Look I know Rapunzel paints and Tiana cooks, but if you guys don't think Mulan is the Most Creative Disney Princess, you're wrong.
She's literally introduced in this perfect scene that highlights her whole character, flaws and strengths:
The first time you see her she's:
Cheating, which is totally the opposite of what honor-code General Shang would do.
Undisciplined, which is what going to the army fixes.
Problem-solving—by writing the recitation she can't remember on her wrist—
BUT LISTEN. That last one is the first hint you have that she's the Most Creative Disney Princess. Because guess what? She's not the first young woman to cheat at the matchmaker test. The Matchmaker specifically checks to see if she's cheating when the test begins. But the rest of them wrote their cheat sheet on their fans.
The Matchmaker was prepared for the usual kind of tricks. But Mulan's full of her own ideas, not everyone else's.
You guys know the rest. She dresses up like a soldier—nobody suspects her because the idea that someone would do that never occurs to everyone else. She climbs the pole by tying the medallions around each other when none of the other recruits can figure it out. She lights the cannon by grabbing Mushu instead of searching for flints. She creates an avalanche instead of just taking Shan Yu out. She tricks the Huns by dressing her friends up as concubines. She defeats Shan Yu with his own sword and a bunch of fireworks.
But even beyond problem-solving, Mulan never does things like other people do. She doesn't even do things like other women do.
She doesn't just walk across a bridge, she jumps from pillar to pillar. She doesn't just bring her father tea, she puts a spare teacup in her sleeve because she knows she's clumsy.
Mulan is creative. But you know what that moment proves? That she's not just a representation of all women-versus-men. Mulan is representative of a human, who sees where she has strengths, and sees where she has weaknesses. She uses her strengths to her advantage and works to improve or make up for her weaknesses. She doesn't try to be exactly like a man. She just tries to use what she's got to do the right thing. And finding ways to use what you've got, even if it's not like what everyone else has, is creativity.
I’m going in chronological order, and doing both A Squad and B Squad, because I’m interested in tracking how the ideal “disney girl” has changed in the past 85 years (right now I’m only looking at the human-shaped heroines of Disney animated theatrical releases) A more detailed break-down of the system I’m using is right here, but the basics are these:
PRIMARY (ie MOTIVE)
BADGER ~ Loyal to the group.
SNAKE ~ Loyal to yourself and your Important People.
LION ~ Subconscious Idealist. Ideals are linked to feelings and instincts.
BIRD ~ Conscious Idealist. Ideals are linked to built systems and external facts.
SECONDARY (ie METHOD)
BADGER ~ Connect with the group. Make allies, work steadily and well. Be whatever the situation calls for. If you find a locked door, knock.
SNAKE ~ Connect with the environment. Notice things. Tell people what they want to hear. If you find a locked door, get in through the window.
BIRD ~ Collect skills, tools, knowledge, personas, useful friends. If you find a locked door, track down the key or learn to pick the lock.
LION ~ Be honest, be direct, speak your truth. Either the obstacle is going down or you are. If you find a locked door, kick it in.
POCAHONTAS (1995)
(& John Smith)
Pocahontas is an incredibly loud Lion Primary. Marrying Kocoum is the good choice, the responsible choice, the right choice - she knows this - but she just can’t do it. It feels wrong. She “goes wherever the wind takes her,” accompanied by the swirling leaves that are a kind of physical manifestation of her primary, since they match up so perfectly with the compass. (Classic Lion primary metaphor - see also Jack Sparrow.) When Pocahontas doesn’t know what to do she dreams of the confusing “spinning arrow,” but when she does... that arrow points straight in one direction and she just goes. She “listens with her heart” to the degree that it gives her superpowers.
It’s tempting to say she’s a Lion secondary too. She enjoys whitewater rafting and BASE jumping, which I guess are activities stereotypically associated with Lion secondaries. Also, the climax of the movie does involve her physically flinging herself across John Smith’s body. BUT her big song (“Colors of the Wind”) is just so, so, SO Bird secondary. John Smith isn’t getting it, and so Pocahontas’ response is - let me explain, show you, you clearly don’t have all the information. She’s a problem-solving Bird. Pocahontas’ first instinct when the English arrive is to investigate from the shadows, with two animal sidekicks that represent Curiosity and Caution. (Which is perfect, because is that not what a Bird secondary is? Observe, assess, plan.) Then, Pocahontas seems surprised that her tribe has such a negative emotional reaction to the newcomers. Clearly it's because they don't have all the information - and when she goes off to talk to John Smith and get that information, that's her primary and secondary working together.
