchandise, Mulan II would have been about a renewed war with the Huns. The Huns would have attacked again, and Mulan would have dressed up as Ping again. Ting-Ting, Su, and Mei would not exist at all. The main villain would have been Shan Yu’s never before mentioned younger brother (just like how The Little Mermaid II had Morgana and The Lion King II had Zira and the Outlanders). Mulan and Shang would probably still not have kissed, or if they had, it would have been in completely different circumstances. They likely would not have gotten married. Their romance would have remained a subplot.
Mulan is such a misunderstood movie that Disney itself doesn’t understand it. Its lack of success in China has turned it into the most confusing Disney franchise ever made, because everything Disney did with Mulan after the original film was to try to “correct” it.
That is why Mulan II is a failed effort at an Asian Disney Princess movie, rather than an adventure movie like Mulan. That is why Mulan (2020) is such a colossal China-pandering mess that turned out to be for completely nothing, because Chinese people still hated it.
Finally, I want to make one very big, important point about Mulan (2020).
Mulan (2020) is not just bad for the reasons many people have already covered. It’s not just that it was an absolute mess from the start, with how in 2016, it was leaked that Disney bought a spec script called The Legend of Mulan by Lauren Hynek and Elizabeth Martin that featured a white male savior love interest (source here), and this news caused so much rightful outrage among Asian-Americans that Disney had to issue a public statement that the live-action remake would have a 100% Chinese cast (source here).
(I feel that again, the fact that this disgustingly racist and misogynistic script existed at all is proof that Disney has lied to and gaslit people into falsely thinking Mulan is an “exotic” Chinese girl. These white American women wrongly thought Mulan was a native Chinese character and turned her into an exotic Asian love interest stereotype, and completely ignored that Shang was the “exotic” Asian love interest in the original film.)
The reason Mulan (2020) is bad is because it had native Chinese consultants who misinterpreted Mulan’s character. Bill Kong, a Hong Kong movie producer, was the executive producer for the film and constantly claimed that it would be more accurate to Chinese values. It is not just that it had a white director (Niki Caro) and white producers and writers, it is also that it had native Chinese producers, and that is strange because, as we’ve already established, native Chinese people do not like Fa Mulan. They do not share her values at all. They do not understand her in the way Asian-Americans do, and they frankly never will.
Because… this is very important. This is why Chinese people do not like Fa Mulan at all.
Most native Asian people, by and large, value conformity. They value the status quo. They value family, they value filial piety, they value the greater good. Mulan’s story is all about breaking out of the status quo. It is an Asian-American story. She is not inauthentic, she is not whitewashed, she is merely Asian-American.
And remember this, and keep remembering this the next time you buy Mulan merchandise: Disney only sees Mulan as a Chinese girl. They do not appreciate her for her actual character or themes, and they do not understand why her character resonated with so many people. They do not understand why her movie was a success.
Because, once again, I will remind you… Disney wrongly sees Mulan as an exotic Chinese film. It is not. It is a Chinese-American film, and the reason Disney does not understand Mulan is because it did not hire more Asian-American writers after Rita Hsiao.
Rita Hsiao is the key to Mulan’s success. She was the head writer of the film. It is her name on the screenplay, which you can read here. She wrote an Asian-American story, a story that was intended to be relatable to both American and Chinese audiences.
The thesis, after all of that, is this:
Mulan is a great film because it is an Asian-American movie. Mulan’s character arc about her struggle to both please her family and be true to herself is a particularly poignant one, as many Asian-Americans must live with conflicting values between the Asian emphasis on family and the Western emphasis on individuality.
It was never supposed to be the token Asian movie. At its core, Mulan is a beautiful story about overcoming society’s expectations, about following your heart, about finding the courage to conquer your insecurities and forge your own path.
That’s why, even though Disney will always misinterpret it over and over for decades to come, I find peace in the fact that on June 19, 1998, American audiences everywhere saw Fa Mulan save the day, win Li Shang’s heart, and defeat Shan Yu. American audiences rooted for an Asian woman, they rooted for a Chinese-American coded woman. And they were right to root for her. Because she won.
And nothing can ever change that.
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