GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS Mulan and Disney’s Evolving Progressivism
Over the past several years, there has been a notable shift in the types of children’s films being produced by Walt Disney Studios. There have been stories featuring a Polynesian princess (Moana, Ron Clements & John Musker, 2016); Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations (Coco, Lee Unkrich, 2017); Hindu gods reimagined as superheroes (Sanjay’s Super Team, Sanjay Patel, 2015); a sidekick with same-sex desires (the live-action Beauty and the Beast, Bill Condon, 2017); and anthropomorphic animals navigating systemic racism (Zootopia, Byron Howard & Rich Moore, 2016). The studio is embracing narratives that explore gender and feminism, queer identity, race, and minority cultures and their mythologies, arguably as a genuine effort towards championing equity – or, more cynically, as a commercial response to the current culture of ‘wokeness’. While this shift may seem to have become more pronounced in recent years, there was a Disney film that set a progressive precedent for exploring non-mainstream characters and themes. Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook’s Mulan (1998), an adaptation of an ancient Chinese folk story about a young woman who disguises herself as a man in order to take up arms, was a bold choice for a company that had never made a feature film from an East Asian story before. Mulan was a box-office hit and a critical success, and it remains a firm favourite among Disney fans. With the live-action version of Mulan set for release in 2020, the film continues to fuel conversations about diversity and representation, and just how far Disney is willing to push its progressivism and why.
THE ORIGINS OF MULAN IN CHINESE FOLKLORE
While there is no historical evidence that a real person named Hua Mulan (renamed Fa Mulan in the Disney adaptation) ever existed, the origins of her story date back to early Imperial China. The first traces of During the Qing dynasty, writer Chu Renhuo continued Mulan’s story in the epic historical-romance novel . Each iteration of the Mulan story varies slightly; for example, in , Mulan takes her own life upon discovering, after returning home, that her father has died, and to avoid becoming a concubine of the enemy Khan. However, the central plot in all of these retellings remains largely unchanged: when Mulan’s elderly father is conscripted into the army to help defend China against invaders, Mulan disguises herself as a man in order to take his place. After twelve years at war, the army returns victorious. Mulan’s true identity as a woman is revealed and she returns home a war hero.