As for John Smith, well. His arc is about shifting his definition of “Person” to include everyone he categorized as “savages” early in the film. That’s very Badger primary character development, and John Smith is very Badger primary. He loves being part of a group, he loves his men, and the fact that he doesn’t really belong anywhere bothers him. The implication is that he keeps going to all these “New Worlds” trying to find one where he fits. It’s a cool bit of costume design that he’s the only one in Spanish armor - like maybe he did a similar trip with the Spanish conquistadors a few years ago. Also, it’s gutsy that his ‘I want’ song (“Mine”) is literally a duet with the villain. Like, sure John Smith and Governor Ratcliffe don’t like each other... but they start off with pretty similar politics.
I like that at the end John isn’t accepted into the Powhatan tribe or something. He finds personal peace by redefining his own community, and gaining a broader perspective on the world. HE is absolutely a Lion secondary though: really straightforward, cannot lie, and always solves problems by throwing himself physically at them. Pocahontas only does that the once, after her Bird secondary strategy - trying to reason people around to her point of view - didn’t work.
ESMERALDA (1996)
(& Quasimodo, Claude Frollo, Phoebus)
At first Esmeralda seems like she might also be a Lion primary. She’s the revolutionary, she stands up on platforms and yells things like “Justice!” Even through all the adaptational changes, the Victor Hugo soul of the story is still very much there, and he loves a Lion primary. But… that isn't really where Esmeralda is coming from? She cut Quasimodo’s bonds specifically because she was trying to change the vibe of the room - “Letting the crowd torture that poor boy? I thought if one person could stand up to him…” That’s a Badger primary motive.
Esmeralda has deep roots in her outsider community, and being separate from them (trapped in the cathedral) is very, very bad for her. But then, she brings Notre Dame itself into her community. Esmeralda goes up to the statue of Mary, the cathedral's patron, and says, “Still I see your face and wonder / if you were once an outcast too.” Once she does that, the ‘outcast’ bellringer of Notre Dame and even the building itself start fighting for her. It’s important that Esmeralda’s ‘I want’ song has nothing up to do with her at all: “God Help the Outcasts” is about helping her community - the outcasts. We get lines like “I ask for nothing, I can get by / for I know so many less lucky than I,” leaning into classic Badger primary need-basing. Esmeralda consistently goes to whoever needs her help the most, doesn’t matter if she knows them or not. And her way of helping Quasi is to give him a map of the city - that brings him straight to her Community.
It’s nice to pair this very understanding, inclusive Badger primary with basically a Jack Sparrow secondary. Esmeralda likes disguises. She likes improvising weapons. She improvises her escapes, and comes up with stuff as she goes along. She also has a lot of faces that are all equally her. She is the sexy pole dancer. She is also the grounded, spiritual earth mother, and when her primary requires it, she’s the revolutionary too.
If you put the weird tonal mismatch that is the gargoyles to one side, this film has a really elegant little structure. There are three men who are in love with Esmeralda: Quasimodo, Claude Frollo and Phoebus. And it’s subtly done, but Quasi and Frollo both dehumanize her - Frollo by only seeing her sexy side and deciding she’s a demon temptress, and Quasi by only seeing her more motherly side and deciding she’s an angel. I always thought it was interesting that “Heaven’s Light” and “Hellfire” - Quasi and Frollo’s songs about Esmeralda - are back to back, with similar titles, even the same track on the soundtrack. They’re almost a duet, and I think it’s a way of showing that there are two ways to make someone inhuman. (In a movie that is SO interested in the idea of what makes someone inhuman.) And then Phoebus just sees Esmeralda as… this cool chick, with a great sense of humor and some sweet moves, who he’d like to get to know better. Of course she picks him.
