Sydney Kanuch

Mulan

Mulan is a disney movie that depicts a young chinese woman who disguises herself as a man and

joins the army to save her father’s life. To go more into detail, Mulan is a girl who happens to be

the only child of her family. A common enemy called “The Huns” invade China and one man

from every family is called in to fight. Mulan’s father is the only man within the family, however

he walks with a cane due to a previous injury. Regardless of his injury, he knows and

understands he has to join the rest of the men and fight in the war even though it’s clear he won’t

survive. Mulan doesn’t accept this and isn’t “good” at being the “typical girl” within her culture.

Women within that culture are told to basically please the men and take on the stereotypical role

during that time period, such as focusing on their looks, manners, and proper etiquette. Since

Mulan doesn’t fit that description, she decides to protect her father by sneaking out disguised as a

man to take his place in the army. This was an extremely risky move because women are in no

way, shape, or form allowed to be a part of this act. If it’s found out, she knows death will be the

punishment as well as shame among her whole family. I find this stereotypical in the gender

aspect due to the “roles” women are expected to play within society and forbidden to break out

of that.

There’s a song that’s played during training camp in the army during the movie called “I’ll make

a man out of you”. I’m not going to play the entire song but I do want to play the first verse.

Clearly this is basically saying women are weak and men are superior and in order to be a “good

soldier” and “worthy” the group has to quit acting like “girls” and become “men”.