Mulan Phobia

We have the movie Mulan and we've watched it before. But for some reason, when the movie was on TV tonight, Noah started freaking out and turning off the tv saying he was scared of it. It was right at the beginning where Mulan is doing the "You'll bring honor to us all..." song where they all have painted faces and what not. As I'm writing this I just realized that most likely Noah has a fear of Asian women with painted faces. Actually it was seeing Grace with green night cream on her face that sparked his fear of the Hulk and green people (like the Statue of liberty) in the first place.
I have to say I'm not too much of a fan of the Disney Mulan movie. I mean I'll watch it and I guess enjoy it, and I suppose every other movie they've made about other cultures is glaring with stuff that might rub the wrong way, and actually most Asians I talk to like Mulan..... but still, why are ALL the ancestors like New York Jewish people? Why is the old lady more like Yentl the matchmaker? What's the relation there? am I missing a joke? I guess I could say the same thing about Aladdin, and I never thought about that much as a kid... but at least that movie was supposed to take place in the Middle East.. sort of. (The traditional story took place in China. Aladdin was a Chinese Muslim.)

Also the Huns are people too. I guess they would be most related to modern day Mongolians. Why are they represented like monsters.

Plus you have to admit that the overall movie is just not as good as the Lion King or Disney's other movies. Maybe because in the end, Mulan is a war movie, with troops and battles, historical events. It's hard to get that down into a kids movie. But it was much better than the movie they were going to make. (China Doll, according to Wikipedia) Kung Fu Panda was much more culturally Chinese, in terms of the food, the songs, and how they added in Chinese words and Chinese places into the lingo. But I guess without a Mulan, there wouldn't have been Kung Fu Panda.


So not that anyone cares but here are some things that I remembered about the Mulan as represented by my KKCS textbook and a HK cartoon about her. She was the raised as a boy, which meant she knew how to ride shoot bow and arrow, and was trained in all manner of weaponry and hand to hand fighting. So basically she wasn't timid and afraid. If her war buddies could make t-shirts, they would have made T-shirts with Chuck Norris slogans, except they would be Mulan slogans. (come to think of it maybe some should start making Mulan T-shirts like that.)

She was never outed as a female in battle. She was outed when her war buddies came to look for her/him. They found her and didn't recognize her and actually started flirting with her. She then invited them in and kicked there asses then they recognized her bad assery and they laughed about it and started drinking and what not. Anyway that's the story. But if the Mulan in the movie was all beefy I guess it would be harder to sell little princess dolls. (Btw even though the actresses in China and the tastes in the cities tend toward the skinny model types like Hong Kong, a lot of country guys tend to be more attracted to stronger women, who look like they can do farm work, and can bear children more easily.)

If you read Romance of the Three Kingdoms or the Water Margin stories, or just watch the movies, the women that are "manly" i.e. fight and do Kung Fu, are seen as sexually attractive, but are not portrayed as skinny and petite. Nor are their personalities demure and quiet the way the "you'll bring honor to us all" song in Mulan suggests that Mulan was being forced to be. There are cultural norms, but that doesn't mean that there aren't exceptions. I'm sure if Mulan's father trained his daughter (and the fact that a general would have only one wife let alone only one daughter is somewhat exceptional in itself) in the arts of war, means that he probably had other thing sin mind for her besides what the Disney movie suggests.