Frollo, Phoebus and Quasi are ALL Lion secondaries (no wonder they butt heads.) It’s harder to tell with Quasi, because his secondary is so ridiculously Burnt, and only wakes up once his Snake primary finds something to latch onto that isn’t Frollo… which takes him most of the movie. Phoebus has a very straightforward Paragon Lion primary that seems to match up well with Esmeralda’s Badger, and Frollo, oh man. Frollo has the most twisted Bird primary imaginable. He has a belief system that is impossible to live up to, so - instead of maybe questioning that - he blames Esmeralda? Or he blames God? for making Esmeralda too tempting for him to resist? and so therefore it’s not his fault? He’s a Bird Primary who consistently fails at following his system, and deep down he knows it. That’s why he’s so scared of the actual Notre Dame cathedral, why it keeps hurting him, and why it ultimately kills him. He cannot look those statues in the face, he cannot look at the system he tells himself he follows better than anyone else.
(Inspector Javert of Les Mis is also a Bird Lion villain. Big Victor Hugo trope.)
MEGARA “MEG” (1997)
(& Hades)
Meg is the example I would use to illustrate a Burnt Snake primary. She sold her soul (gave up everything) for her boyfriend, he left her, and now she doesn’t think it’s safe to love like that again. “Look I learned my lesson, okay? I’ve sworn off man handling.” Meg won’t let herself trust anyone: “He comes in with this big handsome farm boy act, but I can see though that in a Peloponnesian minute.” It’s because she doesn’t trust herself: “If there’s a prize for rotten judgement / I guess I’ve already won that.”
Her only connection in the world is Hades, this weird and kind of compelling combination of bitchy best friend and shady producer who’s trapped her in a bad five-record deal. They are both similar flavors of Snake secondary, which is how they they can be antagonistic… but still kinda get each other, and work well together. They both enjoy sitting in a kind of blunt Neutral, but get things done by being charmers - creatively telling the truth, and switching approaches quickly in order to to figure out what resonates best with the person they're talking to.
We see Meg use Hercules’ fan girls as a smokescreen to sneak into his villa, and then talk him into playing hooky and having a night on the town. After which, she falls into his arms with her line about “weak ankles” as a way to get him to get him talking about potential weaknesses. But of course, she catches feelings and her big song “I Won’t Say I’m In Love,” is a nice little portrait of a Snake primary unBurning. Meg goes from not trusting herself at all, to deciding that… maybe it could be different this time.
This is where Hades misreads Meg, which is ultimately his downfall. He assumes that Meg is a Lion primary like he is. Because Hades is (a bit of a narcissist) and a huge Glory Hound Lion. He hates that he got the shitty assignment, hates that things are “a little dark, a little gloomy, and as always, hey - full of dead people." He wants to be the top dog, he wants to be Zeus. So he offers Meg freedom. That's what a Lion primary like him would want more than anything, were he in her position. But Meg’s not a Lion. She’s a Snake. So we get exchanges like this:
HADES. Hear that? It’s the sound of your freedom, fluttering away.
MEG. I don’t care. I won’t do anything to hurt him.
And Hades just does not see that coming.
FA MULAN (1998)
(& Fa Zhou, Mushu, Li Shang, Shan Yu)
So my question is... why does Mulan run away and join the army? Let's get the obvious answer out of the way - it's definitely not “to uphold the family honor."
FA ZHOU. It is an honor to protect my country and my family.
MULAN. So you’ll die for honor?
Fa Zhou is definitely a Badger primary, and Mulan… isn’t. She doesn’t get it. He’s not speaking her language. But, she clearly loves her dad, and the next explanation we get is that she did it all to protect him. That's more plausible. However, at her lowest and most vulnerable she says - “Maybe I didn’t go for my father. Maybe I went to prove that I could do things right.” Which is an interesting shift. Now the issue isn’t with why she acts, it’s with how she acts. Which means Mulan’s internal conflict isn't coming from her primary, it's coming from her secondary.
