Prejudice in Films in Cross-Cultural Context: Take the Example of Mulan

Abstract

International communication has become more and more frequent in recent societies, but misunderstandings and miscommunication due to stereotypes inevitably exist in cross-cultural exchanges. Therefore, this paper would analyze the live-action film Mulan, a Chinese story told by Disney that reflects the stereotypes of Chinese culture from the Western perspective. Due to the cultural differences between China and the U.S. (such as the different pursuit of individualism and collectivism), the filmmakers’ misunderstanding of the story, especially the important plot of Mulan replacing her father in the army, Disney sets the core viewpoint of the story as Mulan pursuing proving herself, instead of the traditional Chinese culture’s understanding that Mulan makes the decision to take her father’s place in the army for the sake of her family and the country’s collective interests. There are many other stereotypes in the film, these stereotypes have caused dissatisfaction of Chinese audiences with the film. The paper gives some suggestions to improve the acceptance of cross-cultural film and television works in the local market, like investors can choose local market cultural figures as the film’s main producer. The film producer should be rigorous in the examination of local culture and it is better to choose the local language for the dubbing of cross-cultural films. This paper profoundly analyzes the situations and causes of misunderstandings and deviations in cross-cultural communication and provides suggestions, which to a certain extent improves the efficiency of cross-cultural communication and cross-cultural film and television production in future.