From Mulan (1998) to Mulan (2020): Disney Conventions, Cross-Cultural Feminist Intervention, and a Compromised Progress

Zhuoyi Wang

doi:10.3390/arts11010005

Abstract

Directed by the feminist filmmaker Niki Caro, Disney’s 2020 live-action remake of Mulan (1998) strove to be a more gender progressive, culturally appropriate, and internationally successful adaptation of the Chinese legend of Mulan than the animated original. Contrary to the film’s intended effect, however, it was a critical and financial letdown. The film was criticized for a wide range of issues, including making unpopular changes to the animated original, misrepresenting Chinese culture and history, perpetuating Orientalist stereotypes, and demonizing Inner Asian steppe nomads. In addition, the film also faced boycott calls amid political controversies surrounding China. It received exceptionally low audience ratings in both the US and China, grossing a total well under its estimated budget. This article argues that Mulan (2020) is not, as many believe, just another Disney film suffering from simple artistic inability, cultural insensitivity, or political injustice, but a window into the tension-ridden intersectionality of the gender, sexual, racial, cultural, and political issues that shape the production and reception of today’s cross-cultural films. It discusses three major problems, the Disney problem, the gender problem, and the cultural problem, that Mulan (2020) tackled with respectful efforts in Caro’s feminist filmmaking pattern. The film made significant compromises between its goals of cultural appropriateness, progressive feminism, and monetary success. Although it eventually failed to satisfactorily resolve these at times conflicting missions, it still achieved important progress in addressing some serious gender and cultural problems in Mulan’s contemporary intertextual metamorphosis, especially those introduced by the Disney animation. By revealing Mulan (2020)’s value and defects, this article intends to flesh out some real-world challenges that feminist movements must overcome to effectively transmit messages and bring about changes at the transcultural level in the arts.

Highlights

In 1998, Disney released the animated film Mulan, which is inspired by a legend that probably originated from the Ballad of Mulan in the Northern Wei, a dynasty ruling northern China between the 4th and the 6th centuries CE
While the remake of Mulan embodied a decent effort in reaching both objectives, which Caro had more successfully achieved before, it eventually failed for being caught among Disney’s entrenched conventions, China’s complex history and culture, and the conflict-ridden contemporary political context that significantly affected the effectiveness of a cross-cultural feminist message based upon a Chinese story
With solid data and calculations, scholars have come to the conclusion that an effective way to attract audiences unfamiliar with the culture represented in a film is to “decrease the cultural specificity of the stories while increasing culturally specific aesthetic elements, such as costumes and music” (Wang et al 2020)

Summary

Introduction

In 1998, Disney released the animated film Mulan, which is inspired by a legend that probably originated from the Ballad of Mulan in the Northern Wei, a dynasty ruling northern China between the 4th and the 6th centuries CE. As Disney’s first Asian hero, Mulan felt like “a life raft” to young Chinese-American theater-goers who had only ever seen Asian characters portrayed marginally and discriminatively in the Hollywood-dominated media landscape (Mei 2018) These improvements were made in the context of the third-wave feminism movement, which originated in the “riot grrrl” punk subculture of the early 1990s. Caro is a well-established film auteur influenced by the third-wave feminist movements Her signature filmmaking approach features cross-cultural feminist intervention with a respectful attitude toward the represented cultures. While the remake of Mulan embodied a decent effort in reaching both objectives, which Caro had more successfully achieved before, it eventually failed for being caught among Disney’s entrenched conventions, China’s complex history and culture, and the conflict-ridden contemporary political context that significantly affected the effectiveness of a cross-cultural feminist message based upon a Chinese story. This article discusses three major problems, the Disney problem, the gender problem, and the cultural problem, that Mulan (2020) tackles with respectful efforts but fails to resolve, fleshing out some real-world challenges that feminist movements must overcome to effectively transmit messages and bring about changes at the transcultural level in the arts

The Disney Problem

The Gender Problem

The Cultural Problem

Conclusions