This is where we start getting into gender and gender performance. There is a lot of Badger secondary in this movie, and it’s all framed as female (Mulan's mom and grandmother are both Badger secondaries, for example.) There’s also a lot of Lion secondary, which is framed as male. (Fa Zhou, Li Shang, and Shan Yu are all Lions.) And Mulan… tries both options, and fails both times. She gets into a huge amount of trouble trying to be the quiet, caretaking bride at the matchmaker’s, and just as much trouble trying to be the brash, fight-starting Ping at the camp.
Then we have Mushu, who is Mulan's Lion secondary coach… despite not being a Lion secondary himself. He wants to be - disgraced failure Mushu is introduced trying to breathe fire and shake awake the bigger, tougher Great Stone Dragon. He’s trying to seem like an intense Lion when he is happiest and most effective doing a more Badger secondary thing. He comforts Mulan, makes her breakfast, carefully forges letters, wins her allies and generally gets… maternal (“my little baby is all grown up and saving China.”) This is a smart movie, and in a very light, comedic way… it’s saying that Mulan is not the only one self-sabotaging because of gender presentation roles.
So Mulan tries to be a Badger, which doesn’t work. She tries to be a Lion, which doesn’t work. And eventually, of course, she realizes that she was a clever, inventive Bird secondary all along. We are introduced to Mulan while she's making little gadgets to do her chores, and when she taps into that she becomes powerful. She is able to figure out a way to use the handicap weights to climb the post and reach the arrow, and defeat Shan Yu’s army by starting an avalanche. Mulan even finds time to plan during the heavily improvised final battle in the palace: it's a two-pronged attack, luring Shan Yu up onto the roof, where she knows Mushu is already in place with a rocket.
As for why she does things… Mulan has an intrinsic inner truth, and just wants to project that truth out into the world. She’s a Lion primary who wants to “be myself” be “true to [her] heart,” and not hide. “When will my reflection show who I am inside?” Lion primaries will get hit especially hard with that kind of identity angst.
To round out the sorting for this film (which really holds up) - Mushu is probably a Lion primary like Mulan, which is why he gets where she’s coming from. He starts off as an immature “stage mom” Glory Hound Lion, but gets better. Shang is definitely a Loyalist, probably a young Badger primary. (I think Mulan just likes Badger Lions, her dad is one too.) Shang is very group-orientated, wants to be “the leader of China’s finest troops - no, the greatest troops of all time!” He's also, to be honest, kind of Establishment. Shang has a much harder time getting his head around Girl!Ping then Mulan’s more Snakey buddies, and ultimately needs an authority figure to tell him to cut it out. And Shan Yu, the film’s comment on toxic masculinity, seems like an Exploded Lion primary. He gives his motivation in the first scene- “[the Emperor] invited me. By building his wall he challenged my strength.” Which means that - with the single exception of Hades... all the guys in this wave have been masculine-coded Lion secondaries, and the heroines aren't girly Badgers, but the cool "third option" - Birds or Snakes.
I’ve been reading Art of War, and today came across this section:
Let your rapidity be that of the wind, your compactness that of the forest.
In raiding and plundering be like fire, in immovability like a mountain.
Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
Now, Art of War was written before the Common Era, by Sun Tzu, who was Chinese. You know what Chinese story comes from Common Era, after Art of War was written, that, in one variation, contains some similar ideas? I’ll give you a hint:
You must be swift as the coursing river
With all the force of a great typhoon
With all the strength of a raging fire
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon
Obviously this isn’t a perfect one-to-one, but the concepts are similar enough and the time periods and the location work out, so while I can’t prove anything, it’s certainly interesting and I definitely did some flapping and shouting about it.
I'm seeing a lot of posts about Philip and Aurora the last few days so I'm guessing you like that ship but... Thoughts on that ship?
For sure! Thanks for asking! I didn’t even realise how many Philora posts I had queued! My otp for both of them is actually Warrior Royals! I would post just as much Sleeping Warrior and Mulan x Phillip if I could find it. I just love every element of this three-way relationship!
I think Mulan and Aurora have such beautiful development and I adore what their relationship blossomed into! Mulan sacrifices her own happiness to ensure Aurora’s. She would do anything to protect Aurora and Aurora grew to be just as protective of Mulan. The way they look at each other when Mulan gives Aurora back her heart! And the way Mulan strokes Aurora’s forehead when she’s sleeping! I die!
I’ve always interpreted the relationship between Mulan and Phillip as something that unwittingly developed into more than a friendship. I would have loved to have seen even more of that backstory because I am almost convinced he was saying “I love you” to Mulan or both of them before the wraith got him.
Phillip and Aurora have true love! From the little we saw of them together they seemed like a really cute couple. They supported one another, made sacrifices and you can tell they’d do anything to ensure one another’s protection, as I believe is true for Mulan too. I was obsessed with Disney’s Sleeping Beauty as a kid, so Phillip x Aurora means a great deal to me. I love them a lot! They’re adorable! But my otp is definitely Warrior Royals. I can’t help feeling like they’re a family. And I wish we’d gotten more of all three of them together. I would have loved for them to have all raiseD Phillip Jr. together in Storybrooke and heck! I’m gonna headcannon that they did!
Oh my Lord! The way they look at each other! So cute!!
Time for the Disney movie I’ve seen probably upwards of a hundred times, and I’m not even slightly exaggerating. My parents refused to let me rent it for a certain number of weeks at one point because my sister and I watched it so much.
As per my requisite disclaimer, there is absolutely room for legitimate criticism of Mulan and this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of the film or of Mulan, but rather offer a different perspective on her film and specifically on Mulan as a character.
Mulan is honestly a really good film, and one of my favorites. I get chills and almost cry in every scene, because I’m a sap, but also because Mulan has a clearly defined arc, a foil in Shang (best Disney prince), and the film has several repeated motifs to help reinforce its central theme about self-discovery (fitting, intentional or quite likely not, for a film that does touch on sexuality and gender identity. Like Shang is totally into Ping before he knows that Ping is a woman).
Anyways. At the beginning of the movie, Mulan lacks self-confidence. She doesn’t know who she is and she doesn’t know how she fits into the world--not just her hometown, but her family legacy, her country, etc. Mulan as a film is actually an extremely relatable and quite mature story about growing up in that sense: it shows a balance between striking out on your own and respecting traditions of the past, because no human is an island born in a vacuum. It also takes on toxic masculinity and offers the perspective that what matters is not society’s stupid definition of what makes masculine or feminine traits, but courage, creativity, and compassion.
Mulan’s resourceful thinking outside of the box is an enduring trait of hers throughout the entire movie, one that she grows to appreciate. But at first, it’s frowned on, because in a world of toxic masculinity, it’s not appreciated as a trait of hers.
Mulan loves her family deeply. She’s incredibly compassionate to everyone, but her family holds a special place in her heart. Still, she’s not sure how to balance the fact that she just... does things differently than the rest of her family, with the fact that she adores her family. Her “cheating” with the notes for the creed she has to recite at the Matchmaker’s are just about her trying to help her family, not herself. As her father tells her, they are “counting on you to uphold the family honor" and she assures him (while covering up her notes, “don't worry, Father. I won't let you down.”
At the Matchmaker’s, Mulan lets them make her over, but she engages in two acts that show us all we need to know about her. In both, she helps people who need help. In the first, she helps a man badly losing at checkers win, and her mother pulls her away, the implication being that it’s a man’s task. Yet Mulan sees the odds and doesn’t care about how bad odds look: she knows you can always think of a solution. So, we have our first look at Mulan having a traditionally masculine quality (when I use that term I’m purely saying how sexist society tends to assign qualities, not that it is actually a masculine trait): rationality and planning. And she’s immediately shut down for it.
In the second, Mulan rescues a girl’s doll from two boys with swords who steal the doll. The doll will become a repeated motif in the film, as the doll represents what Mulan is being asked to become. She is not a doll. But neither is she a boy child with swords. She is someone above that, someone with compassion as her guiding light--a traditionally feminine trait that toxic masculinity ignores.
Mulan then runs around, looking confused about where to go. She spots the girls all heading in one direction and consciously imitates them.
However, that gets her nowhere. She tries to pretend to be a good bride, but she is not. The Matchmaker is a bitch, but she’s also right that Mulan cannot bring her family honor by looking like a bride, because that is not who Mulan is. She is no doll.
It’s also worth noting that what gets Mulan in trouble at the Matchmaker’s is both her flaw (trying to be what she is not, hence the ink from the notes on her arm) and her compassion. She tries to save the lucky cricket. Whom, I might add, as we will see throughout the film, is symbolic of Mulan herself. The cricket is deigned to be “lucky” and given a role it has no control over, and it buckles under that pressure and is afraid of admitting it isn’t lucky like Mulan is afraid to fully be herself, too. The thing is the cricket isn’t unlucky, either. It’s just a cricket.
When Mulan returns to her house, she sings the song “Reflection.”
Look at me
I will never pass for a perfect bride
Or a perfect daughter
Can it be I'm not meant to play this part
Now I see
That if I were truly to be myself, I would break my family's heartWho is that girl I see
Staring straight, back at me
Why is my reflection someone I don't know
Somehow I cannot hide
Who I am
Though I've tried
When will my reflection show who I am inside
When will my reflection show who I am inside
She’s right and she’s wrong. She would not break her family’s heart, but she is right that she is not a perfect bride and that’s okay. However, Mulan doesn’t think it’s okay at that moment. During this song, Mulan knees and sets the cricket free, symbolic of her giving herself permission to try to be herself, but she doesn’t appreciate her own worth yet.
She can't face her father after this sequence, but he reaches out to her.
However, her father then tries to pretend to be someone he is not as well. He tries to be the old soldier he formerly was, and when Chi Fu tells him to teach his daughter to hold her tongue, he tells her she dishonors him. While he’s right that she probably should not have rushed out to plead for him, he’s wrong to shame her like that. And as we see, Mulan’s mother actually agrees. Mulan watches her parents’ shadows argue as she sits in the Great Stone Dragon, symbolic of her family’s heritage. It ends with her mother turning away in anguish and leaving her father standing alone.
Mulan looks down at her reflection again and makes her decision. Again, her compassion drives her to stick up for people, and instead of being a bride that she is not, she will be the man she also is not.
In this sequence with the best music in Disney, Mulan sees her reflection not in water this time, but in a sword, and she cuts her hair.
She’s doing this for her family as well as for herself. She prays to the ancestors, and leaves incense burning in what will become Mushu.
And Cricket is watching the entire thing, following Mulan around, because the cricket is basically Mulan. After she leaves, the Cricket teams up with Mushu: Mulan’s independence and Mulan’s devotion to her family symbolically working together. However, as we see, Mushu isn’t her family’s first choice, and he’s awkward like Mulan and also has to lie to the ancestors by pretending to be the Great Stone Dragon, just like Mulan has to pretend to be someone she isn’t. Mushu is another foil who will help Mulan accept who she is, eventually.
He even tries that on Mulan as well, as she’s practicing faking being a man, he fakes being a scary Dragon.
Only when they are somewhat honest with each other does Mulan gather the courage to go into the camp. However, she immediately falls back on pretending to punch guys around, when that is not her style at all. And she winds up creating a riot because of it. When Mulan pretends to be what she is not, she gets in trouble.
But this is where we meet someone else trying to live up to his family history while forging his own path: Shang. His father promotes Shang, telling him to join his troops when Chi-Fu believes he is ready, and Shang acts like an excited boy: “Oh I will! I won’t let you down. This is--I mean--” *clears throat* “--yes sir."
Unlike Mulan, whose problem is that she lacks confidence in herself, Shang’s problem is that if anything he’s overconfident. He muses that his troops will become "China’s greatest troops" but, well, they’re really not. Hence Mulan and Shang have to grow in each other’s direction.
Mulan offers Shang humility and confidence in him, learning how to beat him up and sending a phallic symbol (arrow) into the ground outside Shang’s tent when she uses her mind to come up with a creative solution to retrieve it. She doesn’t have to become a man to succeed; she just has to believe in herself. True courage and strength isn’t found in masculinity or femininity but in being yourself.
In contrast, Chi Fu keeps serving Shang shame instead of humility. He dismisses him telling Shang that he only got the job because of who his daddy is, and says his troops will never see battle. Mulan overhears and manages to comfort Shang not by her initial manly joke of "Hey, I'll hold him, you punch" but by her compassion: "for what it's worth, I think you're a great captain."
The only way they get to the front is by Mushu deceiving Chi-Fu, again referencing the film’s “pretending to be what you’re not” motif. However, here is where the film introduces some very adult reasoning. Mushu’s gamble actually pays off in a huge way, because if he hadn’t done this, Shan Yu and the Huns would have reached the Emperor after slaughtering the other troops. And when considering this, it’s important to remember that Chi Fu was deceiving the General in the first place about how Shang’s troops were doing. No, they’re not the greatest in all of China (as Shang himself knew by then), but neither are they unfit for battle. Still, Mushu endangers Mulan’s life by his attempt to prove himself to her ancestor’s.
When they uncover the scene of the massacre, we see another doll, reminiscent of the one Mulan rescued for the girl earlier (it’s not the same, but it’s a repeated motif). Shan Yu had commented that they should return the dolly to the little girl, with the implication being that they kill her.
It’s at this village where Shang and Mulan both pass the point of their childhood innocence. Shang loses his father. Mulan learns that you can’t always save people. It’s highly somber and adult. Neither of them can go back to the people they were before. They don’t have another way forward with lies and pretending.
Shan Yu uses a deceptive strategy when fighting them, tricking the army into using all their cannons but one on some guys sent out to sacrifice, while the true army stands in the distance. Unlike Mulan, Shan Yu has no compassion and no qualms about sacrificing his own men.
The only way to beat Shan Yu (another Mulan foil) is to beat him at his own game. Mulan makes it look like she is going to execute him with the cannon, but she’s not. She instead looked into the sword, and saw a reflection (reflection=seeing herself) of the mountain, and in contrast to Shan Yu sacrificing the lives of his men, she risks her own life to stop him.
And her friends decide to risk theirs to help her. When she is herself, like with the arrow scene, Mulan inspires people. She grabs Mushu and forgets the cricket, and the avalanche works but almost kills them all. Mushu searches for Mulan, screaming for her, and pulls out Shan Yu by mistake first, and then the cricket (a foil and then Mulan’s symbol).
When this leads to the discovery that Mulan is a woman, Mulan’s friends still try to save her, but they are stopped by Chi Fu saying “You know the law!” The law, that thing that upholds toxic masculinity.
But Shang spares her, because she saved him. Mushu, the cricket, and Mulan then have a very honest conversation about their simultaneous selfish and selfless intentions, and all three of them reconcile. They are all completely themselves, and embrace. This is the moment Mulan truly sees her reflection, even though she looks into the helmet and says she doesn’t see anything. And she accepts herself when Mushu and Cricket open up as well about what they are and are not. Because even if they were all struggling and faking parts of themselves, their care for each other is real.
When the huns reappear, Mulan demands Shang trust her, pointing out to him that she was acting as herself as Ping most of the time, and she proves it. She gets her friends to follow her (and Shang eventually as well) and they defeat Shan Yu by having all the men dress up as women--aka get in touch with their compassionate, feminine side, instead of using a phallic pillar to break into the palace.
She’s honest with Shan Yu, risking her own life in the process, to save Shang. Even when she could have escaped, she doesn’t, because she cares deeply for Shang. Her compassion, creativity, and courage meet again.
And instead of defeating Shang with a sword, she defeats him with a fan (a feminine item), using it to turn his own sword/toxic masculinity against him.
And of course, Mushu helps her carry out the plan by pretending to be the scary dragon he isn’t in appearance, but is in brains. Because that’s all he needs to be.
Everyone bows to her as Mulan, knowing who she is and that she lied, Shang finally stands up to Chi Fu, and Mulan? She doesn’t want prestige. She was never in this for herself. She just wants to go home.
And when she does, Shang follows (on advice from the Emperor). He chooses his feelings for Mulan. And when she brings her father the crest of the Emperor and Shan Yu’s sword, her father ditches that symbol of toxic masculinity, tossing it onto the ground, just so he can hug Mulan and tell her “the greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter.”
Up next: modern princesses! We’ll begin with Tiana. I’m excited to rewatch her movie, since I think I’ve only seen it once.
Watch "Mulan-A girl worth fighting for" on YouTube
Ok, I'm sure this has been talked about lots but:
The interesting thing about the 90s Mulan adaptation was not only how grounded it was, but how Terrifyingly Dark it was. Seriously it starts with the Fantasy of War and then Transitions into The Actual Thing, with Dead Bodies and Wounds and Almost Everything. It Actually Shows Blood. The reason the recent Mulan Remake fell flat for me at least, was that it disregarded that grounded and Terrifying Nature in War and instead made it into a nearly Happy Superhero Movie. It wasn't a Bad Movie but there was no transition from Fantasy to Reality, like in this song. The Realities of Actual War are what break the song and All the soldiers.
Even this scene, is Grounded because it's The Point of No Return. There's no going back once she cuts her hair. All there is, is the decision and the fact that she needs to save her father, even if it's against tradition or the honored fantasy of war.
Why Not a Journey Into the West? : The Case for Sun Wunkong (Monkey King) as a Replacement for Mushu. (Even If He Did Manage To Steal the Show a Little Bit.)
I am well aware of the controversy that surrounds Mushu's role as Hua Mulan's Guardian in the original film, and the ensuing stink White westernised (your typically culturally ignorant Disney viewers, especially when it comes to China and Japan) audiences kicked up after it was announced that Mushu wasn't going to feature in the 2020 live-action remake.
As a member of both camps (I’m into Disney films but even more into making them culturally appropriate), I believe that Sunny would have made a far better candidate for the role as a guardian for both films.
Here’s three reasons why…
1. The main storyline of proving yourself/redeeming yourself/proving others wrong wouldn’t have changed… The whole reason that Mushu decides to on this quest with Mulan is that he wants to prove himself; to prove to the other ancestors that he is a proper guardian after his failure to protect another one Mulan’s relatives and he is relegated to the position of the guy who does the wake-up call. Sunny tries to prove to the other spirits, in Chinese mythology, that he can be a force for lawful good, rather than chaotic good as he is in the beginning after he’s stolen from the Jade Emperor’s banquet. His quest to do so would make a more than substantial subplot, since the subplot of a guy trying to get his job back is a bit weak in my eyes; Mushu doesn’t really help-it’s Cri-kee who does all the hard work.
2. The comedic value of having an animal sidekick-the hallmark of all Disney films, whether modern or original-would be retained… Let’s face it, the only reason we were bothered about Mushu’s disappearance from the cast in the first place is because of his role as the typical comedic Disney animal sidekick. After all, it can’t be a proper Disney Princess film without a trusty animal companion, can it? (Spoiler alert: I’m being sarcastic here; as long as it is made by Disney Studios, it is a Disney film. Can’t we all pay attention to the opening credits? Guess not. (Double spoiler alert: Mulan isn’t even a Princess, she married a general, not a prince! That’s just Disney being lazy.)) Sunny’s role as the trickster archetype in Chinese mythology would remain uncorrupted, all the while being entertaining to children. In my opinion, actually, if Sunny was the Guardian, there’d far more opportunity to create comedy moments between the characters; he could have stolen something from Mulan during her time when she was preparing to be a man (double points if it’s peaches) and there’d be far more laughs. (Triple points if he has to give those back to the Emperor at the end of the film.)
3. Sunny is taken directly from Chinese mythology, and is one of, if not the most, well-known figure in his entire native mythos… The whole reason native Chinese audiences effectively boycotted the original was that they rightly believed (and still do believe) the picking of the tiny Eastern Dragon was almost an insult to Chinese culture. In other words, the Disney producers picked something Western audiences would recognise as being Chinese, rather than actually doing their research about Chinese culture. The Chinese believe that dragons are wise creatures that give great gifts to the people they deem worthy-creatures with great magical power. Mushu isn’t any of that by far. If they put Sunny in instead, it would probably go over most of the white audiences heads’, but the actual Chinese people watching the film would see this and actually appreciate that they bothered to give China (and Sunny) the respect they deserve.
